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Redefining the hitch business

B&W Trailer Hitches turns to tube laser cutting to cut in front of competitors

Figure 1
This 4-kW FabriGear 220 MK II from Mazak Optonics allows B&W Trailer Hitches to cut intricate patterns in heavy tube that it incorporates into its newer hitch designs.

Not every fabricator is part of a career-defining part design, but when it does happen, an individual’s life trajectory can change pretty quickly. Take Roger Baker and Joe Works of Humboldt, Kan., for example.

In 1987 the duo was looking to start their own business and launched B&W Custom Truck Beds, which fabricated truck beds with specialty racks, toolboxes, and high-quality finishes. Business owners liked the truck beds, and word spread about B&W’s good work.

Like any good problem-solver, however, the two recognized the difficulty of putting a hitch for a gooseneck trailer in the middle of a bed. (For those unfamiliar with trailers, a gooseneck trailer has an extension that sits high, reaches outward and upward to clear a truck’s tailgate, and then is directed down to connect with the hitch in the trailer bed. This location provides a more secure position from which to tow heavy loads.) That inconveniently located hitch made it near impossible for the truck owner to use the full area of the truck bed. Because most of the hitches were designed to be permanent installations, and other work-arounds, such as hitches that simply fold over, really didn’t address the problem fully, truck owners had to live with the inconvenience.

Baker and Works put their minds together and came up with a ball that could be pulled out of the bed, turned over, and stored beneath the truck bed, leaving a smooth floor. Additionally, the duo designed the hitch package so that the framework was bolted to the underside of the truck frame. No welding, drilling, or huge cutouts required.

Today that gooseneck hitch design is mimicked by other manufacturers, but that was only the beginning for the company, now known as B&W Trailer Hitches. It not only continues to manufacture gooseneck hitches and accessories, but B&W also makes fifth-wheel hitches, which rely on a heavy-duty hook-up system similar to a semitrailer, and more familiar receiver or bumper hitches. It also has more than 370,000 square feet of manufacturing space, part of which is dedicated to a growing contract fabricating business. The company now employs 355 people.

B&W remains committed to delivering innovative products on a routine basis. This approach calls for the latest manufacturing technology to help turn around prototypes quickly to keep up with new truck introductions. As a result, B&W was an early adopter of laser cutting technology. Today it has 12 sheet metal laser cutting machines, including a new fiber-based power source. It does no stamping, instead relying on modes of fabricating that do not require new tooling development.

In July 2016 B&W purchased its first 3-D laser tube cutting machine. The 4-kW FabriGear 220 MK II from Mazak Optonics is now helping the fabricator deliver a new generation of industry-leading hitch designs (see Figure 1).

Giving Engineers Another Tool

Prior to late 2014, most parts that made up the hitch designs came from machining centers. These metal components needed to meet very high tolerances to fit together perfectly.

That changed when B&W introduced its first complex tube-based hitch design that called for laser cutting at challenging angles, which could result in fit problems if the cuts were not made correctly.

“We had to span a big, wide-open space, and we had to get a really high tow rating at the same time,” said Mike Mueller, B&W Trailer Hitches’ plant manager. “Tube was the way to do it.”

Figure 2
The Companion™ fifth-wheel hitch was one of the first designs from B&W Trailer Hitches to have high-strength steel tube as part of the final assembly.

The Companion™ (see Figure 2) was one of B&W’s first fifth-wheel hitch designs that required complex tube cuts, Mueller said. It featured a large tube structure at the core with tightly fit components welded to it. (With a fifth wheel hitch design, the trailer has a heavy-duty puck that slides in the hitch unit attached to the frame of the truck. A large pin keeps the puck connected to the hitch and allows the trailer to pivot when the truck takes corners.) The snug fit made possible by the high tolerances held during the fabrication process results in a quiet towing scenario that is free of the jerking sometimes associated with fifth-wheel towing.

In fact, the fifth-wheel assembly can be removed at its single point of attachment, and the Turnoverball™ can be inserted into the opening as a gooseneck hitch.

As more tube was incorporated into trailer hitch designs, Mueller said outsourcing of laser tube cutting increased. Soon, however, outsourcing costs also increased, causing B&W’s manufacturing leadership to consider bringing the fabricating function in-house. Also, maintaining control of laser tube cutting would help the company’s quality assurance efforts and production scheduling.

“Another justification was that we just wanted to give the engineers another tool for the toolbox,” Mueller said. “We wanted to give them that capability in our shop to come up with a tube design, get it turned around, and get it out to the marketplace.”

