The Knapheide Manufacturing Company of Quincy, IL, is a leader in the North American utility truck body market, so when they adopt manufacturing and testing procedures, the industry takes note. “In the old days we would send our products out to be tested to ensure that they met industry certification standards,” said Richard Pelnarsh, Knapheide test engineer, “but that used to be very expensive, and each test could take weeks to complete, impacting our ability to meet our schedules.” More recently, the company has been developing test systems in house, shortening the process and improving their ability to test customized product configurations. A custom test may also be developed when a need arises to recreate a particular set of events a Knapheide product will experience in the field.
The typical test involves applying a specific amount of force to an item such as a truck bed, bulkhead or a trailer hitch in order to simulate real-world usage conditions, cycling the application of force some number of times, and documenting the results. If a standard test protocol adopted by the SAE exists, then the Knapheide test group implements that. If not, then it is up to them to develop a test from scratch.