The company Simson Power Tools in Hofors manufactures and sells hydraulic power tools. One of the company’s product is a compact hydraulic hand pump. The pump is primarily used as a power source for jacks, but can also be used for other hydraulic tools. Two tools to which the pump is used for is a wedge tool and a flange opener. These two tools are mainly used in industry, for example when replacing gaskets in flange joints. The constructions are powerful and manage to handle loads of 4 and 15 tons.

In meetings with the company it emerged that they saw potential for the wedge tool and the flange opener to be able to sell better than before. The tools together with the hand pump are flexible and easy to use in difficult environments. In order to increase the sales of the products, the company wants to lower prices but at the same time maintain, alternatively increase the quality.

The wedge tool and flange opener are currently purchased from other manufactures, which limits Simson Power Tools pricing. Because the tools are old and no patent exist, the company wants to manufacture the tools on its own, which provides opportunity to combine the tools with the company’s hand pump as well as optimize technical manufacturing and economic manufacturing.

When the customer’s desires were identified a current situation analysis was performed. The work process began by sketching up the purchased tools in Autodesk Inventor 2017 in order to create an overview of geometries and functions. Then material analyzes were performed on the tools. The purpose of analyzes was to provide a basis for decisions about material selection and machining of components surfaces as toughness, hardness and roughness which are crucial parameters for the functionality of the tools.

The project resulted in that the tools became more compact and weigh less than the purchased, especially when cylinder is integrated with the hand pump. The wedge tools plates and the upper and lower part of the flange opener which are exposed to great wear are recommended to be manufactured in Hardox 450 which has higher strength than previous design. Further work is to make tests on manufactured prototypes to check whether design changes work in real cases.

A price staircase has been developed for the manufacture of the tools components and purchase of return spring, gaskets and sliding bearing. The price staircase indicates price per tool depending on order quantities. With the price basis, the company can plan the amount of tools that should be manufactured based on manufacturing cost and customers demand.