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Productivity through Automation

From CAD User Mechanical Magazine Vol 22 No 4 - APRIL/MAY 2009

Maria Sarkar, co-founder and VP of DriveWorks, explains why rules based design could be the difference between survival and financial ruin

The general consensus is that many companies have invested in 3D CAD tools … but the question is whether companies are really making the most of these tools - particularly now that productivity and competitive advantage could be the difference between survival or financial ruin. To help them, they may be delighted to know that there is a hidden powerful productivity tool already inside every seat of SolidWorks - DriveWorksXpress.

Many of the manufacturing companies I meet on my travels acknowledge that the orders they are often asked to quote for are based on 'something that they have designed and delivered before.' For

example a lifting equipment manufacturer may offer a range of gantry cranes. The

customer will provide details of the load to be lifted together with some overall dimensions so that the crane can be accommodated into a production line. They will not know or care, however, how that crane is designed. The customer is only interested in a crane to meet his requirements.

On the other hand the design engineer will know 'the rules' that apply in the design and manufacture of the crane. He will know that as soon as the load to be lifted goes above a certain weight that a different box section is required, or that as soon as the opening height goes above a certain width the design of the crane will need to incorporate an additional inner support.

What he needs to assist him in making the right decisions, though, is a software tool that also understands the rules behind the design. If it does, it is also capable of automating the design process and minimizing the risk of producing faulty or inadequate designs. Such a product is DriveWorksXpress, which, although capable of handling complex designs and assemblies, is powerful through its simplicity.

No matter what product the engineer is designing, elements of it can be defined by a set of rules. DriveWorksXpress allows engineers to set up simple forms where they can enter the requirements of their new crane, their new door, their new cylinder or whatever component or product they need to create a variation of. Then, behind the scenes

DriveWorksXpress instructs SolidWorks how to drive the new variation. The new outputs are the drawings and 3D models for the new parts and assemblies. The absolute beauty of it is that the outputs are all created automatically, based on the rules that the engineer has already put into DriveWorksXpress.

LEARNING DESIGN AUTOMATION

For such a useful tool, seeing is believing. To demonstrate how easy DriveWorksXpress is to use, the folks at DriveWorks have set up a website where you can watch videos showing how DriveWorksXpress working. You can also download Tutorials AND completed DriveWorksXpress projects - currently 12 of them, with Datasets for Hydraulic Cylinders, a Wheelchair, Power Pack, Door and Frame, Cupboard and so on which can all be run in SolidWorks 2008 or 2009. Play around with them, and see how many variants you can produce from one design! There is also a Tutorial built into SolidWorks which goes through the Mobile Gantry example and takes about 45 minutes to run through from start to finish: www.driveworksxpress.com

LET'S GET SERIOUS ABOUT RULES

Obviously, a critical part of the process is the initial setting up of the rules around which the designs are based. The mere mention of these 'rules' may send some people scurrying into corners but not so with DriveWorksXpress, where rules are built using Excel expressionsyntax.

To provide a simple example - to build a rule for the case length of our hydraulic cylinder - the rule could be expressed as 'The value entered on the form for the Stroke in Inches, plus 3 inches and 2 x

1.5 inches for the thickness of each of the end caps'. (see diagram below)

THE LITTLE BOOK OF RULES

To help people understand rules better, Ian Yates of DriveWorks has even written a handy pocket guide to building rules in DriveWorksXpress and the full DriveWorks product. Details of how to obtain a copy are on the DriveWorks website. www.driveworks.co.uk

WHAT MORE CAN I DO?

Finally, for anyone wanting to find out what the full product can do, simply check out the “What more can I do” pages of www.driveworksxpress.com, where you can watch videos showing some of the most commonly used functionality such as Custom Designed Forms, Working with Data, Controlling Drawings, Generating Documents (for

use as quotation etc.) and working with multiple assemblies.

PRODUCTIVITY THROUGH AUTOMATION

How does 'rules-based design' aid productivity and competitiveness, though? Automating the design process of product variants is a huge benefit to the manufacture. Not only does it relieve the design engineer of repetitive tasks that can as easily be completed by less skilled staff - including sales representatives! - but it speeds up the design process dramatically, enables the manufacturer to respond more quickly to customers requests, and provides instant costs and quotations for new products.

In short, the manufacturer becomes far more proactive towards his customers, and better informed about the cost consequences of any new design.

www.driveworks.co.uk

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