DESIGN SOFTWARE | M ODEL-BASED DEFINITION
PRODUCTION
COSTS
INCREASED
Industry
As industry
gears towards
standardisation, more
companies insist on
having production
data in 3D and are
beginning to see design
communication in 2D
surveys show
that up to a third
of the total budget
of a project is
dedicated to creating
and maintaining 2D
drawings. Additionally,
companies spend heavily on
printing and plotting work as well as
towards the logistics. All these factors
contribute to inflating production
costs.
INDUSTRY STANDARDS
As industry gears towards
standardisation, more companies
insist on having production data in
3D and are beginning to see design
communication in 2D as a burden.
This is a tectonic shift for companies
who have relied on 2D for decades
and now have to accept the novel
technique of MBD.
QUALITY ISSUES
The conversion from 3D models
to 2D drawings makes way for a
significant loss/misinterpretation of
data. Thus, production drawings are
often incoherent, faulty and lead to
manufacturing failures. According
to studies, the likelihood of such a
scenario is as much as 60%. This
creates an enormous amount of quality
issues and can result in rising costs.
USHA as a burden
TRIVEDI
Usha Trivedi is
an engineer
at Hitech CADD
Services
On taking a closer look at these
shortcomings, engineers at Dassault
Systemes, identified conversion from
3D models to 2D drawings as the most
recurrent factor
hampering
the overall
manufacturing
project
productivity. So,
they developed
MBD, a Drawingless
Communication
Solution that eliminates
the requirement of
converting 3D to 2D and instead
communicates all the product and
manufacturing information (PMI)
within the 3D model itself.
Drawing-less communication
creates a single source of truth for all
design and manufacturing related
information in one 3D annotated
model. It can, thus, establish an errorfree
communication channel thereby
saving time, costs and resources.
Here are some of the ways
SolidWorks MBD can help your
organisation:
ACCURATELY
DENOTE 3D DATA
In order to avoid any time delays, cost
inflation, and eliminate any quality
issues, SolidWorks MBD focuses on
how the designers and manufacturers
can accurately make sense of a vast
mesh of 3D data available in the model.
For this, the tool has the capability
to show and hide the annotations
while rotating the model. This gives
the viewer enhanced clarity about
the product while also displaying all
the critical-to-function annotations,
like DimXpert, reference dimensions
and GD&T values for the respective
components. !
CASE STUDY 2
A leading custom furniture and display
systems manufacturer based in Brazil
faced issues to speed development
cycles of custom furniture and
merchandising displays for stores,
restaurants, and other businesses
while keeping the product quality
intact.
The manufacturer adopted MBD
and integrated the SolidWorks API
with its ERP, to effectively develop a
seamless transfer of PMI from its 3D
models to ERP systems.
This enabled it to automate
production by auto extraction of
BOMs, geometry and dimensioning,
material information from SolidWorks
eDrawings files, and complete disposal
of time and efforts needed for creation
of 2D drawings.
RESULTS
■ Increase in the time-to-market
by 50%
■ Reduction in design cycles
by 30%
■ Decrease in scrap and rework
by 50%
■ Development costs reduced
by 20%
COMPLETE COMPLIANCE
By employing MBD, companies can
consistently manufacture products
that comply with all the commonly
prescribed industry standards like MILSTD
31000A, ASME Y14.41, ISO 16792,
DIN ISO 16792, and GB/T 24734. This
not only helps them gain a significant
edge over their competition, but also
makes it possible to deliver within the
stipulated time frames.
CONCLUSION
Although the industry has always
been fiercely competitive, there has
been a substantial increase in just
how fierce it has become. Companies
are arming themselves with newer,
more advanced communication tools
that enable them to take on their
competition all guns blazing.
In a scenario like this, a technology
like MBD that ticks all the boxes is a
huge asset for any engineering design
and manufacturing firm.
20 WWW.EUREKAMAGAZINE.CO.UK | APRIL 2020
/WWW.EUREKAMAGAZINE.CO.UK