Pogostik Goes Hybrid
by Alexander Görg, Manager, Engineering and Development
MVS Dynalink Europe GmbH
posted: February/March 2007

Pogostiks are very well known in the linkage and suspension business group of MVS. They are used as linkages between the stabilizer bar and the lower control arms.

Now, the family of Pogostiks has a new baby that we would like to grow. The new invention focused on the grommet design, but other design items also had to be changed. The grommet usually is an injection molded component, using a single, homogeneous material compound. The new style will get produced as a multiple layer compound grommet: the hybrid design grommet.

The hybrid design grommet was brainstormed when the Pogostik was analysed in order to identify cost reduction potentials. During one of those activities, questions arose: “Why do we want to make it cheaper? Why don’t we improve it, add some value for the customer and sell it for more instead?” These questions changed the program’s strategy from “Reduce costs!” into “Add value!”

Customers appreciated MVS Dynalink taking the initiative and, in followup meetings, they specified performance targets for the new type of Pogostik. Unexpectedly, the major customer of MVS Dynalink in Europe asked for a stiffer Pogostik—rather than improving the bending moments, which were always rated negatively by the customer’s test drivers in past ride evaluations. Finally, engineers had made up their minds and gave that development its direction.

With some support from our suppliers and synergistic effects inside MVS—
I want to thank Mike Coyle from Polymer for his great help – we made it happen. The first prototypes built exactly matched the customer’s expectations.

This new technology can now be applied to every Pogostik and Combo Link project that MVS Dynalink currently supplies. Just for MVS Dynalink in Europe, this could mean that more than 5,000,000 grommets with the value-added Hybrid Technology can be sold to current customers—and the number of applications continues to grow!