CATIA V5 & CAE the Road to Productivity

Robert J. Telmos, Product Design Manager, Schefenacker® Vision Systems, USA Inc.

CAD / CAE History:
CAD technologies have progressed in very dramatic ways over the last several decades. First we had 2D only systems, then the introduction of 3D Surface and Wireframe. Followed by the quantum lead of Parametric Solids. These advances have had great affects on how we do our jobs and the level of productivity that we have enjoyed.

Dassault Systèmes CATIA V5 promises to bring us to the next level. With the full implementation of CATIA V5. Your Core Competency CAD system can now be an intelligent tool that will capture your organization's Knowledge Base and communicate this knowledge through the entire Product Life Cycle. How will your organization get there and how will you know that you have arrived?

The first step is an honest evaluation of your current capabilities and assessment of where you need to be. Then you must decide if you are going to just introduce another CAD system into you environment or are you going take full advantage of the tools that CATIA V5 offers?

Evaluation and Assessment:
Many Product Design organizations are Multi-CAD environments. These environments are in most cases dictated by the organizations customer's base. Having a Multi-CAD environment can restrict efficiency's and knowledge sharing opportunities. The common symptoms are...

• High volume of design changes during the product development, construction of production tooling and through the Product Life Management.
• Continued struggle's to contain program dates.
• Countless number of CAD and Engineering hours spent on redundant task or "re-inventing the wheel" and insufficient time spent on "Engineering the Product".
• Core company knowledge isolated and not shared between CAD system groups and or customer based design teams.
• CAE tools not being utilized early in the design cycle, resulting in after the fact or not at all usage.
• Difficulty balancing workload and resources between different CAD system groups.

Have a clear direction with measurable goals:
One cannot know if they have succeeded and accomplished their goals if they do not know where they are going. The key to this is clear communication of goals and objectives to all team members. All members must have a clear understanding why and how they are to get there. In order to accomplish this, one must make the decision to move forward and be prepared to leverage the resources that are available both internally and externally. This leveraging of internal and external resources will become one of the easiest returns on investment that any organization can make.

CATIA V5 Design Methodology:
CATIA V5 is based on the concept of Contextual Design and Multi-Model Geometric Linking. This functionality is at the core of the design process and will produce many benefits such as automatic updating of related geometry within a give product assembly.

The concept of Concentric Product Design utilizing a centralized Data "Layout Model" allows for the storage and management of all Layout information that the entire product design will then be based upon.

CATIA V5 Knowledge Based Functionality:
The advanced functions within CATIA V5 such as Power Copy, Design Tables and Parameters are the key to capturing your organizations Knowledge Base. These functions can also have the largest effect in the reduction of Design and Engineering hours along with the elimination of downstream changes. This is accomplished by the embedding of Knowledge into Smart Geometry that is re-used for each design as required.

Design Tables control imbedded knowledge within the geometry such as Material, Geometric Configurations, Manufacturing and Assembly Process and interaction to mating parts.

CATIA V5 interaction with other Microsoft Office Programs:
The ability to interact with and utilize the function of Microsoft Word and Excel can greatly increase the creation of Drawings. CATIA V5 has the ability to Insert, Copy and Paste pictures, and full Microsoft file information. This functionality greatly increases the ability to produce drawings in a timely manor, along with providing the ability to use documents that can be linked and used by other Non-CAD users.

CAE Tool Integration CATIA V5 and Other Third Party Software:
Dassault Systèmes offers a large selection of fully integrated CATIA V5 CEA tools. The ability to utilize these tools at the earliest point within the design cycle greatly influences the design. This early integration has literally changed the way we design and has proven that many of our preconceived ideas were based on "That is how we always did it".

The time savings realized by CATIA V5 also allows for the earliest possible integration of the many other CAE tools available in the Market place.

CATIA V5 Return on Investment:
What is the ROI that you can experience, where are the greatest savings that you will see? Many people look at the reduction of "Design Hours" as the targeted goal. Although this is a very realistic objective that will be achieved, it will be overshadowed by the larger gains in corporate profitability. This gain in profitability will be realized by the total "Engineering" of the product by full integration of all tools including CAD, CAE, CAM and PLM. Savings will include Tooling Change Reduction, Material Usage Reduction, Cycle Time Reduction, Product Quality and Performance optimization etc...

The Bottom Line:
CATIA V5 has proven to be a pillar in Schefenacker Corporate Statement "Product Quality through Engineering Excellence". In a time period of about 15 months Schefenacker has implemented CATIA V5 as it Core Competency CAD system. 100% of all new product design is now done using CATIA V5. The real question that you must ask is "Can we afford to not move to CATIA V5"?

Schefenacker Vision Systems is a Tier 1 Global Supplier of Automotive Rear Vision Systems, Lighting Systems and Sound System's. SVS USA supplies all Major Automotive Company's worldwide. Schefenacker USA is based out of Marysville Michigan and can be reached at (810) 364-4141.