Cybex International Inc., headquartered in Medway, Mass., is a manufacturer of premium exercise equipment for commercial and consumer use. The company’s product lines include a range of strength and cardio training machines sold worldwide. Cybex products consist of three complete lines of selectorized strength equipment with more than 150 unique pieces, which include modular, plate load, and free weight equipment. Cardiovascular equipment includes treadmills, bikes, a stepper, and the ArcTrainer Series. The company has two manufacturing facilities and a workforce of 600 employees.
It was the company’s Owatonna, Minn., facility, with 350 employees, that expanded its 200,000 sq ft facility to a new 340,000 sq ft building in July 2007. “A state-of-the art building and manufacturing process came from a culmination of a two-and-a-half year planning and building process with a lot of teamwork,” says Brad Stilwagon, powdercoat manager at Cybex. “Our major objectives for this project Cybex International manufactures three complete lines of selectorized strength equipment and a variety of cardiovascular equipment, including the ArcTrainer Series shown here. When exercise equipment maker Cybex International Inc. needed to expand its production facility to meet demand, one off its largest undertakings was the new powder coating line. ect were focused around expanding to handle the capacity growth, improving production flow, safety, reducing manufacturing and utility costs, to name a few. We realized early on that utilizing more automation and technology was a necessary part of expanding into the new facility and competing as the world premium fitness equipment manufacturer.”
Cybex’s manufacturing style is a build-to-order process that includes the metal fabrication department, the welding department, the powder coat finishing system with in-line shot blast, followed by the streamlined assembly, woodshop, upholstery, and shipping operations.
Run Down the Line
The Owatonna facility’s finishing process starts with product components loaded to the conveyor line as they are completed through weld. Then the parts travel through an in-line Wheelabrator shot blast machine where the steel surface is prepared by removing weld carbon and spatter, at the same time leaving a consistent blasted profile for the coating to adhere to.
The parts then move through a seven-stage wash process, which utilizes chemicals supplied by Galaxy Associates (Cincinnati). Stilwagon explains that Stage 1 is a mild alkaline pre-clean flooding wash process that helps remove any remaining shot from the components. Stage 2 is a mild alkaline wash process and stages 3 and 4 are rinsing. Stage 5 is a clean and phosphate process. Stage 6 is rinsing. Stage 7 is a seal rinse process.
Parts then travel through a drying oven and then a cooling tunnel before entering the pre-mask area where masking devices are put on. “We use a variety of standard and custom masking devices, including those from EPSI (Menomonee Falls, Wis.) and Custom Fabricating (Greendale, Wis.),” Stilwagon says. Many of Cybex’s parts require masking to ensure critical areas such as threads, shafts and bearing surfaces, are free of coating to allow proper fit at the assembly process.
After parts are masked, they enter the Environmental Room where the powder is applied at one of two booths. The powder application booth first in line consists of a Nordson Color On Demand (COD) system that is supported by a paint kitchen that maintains 28 colors ready to spray at any time. Stilwagon says, “We can run between two to six paint operators in the COD booth depending on the line speed. Color change time ...
