Design Automation is Making Engineer-to-Order Manufacturing More Efficient

While design automation software like SolidWorks has been making product design tremendously more efficient for some time now, the technology continues to evolve, introducing exciting design process improvements. For manufacturers of complex engineer-to-order products, like Granco Clark, the relatively recent integration of DriveWorks technology embedded into the latest versions of SolidWorks has been a particularly significant enhancement—generating new design efficiencies and greatly reducing lead times.

At the SolidWorks 2009 conference in Orlando earlier this year, Granco Clark design engineer Nick Benner shared insight into the process of implementing an effective DriveWorks automated design system and the benefits derived from the technology for companies (and their customers) that build engineer-to-order products. In his presentation, Design Automation for Today and the Future: A DriveWorks Story, he draws upon our DesignWorks experience, with advice for thorough planning prior to implementation, phasing in the technology, and starting with smaller pilot projects.

Although aluminum extrusion systems equipment often shares common components, there are inevitably variations and custom specifications for many installations. Proprietary processes, unique system sizes and configurations, varying profile specifications, physical plant layout and many other considerations all factor into custom, engineer-to-order product design specifications. With new DriveWorks technology, administrators (experienced engineers comparable to your CAD/CAM users in a manufacturing environment) capture design knowledge, rules, experiences, data and documentation as they design and customize aluminum extrusion equipment. Automated access to this knowledge base and rules allows us to retrieve and re-use retained knowledge to create new and variant designs quickly and efficiently. It also ensures end users (comparable to CNC operators) who initiate programming, load materials, and other product requirements for manufacturing equipment are networked in and on the same page with engineering to ensure accurate inputs.

At Granco Clark, we’re using DriveWorks to automate many of the repetitive design engineering tasks. Our engineers easily and quickly retrieve relevant 3D models, manufacturing drawings, specification documentation, purchase requisitions, bill of materials, etc. from previous designs to specify and design a similar, custom application for a new installation. “Using knowledge and data gathered from previous designs is of course, logical. What’s remarkable here is how easily this information is accessed and how quickly DesignWorks can sort through thousand of bits of information to provide data relevant to the project. DesignWorks has streamlined the design process, reducing costs and cutting months off our order to installation and commissioning timelines,” says Benner. It varies by technology and complexity of each installation, but DesignWorks' efficiencies can significantly reduce lead times.