Husqvarna placed a team in China to oversee tooling projects for new products. The team spent the summer reviewing molds for products like lawnmowers and hedge trimmers to ensure the tool makers followed specifications. The team used a 58-item checklist to inspect elements like material hardness and aesthetics. This data and photos were sent back to Husqvarna factories. No molds would ship until approved by the team onsite to guarantee quality before delivery. This allows Husqvarna, unlike smaller companies, to both lower costs and ensure tooling quality when manufacturing overseas.

1. Husqvarna Global Tooling Newsletter
Fall 2011
Holding tool makers to their word
One of the Husqvarna global initiatives put forth in
2010 was to place a team of company tool
professionals in China to be the eyes and ears of the
rest of the Husqvarna tooling world. New tooling is
an area where surprises can seldom be afforded in
time nor money. For this reason, our newly formed
team in Shanghai spent the majority of the summer
in Shenzhen, China reviewing project tooling for the
Ayliffe 265 Automower, the Gardena hedge trimmer
battery charger and 2 (10- mold) rider projects for
Poland. The team uses a 58 -item mold verification
list to inspect process parameters, steel hardnesses
and part esthetics, to name a few. This data, along
with photographs and, in some cases, video are
emailed to the factory tool departments.
This checking process is technical confirmation by an actual Husqvarna
employee assuring that the right steel was cut to the proper
dimensions and hardened to the correct Rockwell number as agreed
upon in the design review meeting. To each factory, this data
accompanies a promise that no mold will ship from Asia to a
Husqvarna factory until it first proves itself in the injection molding
machine and is certified first hand to meet Husqvarna mold-build
specifications.
One of the limitations of smaller western companies is their inability
to place technical employees in Asia to regularly do this type of “pre-
shipping crate” validation. Now, thanks to our “one Husqvarna”
Initiative, we have the reach required to not only purchase tooling at
lower costs, but guarantee its quality also.
Elsie Yang above verifies core pin diameters while Jessie Zhao
(above) and Jelly wei (right)inspect work in process