Machinery Production Design’s Demanding Workflow
Not all 3D mechanical engineering design problems are the same. Machinery production design projects have unique, demanding workflows. Conceptual designs require a flexible, fast system that doesn’t get in the way of the creative process. Detailed designs of production lines become immensely large projects quickly. Design verification requires the ability to run simulations on the entire factory design. And once in production, engineers may need to capture live data from production line processes and compare that to a simulation of the factory behavior directly in the design tool.
General-purpose mechanical CAD tools are not able to handle this range of design workflow needs in a single program. As a result, designers find themselves jumping from one tool to another, managing more design assets, and struggling with cross-tool data-exchange. The imposition of multiple tools, along with the corresponding restraints on the design process, hampers design effectiveness and slows the creative engineering process.
A more natural solution for the machinery production engineer is an integrated design environment that delivers the design an engineering capabilities specific to machinery production projects – when and how the engineer requires it. An ideal design environment includes a flexible conceptual design environment, a capable detailed design environment, an integrated set of analysis tools, and a high-performance CAD engine for working with extremely complex models.
Effective Conceptual Design
Every project can begin differently. One project may begin with a completely clean slate, a brand-new design. Another project might have an existing 2D diagram for the production line layout or 2D drawings for 3D parts required in the design.
Engineers in machinery production design need the ability to work effectively with both 2D and 3D design data. Establishing an effective layout is critical and this often involves a process of trial-and-error.
A key ability is to work rapidly with few constraints on the designer so that the engineer can create and explore different design options. Engineers need the ability to create only the level of detail needed and refine it progressively. Designers need the ability to work in rapid, iterative cycles. Flexibility and easy editing are critical requirements early in the design cycle.
Large-scale designs
Machinery production designs rapidly become immense designs. A single production line may well contain 10s of thousands of parts. Factory production systems may consist of 100s of thousands of parts. Design tools need to manipulate these large data sets efficiently.
As projects progress, an effective design structure permits teams to work efficiently together on individual assemblies. None-the-less, engineers need to integrate, manipulate, and verify all of the components that, together, represent an entire production process.
Such a specialized requirement for machinery production design means that engineers are often opening, editing, running simulations, and saving design files consisting of 10s of thousands of parts. An efficient design environment must manage large datasets with ease.
Performance Throughout
Machinery production design routinely requires examining, editing, and simulating complex designs from individual assembly modules, to full production lines, to entire production facilities.
High-performance counts when design verification must be done on projects with 100s of thousands of parts. Performance counts when routing hundreds of cables through the assembly line. Performance counts when checking interference on an entire production line. Performance counts even when simply opening and saving large design files.
While general-purpose mechanical design tools allow designers to structure projects well, the most popular mechanical design programs simply cannot efficiently manage the massive data sets required in machinery production design.
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