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If you supply parts to OEMs, that choice decides your next contract. Your part's strongest advantages are inside it: the electronics, the tolerances held in parts no one will see, the sealing that keeps it working through years of dust and water. The engineer comparing quotes can't see any of them. After 30 years of designing products for manufacturers, I think the look of the part is the piece of the decision suppliers most often leave to chance, and it is one of the least expensive pieces to get right.
HOW AN OEM COMPARES PARTS THAT ALL MEET THE SPEC
An OEM that needs a light, a control or a housing writes a specification and sends it to several suppliers. When every part that comes back meets the spec, the comparison drifts toward cost. Berylls, a consultancy that runs supplier selection for carmakers, describes an OEM whose supplier evaluation was based mainly on the lowest cost [1]. In forklift lighting, the parts catalogs sort work lights by shape, into square, rectangular and round [2]. A part that looks like the others on the page ends up competing on price.
Engineers are buyers too. Before they read a data sheet, they form a judgment of quality from what they can see and hold: the proportions, the surfaces, the materials, the finish and the details. A crisp, heavy edge suggests the part will last. A precise, even finish tells them it is well made. The shape also tells them how the part works: which way it faces, where it mounts and how it connects. A part whose shape explains itself is easier to trust and easier to approve.
Most OEMs don't have an industrial designer assigned to every part they buy. A supplier who brings one along with the engineering gives the OEM something it would otherwise have to find elsewhere or do without. The part arrives already designed for the vehicle it goes on, and the OEM's engineers can see that before they choose.
PROOF: A FORKLIFT LIGHT DESIGNED FOR THE OEM
JW Speaker is a family-run lighting manufacturer in Germantown, Wisconsin, and it has supplied lighting to vehicle makers since 1960 [3]. Its standard products engineering team had finished the inside of a new LED work light for forklifts. The LEDs, the optics and the connector were set. The light was going to Linde, the forklift maker, as original equipment, and later into JW Speaker's own catalog. Its existing housing was a round puck with a clear lens on top. The program was on a tight schedule, and JW Speaker asked us for a new housing around its finished parts, with a place for the customer's logo and two connector options.
We started with hand sketches of a shape that mounts close to the forklift, with softened curves and a window that shows the light inside. Then we presented five concepts. Each was fitted to the same parts inside, and each carried Linde's logo on the center plate, so JW Speaker's engineers could see the light the way the OEM would see it. We rendered every concept unlit, glowing and fully lit, so the shape could be judged on the forklift as well as on the bench.
JW Speaker chose one direction, and four rounds of refinement tightened it. The flat back shows the installer at a glance that the light mounts flat against the truck. A clear lens wraps around the curved front, so the LEDs and reflectors show from the side as well as from the front. A faceted top and the center logo plate give the light a shape of its own, so it stands apart from the round and square lamps beside it. The final design went to JW Speaker's engineers as production files they could build from, in the 2-pin and 3-pin versions the brief asked for.
The light is in production today. JW Speaker sells it as the Model 710 Low Profile LED Warehouse Work Light, and its product page says it "outshines stock forklift lights" [4].
My team has brought 223 products into production and won 11 design awards. My own degree is in industrial design. Projects like this one, where the engineering is done and the OEM is waiting, are where that experience counts most.
HOW IT WORKS WITH YOUR BID
The work fits inside the way you already quote. You send us the OEM's request for quote, its specification and your 3D models of the parts inside. We design concepts around those parts, show them on the OEM's vehicle and in the OEM's brand, and review each round with your engineers so the design always stays buildable. You take the concepts into the bid alongside your engineering and your price. When the OEM chooses you, the final design goes to your engineers as production files they can build from.
The OEM sees one supplier with one answer: a part that meets the spec, looks like it belongs on its vehicle, and comes with the engineering already done. Your engineers keep ownership of everything inside the part, and the design team works as an extension of yours.
THE SAME APPROACH IN JW SPEAKER'S OTHER MARKETS
An OEM's engineers want a part that looks like it was made for their vehicle. The other projects we designed for JW Speaker show the skills that takes, in other markets.
HEAVY TRUCKS
On the Model 8800 truck headlight, we designed the face around optics JW Speaker had already certified to the DOT and ECE standards, so the new design never reopened the certified engineering. The 8800 fits Peterbilt, Kenworth, Freightliner and Western Star models [5]. An OEM buying a part like this gets a new design without a new round of testing on the parts inside.
POWERSPORTS
JW Speaker's adaptive headlight for Victory motorcycles was not an OEM program. JW Speaker sold it to Victory riders as an upgrade. It still shows the skill an OEM program needs: we designed the bezel for the bike's diamond-shaped headlight opening, so the light looks like it came with the motorcycle. That is what an OEM's engineers want to see when a supplier quotes a part for one of their vehicles.
AGRICULTURAL AND OFF-HIGHWAY
For the concepts that led to JW Speaker's Model 93, we designed a mount that could carry over to other lamps, and drew it below and above the lamps on the same housing, so one design could fit different vehicles. JW Speaker now sells the Model 93 to OEMs, to the companies that outfit vehicles, to fleets and to individual owners [6].
WHAT WE LEARNED
SHOW THE OEM ITS OWN PART
On the forklift light, every concept carried Linde's logo. JW Speaker's engineers, and then Linde's, saw a part already made for their own forklift, not a generic light they would have to imagine on it. A supplier who shows the OEM its own brand on the part makes the choice easier.
OFFER THE DESIGN AS PART OF YOUR BID
Most suppliers quote a part. A supplier who quotes a designed part, with the industrial design already done by a team that works inside the supplier's engineering, gives the OEM two things in one package. The OEM doesn't have to hire a designer or manage one more vendor. That difference shows up before anyone compares prices.
DESIGN FOR THE ENGINEER WHO APPROVES IT
The people who choose suppliers are engineers. They read a part's shape the way they read a drawing: how it mounts, how it connects, how well it is made. When the form answers those questions on sight, the part is easier to approve.
KEEP THE PRICE CONVERSATION SHORT
A designed part can also hold a better price, and because the engineering and tooling are paid for once, even a small difference adds up across a program. The OEM's engineers can see what the extra money buys.
YOUR NEXT QUOTE
See how offering industrial design with your engineering works in each market: heavy truck, powersports, material handling and agricultural.
If you're quoting a part for an OEM now, send us the request for quote and your 3D models, and let's set up a 30-minute call to walk through the part and how the OEM's engineers will compare it with the others that meet the spec.
Jon Levy, CEO, KAIA
REFERENCES
- Berylls Strategy Advisors, Supplier Selection in Unstable Times, September 2021. https://www.berylls.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Berylls_Insight_Supplier-Selection.pdf
- TVH, "Forklift work lights." https://www.tvh.com/en-ca/parts/parts-for/forklifts/lights/forklift-work-lights
- JW Speaker, "About JW Speaker." https://www.jwspeaker.com/about/
- JW Speaker, "Warehouse LED Work Light, Model 710." https://www.jwspeaker.com/products/forklift-work-light-model-710/
- Raney's, "JW Speaker 4" x 6" LED Evolution 2 Projection Headlight Model 8800." https://www.raneystruckparts.com/jw-speaker-4-x-6-led-evolution-2-projection-headlight-model-8800
- JW Speaker, "90mm LED Headlight, Model 93." https://www.jwspeaker.com/products/90mm-headlights-model-93/
