LESCO, Inc.

Company: LESCO, Inc.
Product: Turf Maintenance Equipment, Chemicals, Grass Seed and Accessories
Annual Sales: $204 million
Number of Employees: 1,200
Year Founded: 1962
Location: Rocky River, Ohio

Situation:

LESCO wanted to produce a unique injection-molded sealed gearbox for a rotary fertilizer spreader. Fertilizer granules and fertilizer dust contaminate the gears and bearings surfaces of conventional gearboxes, creating downtime and replacement expenses.

Project:

The PTDC created a three-dimensional styrene stereolithography model of LESCO's gearbox design. This working model could be used in an actual spreader to verify that the design was functional.

Result:

The acceptability of the design was tested prior to tooling, saving LESCO thousands of dollars in tooling costs. A minor flaw that would have required retooling was discovered and corrected before the initial tooling of the part. Company

Comments from James Mast; Director of Engineering:

"This was an opportunity for a small equipment manufacturer to utilize very specialized prototyping equipment. Stereolithography allowed us to quickly and accurately verify that the design was a moldable, functional piece, and prevented us from making an expensive mistake. A company our size would not be able to utilize this technology without the PTDC."