Companies are looking for ways to safely allow employees to return to the workplace as businesses open back up amid the COVID-19 pandemic. One of the primary modes of transmission of COVID-19 is via airborne droplets.

A simple solution to mitigate the transmission of these droplets is to place a physical barrier between employees working in an office environment. Placing a partition at individual workstations, and other key areas throughout the business can help to insulate workers from the potentially virus-carrying particulates emitted by others.  

At Austin Hardware®, we are your source for research and development, design, manufacturing, and more. We have extensive custom engineering capabilities and pride ourselves on providing some of the best engineering solutions across the industry.

Enclosed trailer and horse trailer manufacturers, which are fabricated from aluminum in particular, often have trouble with 3-piece rear door and ramp door hinge alignment.

It takes a precise measurement and careful hands to align most standard 3-piece rear and ramp door hinges correctly due to the challenge of laying the hinge flat for welding or bolting. This can add an inordinate amount of time to the assembly process. Additionally, while most assemblers get close, even a slightly misaligned hinge can adversely affect its durability and longevity. These are two critical expectations for buyers of high-end aluminum trailers.

The two primary linkage options available for your multi-point latches are Rods and Cables. Each offers a different set of advantages and disadvantages. 

If you're debating which is right for your application, here's a breakdown of our findings. 

Rods are more common in multi-point latch applications for several reasons, but primarily because of their durability. They are generally stronger and more durable than cables. Financially, while the cost of the raw materials for rods and cables is very close, rods tend to be more economical than a complete cable system. Cables systems require more components for assembly, thus making them more complex and costly to use. Many companies will form rods on their own, which also can help to keep costs down. 

When it comes to Drawer Release Systems, there are a variety of ways you can incorporate them into your work truck, utility vehicle, or emergency vehicle. Drawer release systems are a great way to organize tools, emergency equipment, safety supplies, and more while keeping everything safely stored while the vehicle is in motion. These are just a few of the ways that you can use our products, but the possibilities are endless. There are many different types of drawer release systems and methods to be custom-fitted or designed for your specific needs.

When it comes to safety, LifeDefender™ not only meets the industry standards, we helped to establish them. From our beginnings, we worked with a select group of emergency vehicle and ambulance manufacturers to set the toughest safety standards as well as design products that meet these standards. Our rigorous safety standards keep occupants inside emergency vehicles safe during transport. Austin Hardware's LifeDefender™ Cabinet Security Frames have been designed to provide a solution to meet the *SAE, CAAS GVS & NFPA safety standards. In addition to meeting strict safety standards, our frames are crash tested to ensure that the vehicle occupants, ems workers, and patients are safe during transport and in case of an accident.  

Austin Hardware & Supply, Inc. has received Patent No. US 10,004,331 B2 from the United States Patent and Trademark Office for the company’s Front Drawer Release (FDR).

The FDR was invented by engineers Mark Jeffries and Rusty Smith in 2009, and a patent request was filed in 2011. It was designed as part of a complete system to easily latch and unlatch the drawers in heavy duty industrial drawer systems used in vehicular applications.

Launching a product is not as simple as creating it and releasing it into the world. Without a solid plan, bringing a product to market can prove impossible. In fact, Harvard research shows that there are over 30,000 new products launched every year, but over 80% of them fail. It’s safe to say that getting a product to market is far from guaranteed.