The Next Iteration of Prototyping is Digital
New design and engineering systems slash costs and improve time-to-market.
In today’s world of highly complex products, prototypes play a critical role in manufacturing. Unfortunately, iterative physical prototyping can get expensive quickly—even with new 3D printing technologies. A smart alternative that many manufacturers are starting to use is digital prototyping. Today’s design engineering software reduces or can even eliminate the need for solid models by using powerful software to create and test the product virtually. Despite the growing demand for more complex products, digital prototyping technologies are helping manufacturing customers meet launch, revenue, cost and quality targets—all within budget.
Using products like Autodesk Inventor in combination with data management software such as Vault and Productstream enables complex products with thousands of components to be prototyped and communicated more effectively to other engineers, customers, suppliers and other stakeholders down the design chain. Aberdeen Research’s Digital Product Development Benchmark Report, published in Spring 2007, indicates that best-in-class manufacturers use digital prototyping to cut the number of prototypes they make in half while driving product innovation.
Reducing Time-to-Market
It’s not a question of if, but when. In companies that implement a
digital prototyping solution, time-to-market is dramatically reduced in
four significant ways. First, the management of engineering drawings is
often spreadsheet-based. Evolving from spreadsheets to a data
management system enables companies to more accurately keep track of
parts, assemblies, versions and change orders. People tasked with
working with this data can find and reuse designs far more efficiently
and significantly reduce errors.
Second, 3D modeling software enables engineers to cut infinite cross sections and animate the movement of parts. This lets engineering look inside every aspect of a product, removing potential interferences that in a physical model might be hidden due to limited visual access to all angles. Moreover, anyone can easily view where moving parts may clash during operation.
Third, by designing a model stored in a database with detailed materials information, engineering teams can perform finite element analyses by “round-tripping” the model from the design software to testing software. This means no time-consuming “translation” or error-prone re-entry of data from one program to the next. Similarly, electrical designers can test their designs right in the model.
Finally, the combination of the right technologies enables increased collaboration down the manufacturing chain, from concept to shop floor. Now, meetings at the concept stage can include all the collaborative players, making it easier to determine manufacturability early on.
While digital prototyping is not likely going to completely replace physical prototyping, companies across a variety of industries are leveraging this new technology to help create a sustainable competitive advantage.
More and more companies that have implemented 3D and data management systems do more with fewer resources, increase product quality, and meet ever-decreasing time-to-market deadlines.
Prototyping to the Rescue at SVI Trucks
At SVI Trucks (Loveland, CO)—a manufacturer of specialized fire, police
and multi-use emergency vehicles—Engineering Manager Dave Sargent
implemented 3D design software and digital prototyping in the hopes of
reducing late-stage design clashes. One of the challenges the company
experienced working with 2D design software was that they would run
into interferences when placing sophisticated equipment into very tight
spaces. It was just too difficult for engineers to see in 2D how
complex components would actually fit together. Not catching every
detail meant that they might have to rework a truck body during the
assembly process, which was costly to the company and delayed customer
delivery time.
Every truck is unique and complex. Each requires significant engineering effort to ensure that specialized equipment fits in the appropriate space to facilitate safety and ease of use for its operators. Trucks might carry many sophisticated pieces of equipment including air compressors, ladders, Jaws of Life, medical equipment and pumps to name a few common pieces. Each vehicle body is then custom-fabricated to house specific equipment.
“There’s no such thing as a stock truck coming off a production line here at SVI,” says Sargent. “While we might base a new vehicle on a design from a previously built truck, many modifications will take place. It’s all custom engineering and manufacturing work. We use the 3D software to create many prototypes as we work toward a final design.”
The process of designing and building a custom truck takes approximately one year from the signing of a deal to final delivery. Time-to-delivery with improved quality and value to customers were driving issues for SVI. SVI has made 3D models for almost every common component they place into a truck, which means SVI can detect interferences as they occur in the design phase, rather than further on in the process. When something doesn’t fit, it’s back to another prototype. Digital truck prototypes can be viewed in infinite cross-sections, enabling SVI’s customers to provide much better feedback on placement decisions for maximum efficiency.
As is typical of many companies, after using Autodesk Inventor for a couple of years, Sargent implemented Autodesk Vault, a data management system that works seamlessly with Inventor. With Vault, engineers could more easily manage and copy design functionality. Vault organizes drawing and design data and stores master assembly information for each custom truck built. “We have created general designs from which we can start each new project,” says Sargent. “This means we can create a new design from the base design and around half of the annotation work has already been done, saving us hours of manual work. The bottom line is that our customers receive better value and we are more efficient.”
For manufacturers designing complex products containing thousands of parts, digital prototyping will become a standard methodology because of the multiple benefits. Not only does the new process increase accuracy and product quality in a shorter period of time, but it also means that the days of the disconnect between engineering and the shop floor due to the lack of sharable information are coming to an end. The future is digital, and that future promotes innovation, efficiency and reducing time-to-market by improving visualization, promoting collaboration and encouraging design reuse.
Scott Hale is vice president of Manufacturing Solutions at Avatech Solutions, Inc. with headquarters in Owings Mills, MD and offices across the U.S. Avatech’s Manufacturing Solutions Group helps companies gain a competitive advantage and improve profitability by delivering technology and processes that reduce time to market and increase product quality. Scott can be reached at www.avatech.com.
