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Call in the specialist.

Article Excerpt
Call in the specialist

by Michelle EauClaire

Custom Products of Litchfield offers OEMs cab design, manufacturing, testing and qualification in one location.

Many equipment operators look at cabs from the inside-out. And while enjoying the air conditioning and XM radio in a nice comfy seat are great amenities, the cab is more importantly the protective shell between the operator and the environment outside. With efficiency a priority, money the bottom line, and more unskilled workers manning the controls, the jobsite can be a dangerous place. Whether it's noise, chemicals, dust and other environmental conditions, or as severe as a sudden heavy rock fall in a mining quarry, an OPS (operator protective structure) cab can save an operator's life. Period.

Custom Products of Litchfield Inc., Litchfield, MN, specializes in designing, manufacturing and testing customized cabs, ROPS (roll-over protection structure), FOPS (falling-object protection structure), and OPS to government and industry concensus regulations. The company works directly with the OEM from concept to prototype to finished product every time.

Randy Reinke, president of Custom Products, says, many people ask why OEMs don't build their own cabs. "They can," he admits, "but consider the type of materials and the amount of vendor items we work with: rubber, glass, hardware, instrumentation, upholstery; things not often found throughout the rest of the machine." There may be several hundred part numbers in a cab design representing dozens of vendors. If an OEM builds its own cabs, it undertakes the responsibility of working with all of those vendors on top of the rest of the machine.

A specialist like Custom Products can keep current in the latest hardware and types of glass than perhaps a large OEM can, which is why, Reinke says, many tend to outsource.

"We get lots of questions asking if we have something 'off-the-shelf' that will work for a specific company. The answer is really, no,...

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