How a Wheel Manufacturer Halved Assembly Floor Space & Lead Time

Client: HRE Performance Wheels — forged alloy wheels for performance & luxury vehicles · Sector: Automotive manufacturing · Results: −50% assembly floor space, −50% lead time

The challenge: parts scattered across a 2,800 m² factory

HRE's three-piece wheel kits need up to 12 matched components per four-wheel set. Inner and outer rim sections travelled separately through production, batched on pallets and stacked wherever steel racking had a gap. Workers spent hours loading, unloading and — worst of all — searching for mismatched parts across the roughly 2,800 m² (30,000 sq ft) plant.

The solution: flow racks that keep a wheel set together

HRE rebuilt its assembly area around Flexpipe FIFO flow racks designed so that all components of one wheel set travel together through every stage:

• Dedicated lanes per order — a set enters production together and stays together
• First-in-first-out flow, so order tracking happens by looking at the rack
• Racks sized to wheel diameters, rebuilt in-house when the product mix changes

The results

• Assembly floor space cut by 50%
• Lead time cut by 50%, with far less time hunting for parts
• Order status visible at a glance from the shop floor

What this means for Australian workshops and OEM suppliers

Whether you assemble wheels, pumps, switchboards or furniture, "where are the rest of this order's parts?" is the silent lead-time killer. Set-based flow racks fix it mechanically — no software project required. Flexpipe Australia designs FIFO racks around your product's dimensions and takt, and ships them as kits your team assembles in a day.