Design Assist & Development

Systrand was founded as an emergency supplier to the automotive industry. Since then we’ve maintained and expanded those internal capabilities to support prototype and tooling builds for our customers. Today, we are uniquely suited to help automotive manufacturers quickly work through new designs and fine tune them for peak manufacturability, in addition to peak performance.

We manage all prototype part production and most tooling and gauging builds within our own internal tooling department. This department has the benefit of the latest CAD/CAM software, 3D modeling, CNC and manual machines, and performance-accelerating Zeiss CMMs—everything they need to reduce launch times. Our internal tool room department can expedite any part-specific machining work to further compress timing.

But the most important tool in our tool box is experience: Systrand has been successful because we have made it our business to find, develop, and retain an engineering team with unparalleled manufacturing experience. Keeping this much talent and technology in-house means we can rapidly and reliably develop solutions, confident that we’ll be able to control timing and costs on critical project components.

Our goal is to not only find the most cost-effective manufacturing methods to meet design objectives now, but ones that will continue to reap benefits in the future. For example, manufacturers in the automotive industry often need to rapidly test a design change to accommodate mating parts or downstream manufacturability. Our engineering team stands ready to assist in providing this support. We’ve even machined finished products out of solid bar stock and billet in order to avoid lengthy forging, casting, stamping, and tooling delays.

Systrand is ready to design for manufacturability as well as performance. That often means “right-sizing” value engineering. Instead of simply focusing on component-level complexity reduction, we look for opportunities to reduce cost, improve performance, or allow for a more robust manufacturing process at every level. That often means reengineering a two or three component assembly to be a single part. But Systrand can do more than simply reduce complexity.

An automotive manufacturer recently sourced an element of their EV powertrain to Systrand as a one-piece component. As they progressed through development and testing, they discovered that this value-engineered design simply was not capable of the movement their transmission demanded. Our team was able to help them redesign their component as a three-piece assembly—which Systrand could then deliver as a completed assembly in production volumes. This didn’t simply improve transmission performance, it also made it possible for the automotive manufacturer to continue to meet their production goals and maintain their timelines.

“Quality” isn’t just something for the Quality Department to worry about. It’s a commitment threaded through every office and workstation. At Systrand, we are a tier 1 supplier with IATF 16949 and ISO 14001 certifications. Our quality systems, processes, and entire organization are committed to ensuring quality for our customers.

Over four decades, we’ve invested and reinvested in the tools and talent that are vital to our customers’ success. That includes a world class operating system of monitored performance and a structured approach to problem solving proven to ensure reliable manufacturing.

These are metrics/results driven systems, built on Lean Manufacturing principles and Six Sigma methodology, and take into account activity-based costing and overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) while maintaining low- to zero PPM. Those systems form a foundation from which we can pursue continuous improvements and cost savings for our customers.