Design collaboration, reuse and publishing technologies can give Australian manufacturers a competitive edge. Scott Frayne* reports.
INCREASINGLY, Australian manufacturers face getting buried by cut-rate manufacturers, making it difficult for engineers to create designs that can compete on cost or even time-to-market.
Success in the worldwide marketplace demands that designers and engineers excel at product innovation, creating better products faster and more cost-effectively.
This often means embracing new partnerships and collaborating with colleagues, engineers and vendors from across the globe.
Designers need to create partnerships that not only infuse new ideas into product development, but also take advantage of the design capabilities and manufacturing efficiencies that make today’s manufacturing environment so competitive.
They need to turn a global competitive threat into a product development advantage by leveraging design collaboration, design reuse and publishing technologies in order to design, engineer and manufacture products with greater innovation.
Collaboration breeds innovation
Working collaboratively on a global scale means design team members are often on the other side of the world. In order to collaborate across vast geographic distances, design teams need a common design data environment that is accessible to all partners.
The ability to share design information among team members regardless of their location, function or even the type of data they generate, is imperative for product developers who need create new products.
Providing a visual representation of product designs has become increasingly important for working with partners, suppliers and vendors on a global scale.
Tools like eDrawings, which deliver complete 2D drawings and 3D models with multiple views, geometry rotation and mark-up capabilities, can deliver design information in a format that can help engineers overcome language and data barriers.
Creating design reports automatically from analysis results is another way to communicate design information in a visual fashion.
Manufacturing collaboration
In addition to collaborating on product design, the global economy increasingly requires designers to work with overseas manufacturing vendors.
To do this, engineers can use a variety of tools for fostering good working relationships with partners and team members around the world, including:
Design checking tools to make sure drawings adhere to company or project standards
Design For Manufacture (DFM) tools to evaluate the manufacturability of machined parts
Draft analysis tools to check drafts, thicknesses and undercuts in cast and moulded parts
Sheetmetal design tools for ensuring that bend table information and flat patterns are correct
Analysis tools for automating tolerance stack-up analysis and resolving assembly fit issues
Dimension tools for automating the dimensioning and tolerancing of parts and eliminating manual detailing
Integrating mechanical and electrical design
Engineers can also facilitate global collaboration by using tools that integrate mechanical design (MCAD) and electronic design (ECAD).
Traditionally, mechanical and electronic engineers have worked separately in unique software applications, even on designs with both mechanical and electronic characteristics, such as printed circuit boards (PCBs). They have also had to work in an iterative, back-and-forth process to make sure that a PCB functions properly within the mechanical space allotted.
Engineers of both disciplines are now using integrated ECAD/MCAD design tools to access mechanical design geometry and electrical PCB design layouts within the same environment.
Having this integrated capability makes it faster and easier for engineers to complete mechanical/electronic product design because of improved visualisation of complex board shapes, better resolution of potential clearance issues and greater automation of mechanical/electronic geometry interaction.
Reusing design data to boost efficiency
Today’s competitive landscape places greater demands on engineers to be able to share, reconfigure and reuse existing designs to meet different market requirements.
Designers do not have as much freedom to innovate when they have to spend valuable time recreating designs that already exist. Instead of trying to ‘reinvent the wheel’, engineers who are part of global design teams need ready access to models of approved designs and standard parts, so they can focus the bulk of their efforts on the truly innovative aspects of their designs.
Design configuration capabilities enable engineers to create different configurations of an initial design by varying the values of dimensions or parameters to accommodate a range of capacities, lengths and weights.
This is known as Design Automation. Particularly advantageous for engineer-to-order operations, design automation enables engineers to capture all potential design possibilities so they can accurately create product designs and product variants by simply entering a set of design parameters.
Instead of creating each design individually, engineers can use this tool to generate the exact design for a certain set of requirements automatically.
Streamlining communication with design publishing tools
To maximise the value of 3D design data, engineers need to make that data accessible to the enterprise.
Fresh ideas that can mean product improvements often reside outside the design department, and an engineer’s ability to share, document and publish 3D design data in formats for personnel outside of product design can generate valuable input, additional efficiencies and competitive advantages.
The greater the number of functions that an engineer can efficiently support with CAD data, the more competitive the engineer and organisation will be. Design publishing technologies to increase this competitiveness include:
* Authoring software to create associated 2D and 3D product documentation
* Communications tools like eDrawings and Adobe 3D PDF to send compact 3D content via email
* Animation functionality to create animated movies to show how a product will move, perform, and operate
The increasingly competitive nature of the global marketplace presents design engineers and product developers with a slew of seemingly insurmountable challenges. However, by using design collaboration, reuse and publishing technologies to work and communicate more effectively with colleagues, partners, and vendors around the world, design engineers can transform competitive threats into competitive advantage.
* Scott Frayne is Managing Director of Intercad 02 9454 4444.
