Chief Products announced a major new product today, the WK2 Roof Rack. It delivers a long list of industry leading features, along with our well-known dedication to great styling. On the day of the announcement traffic to our website increased by more than 400%, and in just 3 days the waiting list grew to over 100 customers.

In a major step, Chief Products has shifted to full-time manufacturing. This change to our manufacturing schedule, better positions Chief Products to meet our forecasted growth and avoid costly out-of-stock periods that have previously hampered our revenue. It also reduces our manufacturing costs, increases profit margins and reduces our re-stock times from 90 days to 25 days.

Chief Products announced a major new product today, our WK2 Rock Rails. They deliver a long list of industry leading features, along with our well-known dedication to great styling. This product sold out in 2 weeks in the USA, despite only being pre-order and not being scheduled to ship for 30 days.

For the 2017-2018 financial year, Chief Products revenue grew 244% over the previous financial year. This continues a 5 year trend of yearly revenue growth of 210% (on average).

Chief Products is extremely proud to announce that we’ve cut our product development costs and time to market by 65% (on average). These enormous reductions were made possible primarily through access to OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) vehicle CAD data. There are only a handful of off-road accessory manufacturers with access to this valuable data, and Chief Products is proud to be one of them. When combining the OEM CAD data with our own 3D scan data, it has allowed us to significantly cut the time and cost it takes to bring new products to market.

Today Chief Products finalises implementation of an in-depth 6 month review and streamlining of our product development, warehousing, order fulfilment and logistics processes. These newly streamlined operations take advantage of the latest technologies and position Chief Products on the cutting edge, well prepared for our forecasted growth. We estimate these newly implemented changes will reduce overall operational costs by 16.5%, and reduce our time to market by 18%.

Chief Products jumps out in front of the off-road accessories industry by shifting to E-Coat (Electrophoretic Coating) for all of our steel products. E-Coat provides the very highest corrosion protection available for steel automotive parts. Deposited from a water-based solution using a high voltage DC charge, the process coats all wet surfaces with an extremely tough and highly corrosion resistant finish that is unlike any other process. The automotive industry has long been a user of this process for the undercoating of car bodies and it is largely responsible for all but eliminating rust in modern vehicles.

Today Chief Products is proud to announce the addition of Ben Grams as our new head of engineering. His extensive global experience in the automotive and off-road accessories industry will allow us to streamline our product development processes and bring products to market faster and more efficiently. Since Chief Products is highly focused on great design, we especially like Ben’s experience working with the Concept Car team at General Motors Global Design Centre and Sony Mobiles Creative Design Centre. We believe Ben’s addition to our team will lead to a significant improvement in the products we’re able to bring to market.

In a secret hangar in the middle of the desert, Todd Holzwarth is planning his attack. His secret weapon, a 2015 Jeep Grand Cherokee Altitude 4x4 with custom 4” lift, massive rubber, supercharged engine and more off-road gear than Arnold Schwarzenegger’s military Hummer.

The list of modifications and gear reads like a wish list for the average guy sitting in his garage staring at his stock WK2. If you're privileged to see Todd’s secret weapon up close, you immediately realise this build is not the typical trailer-queen-beauty-pageant-polish-off, it’s an internally combustible rock crawler with large rubber and real dirt under the frame.

We’ve enjoyed working with Todd to help create his secret weapon. His knack for creating slick off-road machines, immediately made us kindred spirits. We were there on day one, and we’ve just sent him new gear to help tackle his post SEMA blues.

See the secret weapon @ SEMA Booth #31171