Company Tour Video (Please wait while video loads) 4,365kbVIRTUAL PLANT TOUR - LAKE FOREST, CALIFORNIA U.S.A.
Knight moved into its present manufacturing location in May of 1998. We are located in Southern California just 40 miles south of downtown Los Angeles. Our building is in one of the largest commercial business developments in Southern California. The area is populated with high technology companies that specialize in the design and manufacturing of medical instrumentation, software, personal computers, "dot-coms" and many other technology businesses.
Idex Corporation acquired Knight Equipment Corporation in December of 1997. Since this acquisition, Idex and its many business units have shared "best practices" in manufacturing. New manufacturing techniques such as "Demand Flow Technology", "Kaizen", "Lean", and "Kanbans" are being leveraged to reduce lead times and improve output for several of our most popular products.
Knight is producing better products and greater customer satisfaction than at any time in our history. This brief tour will provide you a glimpse of our manufacturing facilities and capabilities in Lake Forest.
SHEET METAL OPERATION
Knight produces over 59,000 pounds of finished stainless steel each month. Computer controlled turret presses such as this Amada Pega-345 produce consistent quality with minimal waste. Once the steel is punched, these flat parts must be bent into shape. We use several brake presses to bend many different shapes and sizes. Every stainless steel part is put through a sanding and de-burring process.
WET TEST AREA
Every "wetted part" undergoes a series of leak, pressure, flow and vacuum testing to assure the quality of our products when they arrive at your door. We realize there is nothing worse than arriving at a job site with equipment that won't perform.
WORK CELL
The implementation of Demand Flow Technology and Kanbans have dramatically improved output and quality in our work cells. Many assemblers are cross trained to work on more than one production line to meet demand for the hundreds of standard and custom products we build. The use of sophisticated mapping techniques eliminate "non-value added" steps in the process and enable us to pass the benefits to our customers.
INCOMING QUALITY CONTROL
Our quality assurance process maintains the quality and reliability that Knight products are known for. Part of the QC process is checking all incoming components and parts against engineering drawings before they are released to the production line to ensure product integrity of the end product.
ELECTRONIC SYSTEM TESTS
Every electronic system is subjected to rigorous testing before the product can be sent to the packaging area. Testing procedures are documented and followed to the letter.