Even before the purchase order was issued for the laser tube cutting machine, Mueller, six engineers, and the salesperson for the contract manufacturing side of the business visited Mazak to take in demonstrations and see what could be done. Mueller said that the crew saw hundreds of samples of laser-cut tube parts. They also got a feel as to how the FabriGear could be used to cut square, rectangular, and triangular shapes and also I- and H-beams, C-channel, and angle iron.

Since the machinery was installed last summer, engineers have been asked to think critically about future hitch designs and their design for manufacturability.

“Now it’s a sort of constant state of evaluation,” Mueller said. “You are looking at the parts, and you are thinking if the tube laser is faster and cheaper than other processes and if it helps us to get to the market faster. You have this new million-dollar tool, and you are constantly evaluating how you will use this tool.”

Heavy-duty Work

The B&W management team elected to go with a CO2 laser resonator for the laser tube cutting machine because it knew it was going to be working with thick materials. These high-strength steel tubes range in wall thickness from 10 gauge to 0.375 in. The largest tube size the company is laser cutting now is a 6-in.-wide square tube.

Fiber lasers, in which the laser light is created in a bank of diodes, have improved in how they cut thick materials, especially with the advent of more powerful resonator packages and advanced controls that allow the machine tool to control beam diameter and focus as it tackles different material thicknesses. Mueller, however, said that B&W went with the CO2 resonator technology, in which the laser is generated in a sealed chamber with a mixture of industrial gases, because it had a proven track record of cutting thick materials. He added that the company was very familiar with the more traditional laser cutting technology as it has been using it and continues to use it for a majority of its cutting.

B&W will continue to incorporate more heavy steel structural tube into its designs as it needs to meet ever-increasing tow ratings. For example, incorporating the structural tube into a gooseneck hitch redesign enabled the company to boost the hitch’s tow rating from 26,000 lbs. to 32,500 lbs.

Figure 3
The Turnoverball™ hitch is the design that helped to launch B&W Trailer Hitches. This hitch design for Ford trucks has more high-strength tube as part of its design. The tube is especially visible with an underside view of the hitch assembly.

“We’re going to see more designs go that way,” Mueller said.

Being First to Market

The tube laser proved its worth when the new generation of Ford Super Duty trucks (F-250, F-350, and F-450) debuted for the 2017 model year. This is a big deal as the Ford F Series trucks are the top-selling truck models almost every year. In 2016 Ford sold more than 800,000 of these trucks, which is 240,000 more than Chevrolet’s Silverado series.

When that truck hits the marketplace, Mueller said that owners begin to look for aftermarket add-ons to personalize it. That’s why B&W needs its hitches out on the market as soon as possible. The product needs to be available for the early adopters and those familiar with the B&W brand, and early market entry allows online reviews and word-of-mouth to build for the new product, hopefully making the connection with new buyers.

“The trucks were on the market in September, and we were able to have a product designed, built, and out the door very, very quickly because of our ability to make some complex tube parts on the FabriGear,” Mueller said. That entire cycle to design, prototype, test, and roll out to production took about two weeks (see Figure 3).

“[The tube laser cutting machine] sped up the process by two weeks to a month,” he added.

B&W is arguably at a disadvantage when compared to its major competitor, which manufactures overseas and sells directly to the major automakers. The competitor works in conjunction with the OEM and develops new hitch products as the new truck is being designed. As a result, its hitch products are available as soon as the truck hits dealers’ lots for the first time.

B&W still relies on and values its dealer network. It doesn’t want to forsake them in an effort to sell directly to the OEMs. That’s why the hitch maker needs to buy the earliest models of new trucks and quickly redesign its hitch products. Being first to market takes on a whole new meaning when the competitor has a head start.

“Because we manufacture everything domestically, we aren’t waiting for the slow boat from China,” Mueller said. “We already had some advantages in being quick to respond, but the FabriGear just compounded that advantage.”

The Next Steps

B&W has a sizable contract manufacturing business in addition to its hitch manufacturing business. Mueller estimates that just taking into account the company’s contract manufacturing activities, B&W is one of the largest job shops in Kansas. These contract jobs are helping to keep the new tube laser cutting machine busy.

B&W also has landed a major contract from a large customer that may cause management to consider adding another tube laser down the road. The part that B&W will be making used to be done on machining centers.

When pressed for more information, Mueller said he couldn’t reveal any details, but he did offer up one tidbit: “They use a lot of tube.”

B&W Trailer Hitches, 620-473-3664, www.turnoverball.com

Mazak Optonics Corp., 847-252-4500, www.mazakoptonics.com

About the Author
The Fabricator

Dan Davis

Editor-in-Chief

2135 Point Blvd.

Elgin, IL 60123

815-227-8281

Dan Davis is editor-in-chief of The Fabricator, the industry's most widely circulated metal fabricating magazine, and its sister publications, The Tube & Pipe Journal and The Welder. He has been with the publications since April 2002.