From Napkin Sketch to Shop Floor: Why Knapheide Embraces DraftSight

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In 1848, a German craftsman started building wagons for westward-bound pioneers. Six generations later, Knapheide is the national leader in commercial vehicle solutions. While the tools and technology have evolved, the company’s mindset hasn’t: Know your customer, build it right, and keep adapting.

That spirit is alive and well inside the massive Quincy, Illinois, facility where hundreds of custom truck bodies roll off the Knapheide line each week. To handle that volume without compromising quality, the company leans on powerful, reliable CAD tools like Dassault Systèmes DraftSight and SOLIDWORKS 3D CAD.

Keeping Customer Promises

“DraftSight is a powerful tool that allows us to make great customer solutions in a very timely manner and get product out to the shop quickly,” notes Marty Ohnemus, CAD/PLM Administrator at Knapheide.

From simple napkin sketches to full production files, DraftSight serves as one of the workhorses behind Knapheide’s engineering process. The fabrication team uses DraftSight daily to open DXF files and feed data to the press brakes and other industrial machines.

Ohnemus explains, “We can take a napkin sketch from the shop, import it into DraftSight, and quickly generate a production-ready 2D drawing, often within minutes.”

That agility gives Knapheide a competitive edge and the ability to keep its promises to its customers.

Friendly Licensing Model

Knapheide’s use of DraftSight is not limited to internal teams. It’s also key for collaboration with vendors and customers. Thanks to DraftSight’s user-friendly interface and powerful capabilities, quick layouts, product tweaks, and tool designs all flow faster and smoother.

And Ohnemus loves being able to purchase the software under the licensing model that works best for the company.

“A lot of CAD software vendors have gone away from network licenses, and you now have to re-purchase the license every three years [under subscription/term licensing]. It’s just not sustainable for our company,” he notes.

The perpetual licensing model provided by DraftSight gives Knapheide the right to use a software version as long as it wants to. This provides long-term access to its tools and data, even during budget cuts, and avoids forced upgrades.

Making It Work for 175 Years

A 175-year-old company knows a thing or two about business sustainability. Through floods, depressions, and multiple market crashes, Knapheide has continually reinvented itself while staying true to its roots.

In 1910, Knapheide mounted a wagon body on a Ford Model T. By the 1940s, the company was producing all-steel truck bodies. Today, under the leadership of sixth-generation CEO Harold W. “Bo” Knapheide IV, the company has expanded into aluminum manufacturing, diversified its product lines, and invested in next-gen CAD tools.

Bo Knapheide advances and preserves tradition. His vision has steered the company toward becoming a full-service solutions provider. With software like DraftSight and SOLIDWORKS and a design team backed by over 175 years of craftsmanship, Knapheide stands out not just for what it builds but also for how it builds it.

High Volume, High Precision

DraftSight and SOLIDWORKS are used extensively across the Knapheide facility that moves 200 custom orders every week, an impressive volume—and that’s just the DraftSight side. The company’s engineering team adds another 100 or so SOLIDWORKS designs. “That really gives us a lot of power to provide a lot of solutions to our customers,” concludes Ohnemus.

From horse-drawn wagons to high-efficiency work trucks powered by high-end design tools, Knapheide’s journey proves that traditional values and modern tools make a powerful combination. And that legacy is still unfolding one drawing, one build, and one customer at a time.

Contact your local reseller to learn more about how SOLIDWORKS can help your company build its products over the long haul.

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