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On a
sunny April day we had the unique opportunity to
visit the recently relocated Armcross production
plant in
Dusseldorf, Germany as well as get to know the
people who invented the exclusive LeoPro.
Armcross, a German company?
Armcross is a relatively
young company and trade mark, founded in 2006 (that
caught our attention at IWA in 2007 introducing
the LeoPro crossbow) and built on the heritage
of a former crossbow company named
Fortes that
presented its production at the
IWA Show 2001 and IWA Show 2002 under the trade
mark ARLET. This company was founded in 1996 and
was
based in Moscow.
Unfortunately Russian
legislation proved to be a little restrictive
when it came to exporting crossbow to
other countries. This unfortunate situation is
common to many countries where crossbow are
ruled by ancient laws that where conceived to
restrict usage in war rather than seeing a
crossbow as a sport tool. In order to fulfill
its global sale goal Armcross saw no other
choice than moving the production plant on a
more commercially friendly land. They found a
new home in Germany , a few minutes outside
Dusseldorf , a land that is central to Europe
commerce and offers many opportunities in both
transportation and manufacturing.
The “total quality” man.
The new company, Armcross GmbH, is led by a
volcanic men: Thomas Kahlhardt that is in charge
of production and sales is constantly challenged
with working with a global team dislocated over
four continents. Thomas is a strong believer of
a “total quality” and constantly push this
message across the company. In his vision
product quality is something you can obtain only
if quality becomes the inspiration of every
single step: from design to manufacturing,
assembly, testing and delivery. I am not and
industry strategy expert at all but I can just
tell that if you take a close look at the LeoPro
you can see that quality is there! In order to
insure that quality is met at every step they
went a great length: As you may think there are
steps that need more attention than others. For
example if you have a supplier in the far east
and something goes wrong and you discover this
only when you open the box here in Germany with
the next shipment weeks away this may be a big
problem. Armcross simply set up the supplier
chain with a local quality assurance engineer (actually
they sent over a German engineer) that checks
everything before shipping. As if the “total
quality” challenge was not tasking enough Thomas
is constantly thinking on how to improve the
product /process. Mr. Kahlhardt
is also actively setting up an
international dealer network in order to let you
see, evaluate and possibly purchase your LeoPro
close to your home.
An amazing product
When I first saw the LeoPro
crossbow at the IWA show in 2007 I was simply
amazed, it was love at first sight. At first it
was just by the look: the LeoPro is as sexy as a
car designed by Pininfarina. The look is also
completely unconventional you cannot overlook it.
As in love first is sight then comes intellect
the LeoPro really will get you in love as you
handle it. The scale says 8 pounds , not much but
certainly there are lighter ones, what is really
amazing is how these 8 pound are distributed:
most crossbows are heavy in the worst place, the
front end , creating inertia that will frustrate
your movements. Not this one . the LeoPro
concentrates mass close to the pistol grip, not
just if feels much lighter it is just amazing to
take into aim. A long discussion with Pavel
Ivanov , inventor and designer of the LeoPro (even
if he insists the inventor of the concept is
Leonardo DaVinci) revealed many aspects: the
stock is made of
ABS plastic
filled by fiber glass (15%)
and it is mated to the crossbow body in a way
that there are no single exposed screws to
disturb the ergonomically shaped lines. Most
metal components are made by high grade anodized
aluminum (7075) to provide strength yet remain
light. Limbs are made in the
US
by Gordon
Composites Inc.
, an authority in this field) , string and
cables are also made in the US. The
LeoPro is possibly the unique compound crossbow
where string can be field replaced thanks to a
supplied (very simple) tool (talk about design
quality now!) The LeoPro offers some respectable
performance too: at 175 Lbs , using a power
stroke of
13”
this little marvel is capable of 305 FPS (with a
420 grains arrow) . Trigger
pull
is
factory set at
3
pounds.
The design of the crossbow
LEOPRO is
protected by 2 patents. The famous American
company Horton produces crossbows
RECON 175 and VISION
175
under license of the
company ARMCROSS.
From Product to
System
As amazing and sweet as the LeoPro can be
Armcross people just consider this a little
piece of the whole picture. Armcross engineers
in fact did not stop at designing a crossbow
they designed a system to give shooters the
ability to fulfill their shooting experience.
Part of this system is a quick detach quiver, a
rope cocker, a soft case to carry all your
equipment, soft but strong enough to keep its
shape whit a men standing on it as Pavel Ivanov
proudly and impressively demonstrated himself. A
crossbow carry backpack named Igel-Fix server
also as hands free transportation for crossbow,
quiver and all hunting accessories.
Challenges
One of the most amazing (to me) challenges that
Armcross is facing is working with
geographically dispersed teams. In order to
build the LeoPro some parts come from US, some
are manufactured in Germany and some other in
Taiwan and China , add to this that the design
team led by Pavel Ivanov is based in Moscow and
now you can imagine how busy Mr. Kahlhardt must
be. In order to make things happen they widely
use latest state of the art technology. Using 3D
cad programs the various mechanical parts are
engineered and analyzed then these are shared
and discussed with manufacturing and assembly
teams using video conferencing and high speed
internet connections. Virtual teams collaborate
and offer their opinion based upon their
competency looking at virtual 3D model long
before machining the first metal piece. I came
into a room where a production meeting was going
on with two people from production were
discussing with the R&D director there was also
an interpreter but she was actually in Moscow
and was offering her contribution via internet
video … amazing.
Thanks to Mr. Kahlhardt, Mr. Ivanov and all
Armcross team for letting us in and sharing this
with us.
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