Reduce manufacturing costs during the design phase!

There is a growing expectation for component manufacturers to create product designs in three dimensions. 3D CAD (computer-aided design) software is utilized by nearly every equipment manufacturer in nearly every industry. The 3D modeling software has cut testing and production times significantly, allowing simulated testing (such as FEA, finite-element analysis) and prototyping to occur virtually before physical development takes place.

Beyond the time it saves in prototyping multiple iterations of the same design, it saves on materials costs—no more wasted materials on two or three prototypes that weren’t quite right. Especially in today’s reduced-man-power economic climate, companies have had to do more with less. Time and cost savings are essential to keeping manufacturing companies profitable and progressive.

Dassault Systèmes SolidWorks Corp. (SolidWorks), Concord, MA, serves a user pool of over 1.5 million product designers and engineers worldwide with its 3D design software tools for design, simulation and product management. “It’s getting to the point where designers and engineers will only buy their off-the-shelf components from companies that also supply them with the products’ 3D CAD models. 3D models are that important now,” says Craig Therrien, Product Manager for SolidWorks.

Its latest announcement, the new SolidWorks 2012 with industry-first automated cost estimation feature, takes the benefits of 3D design one step further, allowing more manufacturing cost and time savings during the design process.

Reducing costs with 3D CAD design

When people are quoting on a job, “they are often not quoting, but responding to what they will provide in order to hit a particular price target,” explains Therrien. “Companies have to reduce cost, and the cost of manufacturing their products is a key area they are targeting.” Setting cost targets to hit instead of asking how much it will cost to produce a design is a method cost conscious companies are using to ensure cost targets that are set early on in a project are carried through to the final manufactured product.

Of the many advantages of 3D CAD, the first is the ability to more clearly visualize and communicate design ideas with customers, colleagues and manufacturing. 3D provides a realistic and interactive design experience that cannot be achieved with a 2D drawing.

Using 3D software, a designer can also automatically check and fix interferences and collisions between components in the design before it goes to manufacturing.

The ability to virtually prototype a product in action, subjecting the design to the forces and motions it would experience in real life, reduces or even eliminates the need to create physical prototypes. “Simulation equals cost savings,” Therrien says.

Virtual prototyping, is a trend that grows approximately 10 to 15% per year as shown in sales of simulation software. Even during the recession in 2009, sales of SolidWorks simulation software maintained its 2008 numbers, inferring that people were using virtual prototyping because they could not afford to make physical prototypes.

With 3D design software, designers can create production quality drawings in which all of the drawing views are correct and in-synch with the 3D design model. “You never have to worry about drawing views that are incorrect, and the scale is always accurate,” says Therrien.

Another advantage is the ability to automate your design processes and improve standardization and reuse of existing components. SolidWorks does more than just simulate a design; it allows designers and engineers to create multiple design configurations quickly. The designer can go into a design and vary any dimensional parameter or feature. “You can make as many iterations as you want off of one model, you don’t have to remodel it,” confirms Therrien.