+ 0 - 1 | § ¶Interactive 3D Publishing
With 3D CAD solid modelling becoming the norm in product design, many companies use 3D views of parts and products on drawings, build documents, instruction manuals, purchasing specifications and so on, as a means to aid communication and understanding. However, until now, these images have been restricted to dumb views on the original CAD model data. If you wanted to pan, spin or zoom the model, you pretty much had to have access to the digital source data - either directly in the CAD system, or by secure log-in to a PDM system. Most companies choose to restict this kind of access to trusted parties.
Recently however several 3D Publishing software packages have become available. With these packages you can embed an interactive 3D model within a self contained text document, or web page. This means that 3D data can be accessed by customers, suppliers, service engineers, remote assembly workers, installers etc. without them having to access your native system. This gives readers the ability to interact with richer product data without them having access to source information that could be commercially sensitive.
As reported on World CAD Access one such software company is QuadriSpace. Using their software, you import native 3D models, parts lists and metadata, create documents, and then output them to .pdf files. These documents can then be viewed with Acrobat Reader (you need version 7.0 to view the interactive 3D content). The website has some nice video tutorials that give you a flavour for the potential applications, and you can also download free trial software.
+ 1 - 0 | § ¶Investing in Project Portfolios
If you have any money invested in stocks and shares, the chances are you will have some idea of what it is like to manage a portfolio. You will probably have some basic risk strategy in mind for your total investment, for example: 30% in a high interest bearing account, 60% invested in safe-bet, regular dividend companies, and 10% in spectacular high growth sectors. You will most likely monitor your portfolio’s performance over time, both of the individual companies and of your portfolio as a whole. You don’t want the portfolio balance to become out of kilter with your risk strategy.
Manufacturing businesses make exactly the same sorts of investment decisions on a daily or weekly basis, but instead of investing in securities, they are investing in projects. Whereas most of these companies will have some kind of reporting method where managers can look at all of the projects on the go at any one time, and show how each is progressing, what often surprises me is how few companies analyse the effect that each project has on the portfolio as a whole.
As an illustration, do any of these situations seem familiar? A Product Manager does some research and calculates that if we were to offer our product with wheels on it, we could capture an additional 5% market share in Australia. A customer calls and says she would like to order 10,000 units a year if we can make it in blue and put her company logo on the front. The Manufacturing Manager says we could save £50K a year if we can reduce the number of fasteners on a particular product by 20%.
+ 0 - 1 | § ¶Using Blogs and Wikis to Promote Innovation
Innovative products and processes are rarely the result of only one person’s labours. Such is the complexity of modern business that it takes a team of people to turn an idea into reality. This means that interaction with colleagues and partners is a necessity for most innovations to become successful.
At Swim, we look at innovation as a system. In our Innovation System, we see that in three of the six system elements, Reflect, Create and Exploit, social interaction is critical to success. In the Reflect stage, social interaction uncovers opportunities ripe for innovative solutions. In the Create stage, potential solutions need to be interactively discussed, and ideas built-on collaboratively. In the Exploit stage project teams need to work together quickly and efficiently to develop ideas into tangible solutions.
Close-nit or co-located project teams can communicate and interact in ad-hoc situations or formal meetings. However, often teams are not close-nit or co-located. Also, during the Reflect and Create stages, there may not even be a formal team in place – just a collection of individuals interested in a certain topic area. This is where Blogs and Wikis come into their own.
As you are reading this, I assume you know what a Blog is – essentially a way of publishing information and inviting comments. A Wiki is something slightly different. In essence, it is a ‘location’ (Internet or Intranet site) where multiple users can collaboratively work on a single idea, theme or document. Each person builds on, or corrects the work of the other collaborators.
So – when would we use a Blog and when would we use a Wiki? (more)
+ 1 - 0 | § ¶Scanning the Shuttle for Safety
Those who followed the news reports of the recent shuttle mission and its (thankfully) safe return to earth will know all about foam insulation damage, space walks, ‘gap fillers’ and the tense discussions about the re-entry.
What is not so well known is the work that the NASA engineers had already planned to carry out while the shuttle was in space to analyse the effects of potential take-off damage to the vehicle.
The shuttle’s robot arm was equipped with a 3D scanner that was to be used to check any damage to the heat shield, and send the digital representation of the surface back to NASA. Engineers would then use reverse engineering software (from Geomagic) to construct a digital surface model. This surface model would then be used to create toolpaths from which accurate machined models of the potentially damaged surface would be produced. These models could then be tested to represent re-entry conditions to establish whether safety repairs in space would be needed.
According to this news item, the target turnaround time to complete the testing was 18-20 hours from receiving the scanned data. Given that we know there was in fact a space walk to remove the ‘gap fillers’, one can assume that the scan and test exercise was carried out successfully, and that tests showed enough cause for concern that NASA felt it was worth carrying out in-flight repairs.
This is a great example of end-to-end collaborative processes and integrated technologies in action to solve critical problems quickly. It shows what can be done if we pay attention to the details without losing sight of the larger problem.
+ 0 - 1 | § ¶Going Digital
We are doing some work at the moment for a client who designs and manufactures very complex electro-mechanical systems. They are doing some great things with their CAE tools – for example all design work is done in 3D solids, they create full digital mock-ups to represent the complete product, Finite Element stress analysis uses the native CAD geometry, and their production planners create assembly instructions using exploded views directly from the CAD mock-ups.
However, despite this, their design approval and release processes are still based around a paper drawing. The paper drawing is considered to be the ‘master representation’ of design information. This philosophy persists even though everyone in the design chain now has access to the original digital data.
Fortunately the company in question has realised that there should be a change in emphasis. We are working with them to put in place effective control and release processes for the original digital files. With the new processes, the digital data will be considered to be the ‘master’. Drawings will still be used as they present a useful ‘view’ on the product for those times when design engineers, manufacturing engineers, suppliers and customers do not have access to the digital data. Drawings can also provide additional information that is not so easily embedded in CAD models. However paper drawings will be considered as containing derivative information rather than a master representation.
This change in emphasis may seem to be merely semantics, but the more people rely on digital data for downstream tasks in product development, the more important it is for that data to be correct and consistent. This means adapting old processes so that controls and rigour in product definition are applied at the right point – at the digital source.