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Fox Factory Tour Part 1: Headquarters & Machine Shop

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Fox Factory Tour HQ

Glancing at the modern carbon wonder bike, there are few if any parts that are still made here in the United States. Among those items are usually things like pedals or chain rings, but surprisingly enough, Fox produces its golden coated bits in the golden state.

The company is headquartered in Scotts Valley, California, a small town just outside of Santa Cruz proper, that can claim its fair share of epic road rides, mountain bike trails, and old growth redwoods. We recently visited their facility to check out their production setup… 

Fox Factory Tour (2)

While their largest market segment is bicycles, Fox produces components for all sorts of outdoor adventures, including side by sides, trophy trucks, crawlers, and ATVs.

Fox Factory Museum (2)

That history is documented in the Fox Factory Museum. There’s enough stuff in there to merit its own story, which Zach has already covered here.

Fox Factory Museum (1)

The handles to that doorway and others throughout the building are Kashima coated Fox 40 Stanchions.

Fox Factory Tour (3)

The company’s racing heritage is evident throughout the building, and even the chairs in the lobby have world cup pedigree.

Jared-Graves-and-Gee-Atherton-Winning-Jerseys

The halls are also lined with signed jerseys.

Fox Factory Tour (1)

Just a few minutes away from HQ is the machine shop. The walls of the small lobby are plastered in athlete posters, but it’s all business within the actual shop.

Fox Factory Machine Shop (2)

Covering roughly 50,000 sq ft, the sound and scale of the space is breathtaking. Materials ranging from aluminum to steel are delivered here weekly.

Fox Factory Machine Shop (1)

Just outside of the materials receiving area, bar stock is cut, and stacked 

According to Scott Bean, Director of Machining Operations, the cost difference between producing products in the United States versus abroad is nominal, with the exception of one variable – labor. In order to be cost effective, Fox focuses heavily on a lean manufacturing system known as Cellular Manufacturing.

At its heart, the system revolves around grouping similar machines together based upon the flow of production. The machines used throughout the building are multifunctional and automated when feasible, which enables employees to operate multiple devices, and increases their efficiency.

Fox Factory Live Machining (2)

Perhaps the best (and hands down the coolest) example of this manufacturing philosophy is the live tooling lathes. A traditional lathe can machine only cylindrical forms, but a lathe with live tooling also incorporates a cutting tool, which can cut or bore a component.

Using this type of machine for more complicated parts helps Fox cut down the amount of steps and labor required to machine certain components.

fox-Factory-Machine-Shop-Tools

A closer look at the live tooling lathe

Fox Factory Machine Shop

The majority of machines employed throughout the shop have bar feeders, which keep the machines constantly humming. As new components are finished, the pieces are caught and manually finished by the machine operator. This means one person can run both the machine and finish parts, rather than having to batch the two operations.

Fox Factory Machine Shop

Fox still utilizes traditional lathes where it makes sense, but those components (examples pictured above) require additional milling.

Dual Turret Fox Factory Machine Shop (1)

Another piece of #toolporn is this twin turret CNC lathe, which can machine two sides of a part at one time.

Dual Turret Fox Factory Machine Shop (2)

To keep the machine running as efficiently as possible, the company carefully forecasts what inventory they’ll require depending on seasonal variances. This allows them to load machines with specific programs, so they can respond quickly to production demands. Since some of the machines require in excess of six hours to load a new program, this type of forecasting helps prevent equipment from running idle.

Fox Machine Shop Conveyor Belt Results

Fox also employs an in-house maintenance crew to regularly service and repair the equipment.

Fox-Machine-Shop-Eyelet-Cap

Despite their impressive machining capabilities, Fox still works with outside partners to forge high volume items like these shock eyelets.

Fox Machine Shop Air Cap Machining

The pieces still require additional machining, but forging helps cut down on total build time.

Fox-Float-Air-Cannister-Impact

To further save on manufacturing costs, Fox also orders aluminum tube sets for use as shock bodies and sleeves. The items go through an impact extrusion process that takes a puck of soft aluminum and forces it into the appropriate shape. From there, the part is heat treated for hardness.

This process is faster and more cost effective than utilizing bar stock and produces a finished item with a finer grain structure.

Fox-Factory-Specialized-Brain-Construction

Before and after. Can anyone guess what manufacturer these shocks are destined for?

Fox Machine Shop Tumbling

Final processing of the components includes deburring and tumbling.

Fox Factory Machine Shop Air Cannister (2)

Throughout this process, items are spot checked. Fox Machine Factory Spot Checking

Inspectors check for visual irregularities, while others test to ensure items are within specific tolerances.

Fox Factory Machine Shop Air Cannister (3)

These items are then packaged and sent out to a local facility for anodization, or shipped to Japan for a Kashima bath. From here, these various components go on a twenty minute ride across town to the Fox Factory, where they are hand assembled and packaged for delivery to OEM customers and consumers.

Stay tuned for Part Two later this week, where we check out the final assembly process.

Fox | Special thanks to Mark Jordan and Scott Bean for the tour. 

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liljoe
liljoe
8 years ago

So jealous!! I want to go there too!

MulletRacer
MulletRacer
8 years ago

Those Shocks are being made for Big Specialized for use in the Epic and maybe the new Camber. What prize do I win??? I have always wanted a bike rumor tee shirt.

Ryan
Ryan
8 years ago

Always neat to see behind the curtain.

MissedThePoint
MissedThePoint
8 years ago

Your image file name spoiled it.

Cheese
Cheese
8 years ago

“Next year, the company intends to transition full-fork production to the facility in Taichung. . .If this were purely a labor-arbitrage move, we would have invested somewhere else.” That there is some impressive marketing spin.

http://www.bike-eu.com/home/artikel/2013/11/fox-shifts-production-to-taiwan-1012800

Bread
Bread
8 years ago

And more recent investor communications say 85% of fork production is now done in Taiwan. So, how representative are these pictures of what actually goes into our stuff?

cole
cole
8 years ago

“A traditional lathe can machine only cylindrical forms, but a lathe with live tooling also incorporates a cutting tool, which can cut or bore a component.”

(deleted). All lathes use cutting tools, and lathes excel at boring. A live tooling lathe has motors on the turret/toolpost so that it can use rotary tools like a mill; the spindle is an axis that is stepper/servo driven, so the machine can effectively operate as a mill in polar (well, cylindrical) coordinates. Any old lathe can be given live tooling by bolting a dremel to the toolpost, and believe it or not this isn’t such an unusual thing–you can actually buy ready-made dremel mounts. Traditional lathes can also be used as a mill if they have a vertical table (adds an axis for the 3rd Cartesian coordinate), the big difference is that to switch between turning and milling the cutting tool and work piece have to switch places.

Frippolini
Frippolini
8 years ago

Thanks BR for a nice article, I enjoyed reading it and wish for more. You are overall doing a great job informing us readers what’s going on inside the industry. As for errors and mistakes, this happens, remember that also the sun is not spot free.

Regarding the critics blasting their negativity and pushing their opinions and facts correcting errors: please calm down and appreciate instead what you get. Your “corrections” and critique might be correct, but try to present it in a more constructive way; it’s easier to digest that way and shows more appreciation towards the BR staff and their effort. 🙂

jeff
jeff
8 years ago

@bread – Someone posted a copy of FOX’s stock holder annual report on MTBR a while back and it stated that they planned to move 100% production to Taiwan in 2014. How long ago did Bikerumor tour FOX’s facility?

PJ Sinohin
7 years ago

2016, some Taiwanese forks are coming out which very similar with fox. I wonder if they were re-badged items just like joytech and novatech hubs.

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