Case Study: RKI, Inc achieves dramatically faster commercial truck equipment development and major cost and material savings with SolidWorks

Speeding Up Commercial Truck Equipment Development With Solidworks Solutions

RKI, Inc., a Houston‑based manufacturer of commercial truck equipment that offers a full‑line lifetime warranty, needed to move from 2D AutoCAD tools to a 3D development platform to speed and streamline sheet‑metal and custom‑configured product design. To address this challenge, RKI selected SolidWorks solutions—implementing SOLIDWORKS Professional design software and later adding SOLIDWORKS Simulation Professional, DriveWorks design automation, and an Enterprise PDM system—to better handle customization, improve manufacturability, and maintain quality.

Using SolidWorks and DriveWorks, RKI dramatically compressed design and manufacturing lead times and cut costs: a 20‑hour project became a five‑minute task, modeling time fell from two hours to about 10–15 minutes, crane kit material usage dropped 50%, development costs fell 45%, and installation/assembly time was reduced from roughly 2.5 hours to 15 minutes (an ~80% labor reduction). The solutions also reduced rework, improved flat‑pattern accuracy for sheet metal, and increased throughput for custom designs.

RKI, Inc

Nicholas Benner

Engineering Design Administrator