Getting the Knaack

Knaack’s “flying” Monster Box line takes jobsite security, mobility and productivity to the top floor and back again with ease

by Tom Hammel

Fortunately for American manufacturers, some products are just too big and heavy to be cost-effectively produced overseas and shipped to the United States. Knaack jobsite toolboxes and Weather Guard truck boxes fall into this lucky category and, the residential housing slump notwithstanding, demand for these super-tough toolboxes on jobsites and in industrial plants is almost as strong as the boxes themselves.

Nesting boxes
Knaack also benefits from a business model that diversifies its product lines across different markets. Knaack, a division of Emerson since 2000, has three divisions: Knaack jobsite boxes; Weather Guard truck boxes (those snazzy aluminum carry-alls in the bed of pretty much every pickup on the road); and Weather Guard van systems, used by plumbers, HVAC contractors, utilities and municipalities among others.

Each division has unique products, but the processes used to create them are similar enough that every product of all three brands — and then some — comes out of a single plant in Crystal Lake, Illinois.

Because we Americans love our pickups so much, it’s no surprise that the Weather Guard truck division is the largest of the three, followed by Knaack jobsite boxes and Weather Guard van.

The aforementioned “then some” refers to Ridgid branded product produced for Ridge Tool. This product goes into Home Depot stores, some other outlets and increasingly, off to Europe, where Ridgid is establishing a broader base as a global brand.

Humming along
Life inside Knaack’s facility is humming, clanking and crackling with big slitters, punch presses, benders, welding bays and drying ovens as product rolls endlessly off the line.

“Our slitting machines set the cadence for the entire factory,” says Rick Miller, a 29-year Knaack veteran.

The slitters are supplied a steady diet of coil steel and aluminum, the plant’s two main raw materials. Steel becomes jobsite boxes and aluminum and steel become Weather Guard truck boxes.

Here, one of two side-by-side robotic benders works tirelessly to bend prepunched blanks into shape for boxes. A single operator directs the activities of both robots simultaneously.

What’s in the box
Although the end result is “still” a box, the technology used to build jobsite and truck boxes has evolved since Knaack was launched in 1960. That progression is readily visible on the plant floor, where several generations of slitters, punching machines, benders and welders work side by side.

Knaack uses robotic welders for some operations and human welders for others, within a few feet of each other. An old-fashioned flywheel press brake does its job within spitting distance of a pair of mated, computer-controlled Salvagnini punching and bending machines. Wherever it makes sense, and the old timers can keep meeting Knaack’s improved tolerances, their jobs are secure.

Still warm from the drying oven, these freshly painted boxes return to the the line for touch up, inspection, decaling and cartoning before they go to the warehouse. This worker separates each box from its paint booth conveyor hooks. He is as strong as he looks, but his platform does most of the work, rising and tilting to let him handle each box without ever lifting it. For him, the job is mainly a matter of finesse and balance.

Making a monster
In a clever twist on the Frankenstein legend, rather than heed the villagers’ cries to destroy the monster, Knaack asked its “villagers,” professional users, how to make one. The result is the Monster Box line of super-heavy duty boxes designed for extreme security, durability and mobility on the jobsite.

For years, contractors have been hoisting jobsite boxes between floors and hanging them from cranes overnight to thwart thieves. But until Monster Box, no boxes were designed specifically to allow for crane lifting. Contractors took their tools and lives into their own hands with makeshift slings to hoist their jobsite boxes, which often weighed tons when filled with tools and supplies.

“We knew people did that, but until we introduced the Monster Box line we didn’t advise it because there is a lot to lifting things like that and unfortunately a lot of people were probably doing it wrong,” explains Tom Schwalie, senior product manager for Knaack jobsite products. “Whether they were lifting their boxes off the ground just for security or, more often than not, just moving them from one floor to another on a jobsite, we knew that providing a safe and efficient manner for doing that was an opportunity to do something different.”

An operator supervises this Salvagnini S4 punching machine, which is married to a matching P4 panel bender off to the right. At more than 80 feet in length, the entire machine is too long for one photo. This operation is punching a 4- by 8-foot sheet of steel sheet into 12 tightly toleranced parts, which will then be bent by its P4 partner down the line. From sheet to completed part, no human will touch these until they are ready to go to the welders.

