Success Stories

Ranch Hand Truck Accessories of Shiner, TX has been in business since 1986. As the industry leader in heavy duty truck accessories, Ranch Hand manufactures after market truck accessories including, grille guards, back bumpers, front- end replacements, headache racks, tool boxes, bed rails and steps in two Texas-based manufacturing facilities.

THE CHALLENGE:
When truck accessories increased in popularity among truck owners in early 2004, Ranch Hand experienced a significant increase in demand for its products. To keep up, the company began looking for ways to increase productivity while maintaining the high level of quality their parts were known for.

Most of Ranch Hand’s truck accessories are created by joining together several different sizes of pipe and tubing. Each section of pipe is connected to another pipe and must be precisely cut to ensure proper fit up at the joint.

THE SOLUTION:
In 2004, Ranch Hand turned to VERNON Tool™ for an automated plasma cutting solution that would allow the company to keep up with demand while at the same time increasing the quality and performance of their products.

“We needed to increase production with speed and accuracy to keep up with sales,” said Curtis Pilat, Operations Manager at Ranch Hand. “The ability to create automated cutting programs offline that could be downloaded to the plasma cutter is key for accuracy and quality control.”

Ranch Hand’s first VERNON Tool™ purchase – the MTC™ Master Tube™ Plasma Profiler - solved all the company’s production issues with fast, accurate, and high quality cutting. Over 150 cutting programs were developed by Ranch Hand and VERNON Tool™ and the machine was up and cutting pipe with just the touch of a button.

THE RESULTS:
The newly re-designed MTC™ cutter was easy for operators to adjust to. VERNON Tool™ sent Service Engineer, James Cookson, to help with initial training and equipment installation. Coupled with the new Windows- based menu driven software, training was quick and operation was easy.

“VERNON Tool™ is a pleasure to deal with and the tech support is very reliable and helpful. We began seeing decreased downtime associated with procedure changes, increased accuracy, and faster production runs in a matter of months,” remembers Pilat. “Accurate pipe fit-up also gave the company an unexpected cost saving from reduced weld time.”

The impact of the MTC™ equipment was so favorable, that when Ranch Hand’s demand continued to grow they went directly to VERNON Tool™ to purchase another MTC™ plasma cutter.

“VERNON Tool™ allows us to accommodate for numerous tube sizes and cutting requirements. An accurate cut means less work and potential for problems later on in the manufacturing process.” Pilat said.

Overall, Ranch Hand saw a 40% increase in production after installing both VERNON Tool™ machines and this increase allowed the company’s sales to grow double digits over a five year period.

VERNON Tool™, a Lincoln Electric Company based in Oceanside, CA, is a manufacturer of industrial pipe cutting machinery. For more information, visit www.vernontool.com.
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The entire RANCH HAND TRUCK ACCESSORIES success story is available via PDF. Click HERE to download.