The paper addresses the complexities for a reliable numerical simulation of the roll forming process. During the process, the material is progressively bent accumulating plastic deformation at each forming step. Strain hardening limits the material formability and may causes flaws of the final shape. A simplified method for the FEM modeling of the process has been developed introducing a narrow-strip 3D model. This approach leads better performance than the classical modeling method, in terms of results reliability and low computational time. In order to verify the proposed model, an experimental campaign of testing, for a specific roll forming production process, was carried out. On the quasi-static regime, the post necking behavior of the sheet metal was characterized. The Vickers hardness and the plastic strain of uniaxial tests were empirically correlated. By the hardness correlation, the plastic strain accumulated at different stages of the process was evaluated and compared with the numerical results. Further possible improvements of the method are highlighted.