Voice of the customer
Adding a safe mechanism by which to accomplish this widespread practice became one pillar of Knaack’s Monster Box product development strategy. But after they gave it “wings,” then what?

The Monster Box line was the result of a concerted effort to create a new line that was dramatically different than what had come before. Knaack invented the category more than 40 years ago and had made incremental improvements over the years, but competitors with similar looking products and paint colors had emerged as well. The Monster Box would be a flagship line for users who needed its special capabilities. Knaack wasn’t going to build just any monster, it was going to build THE monster jobsite box.

“The Voice of the Customer is everything — everything we do here is about understanding the end-user; his problems, and how we can solve them,” Schwalie says. “We surveyed our channel partners and our end-users to get as much initial information as we could. But as you know, people will say one thing and do another, so to get a better idea of users’ real issues — perhaps problems they didn’t even know they had — we went to jobsites and did ethnographic (observational) research.”

In the spot weld department, welders add subassemblies like hinges and stiffeners to boxes before they take the conveyor ride into the paint booth.

Freud in a hardhat
If you put Sigmund Freud in a pickup, took him to a jobsite and left him sitting there, you would have ethnographic research when you came back.

“Imagine sitting on a jobsite, Schwalie says, “and watching how workers interact with one piece of equipment, a box, over the course of a full day. Then do that over many days. A person may open the box in the morning and not come back to it until the end of the day to close it.”

It is a long, painstaking process involving many man hours — and cases of videotape.

Once that observational period was completed, back in the plant, researchers discussed their findings, viewed videotapes to verify or refute those findings, and shared the tapes with industrial designers and engineers for brainstorming. Ideas were discussed and renderings were made of candidate improvements.

“We did focus groups after all that,” Schwalie adds. “From those, we built prototypes, took them out into the field and asked users; ‘This is what we identified as an issue for you. How does this work for you — does this solve your problem?’ And we took those responses back to the plant. It was a very iterative process.”

“We have a rigorous stage-gate-based process for new product development,” explains Jim Scarlata, Knaack’s senior marketing operations manager.

In its simplest form, KNaack’s system is a formalized “green light, red light” system for nurturing or killing product ideas as they move from cradle to grave.

Money box
As the product developed, cost quickly became a potential red light for the Monster Box line. Making a box that can be crane lifted means making it tougher than ever just to withstand the added stresses of lifting. Monster Box uses more sheet steel, tubular steel and stiffening systems than any prior Knaack jobsite box. It’s a good thing steel is so cheap these days, right?

This is where a dual role implied by Scarlata’s “marketing operations” title becomes critical. Scarlata not only leads market research and communications, he is also responsible for sales forecasting.

“Ordering inventory and raw materials is a direct result of the sales forecasting I do,” Scarlata explains. “From a materials sourcing standpoint, the quicker we can supply our manufacturing team with forecasts at our product class levels, ultimately down to the SKU, the better they are. And aluminum and steel are our primary raw materials.”

It’s “the end of the line” for this piano box. After the decals are applied, the box is cartoned and taken to the warehouse for shipping.

Boxing in costs
As a recent hire, Scarlata brings fresh eyes to Knaack’s operations, and he has identified several areas where forecasting can improve in data structuring, timing and starting points to produce product-specific studies in shorter cycles.

“Certainly the pressure and expectation is on to make every improvement possible given commodities increases and their potential effect on demand, but even without those pressures we would be making these improvements,” Scarlata says.

“There has been a lot of material pricing inflation over the last couple of years but we continue to work to control and absorb a lot of those costs through best practices within the organization,” Schwalie adds. “Emerson is a large organization and while they expect such improvements to be made they also provide us help and guidance in achieving them. We have access to a lot of resources.”

The verdict — so far
“Market response to the Monster Box has been pretty good, even at its premium price,” Schwalie says. “It’s a bit of a niche product and it’s certainly not going to replace our core line; but for the people who need that feature, it’s the best answer for them. It fills an obvious need — people get it.”

This article appeared in the August/September 2008 issue of MRO Today magazine. Copyright 2008.

back to top

Back to Cover stories archives