Generative Mechanical Design: An Asset for Small & Medium-Sized Businesses
Fabrice Dreneau and Oliver Boces, Generative Design Specialists, Dassault Systemes

Reducing costs and times while improving quality are key concerns for most industries

These improvements are facilitated by many means: capitalizing and re-utilizing the know-how, formalizing as well as streamlining business rules and standards, being able to enforce business rules to all the staff members, automating the very repetitive design phases, managing evolutions in design. All these factors enable industry to act very early, at the design stage of a product, and to release time and margins in order to make the most of the innovation abilities.

These optimization routes become major assets for a company if they are based on the implementation of tools, but also methodologies which produce a rapid return on investment.

In particular significant gains can be obtained while achieving:

Design process optimization : products must be designed with the least customization possible, thereby avoiding having to re-invest entire parts. In addition, late modifications entail the design of new specific parts in order to meet specifications within the deadlines, whereas re-utilizing standard parts reduces the risk from the start.

Greater flexibility : companies must design increasingly complex products which meet standards that are constantly evolving, while delivering innovation and quality. To this end, they must be reactive while rapidly proposing to their clients the best price.

Collaborative work : coordination between the various specialists, each one in his own area, is crucial in order to deliver a product which meets the requirements. The various partners, in-house or outside, must speak the same language, exchange consistent data and be sure to be able to access the right information at the right time.

Lifecycle management : the design of a product must take into account its life duration and all the operations involving this product until it is out of service or recycled. The associated documents must also evolve with the various versions of the product. The more its content and processes are standardized, the easier the product will be to maintain and its maintenance cost reduced.

In order to facilitate these improvement routes, companies must set up and environment promoting innovation, which automates and secures the quality of tasks with small added value:

• First of all capitalizing and re-utilizing existing know-how, allowing to:
• Adapt quotations of new projects to those of previous achievements. Product design, resources, delivery times and initial costs are part of the parameters which can easily be taken into account to minimize risks and secure the margins on new projects.
• Analyze which part in a new project is innovation and which part, which is already known, is repetition. This optimizes design costs and times.
• Use the best methodology to design and manufacture the product, in order to do things properly at the first go and avoid repeating errors.
• Guide the company sales teams toward the most standardized and automated technology solutions in order to reduce costs and risks, and increase margins. The final objective is to sell products made of standard modules.
• Secondly, standardizing the functions and components throughout the company : This can represent sets of data describing sub-sets (3D geometry, 2D drawings, cabling diagrams, functional architecture, and component catalogues…), standard component bills of material, or any other recurrent information. This standardization, imposed by business rules incorporated in the system ensures that two different designers work toward one unique solution.

• Finally, capitalizing and deploying company rules , which will ensure, in particular, product traceability and compliance with standards: Spreading the business rules to all the partners of a project, while making them transparent since they are integrated into their working tool, is a key benefit compared to publishing “rule catalogues”.

These three factors, integrated into the traditional CAD working tool, ensure that the company designers are really focused on added value, which is an innovation factor, and allow the company to increase its competitiveness, issue patents, rapidly launch new products on the market, and secure its margins.

The Dassault Systemes Solution

Based on the CATIA functionalities, the Dassault Systemes Generative Mechanical Design offer integrates a logic layer above the parameter setting of the design data, which represents a true differentiator compared to the tools currently on the market. It allows the company to define the design rules, standardize the components, as well as capitalize the business rules.

Here are some examples of the benefits obtained using the CATIA V5 Generative Mechanical Design solution:

The rational of rule management controls the dimensional parameter setting:

• If a designer has to define the length of a given component, he does not design it manually: he specifies to the system the required length and the component is updated. If beyond a specific length, the business rules recommend the use of two welded parts instead of one, the system automatically generates these two welded parts (since the company only uses components with a limited length) and ensures that these parts are under constraint.
• Let us come back to the example of the conveyor belts illustrated above: the user’s only role is to specify the height of the conveyor belt. Based on this height, stability rules have been established, with an impact on the type of support used. By specifying the heights, CATIA V5 automatically selects and constrains the required type of support

The designer’s choices are guided by the following :

• With regard to the characteristics of the product capacity and adapted equipment will be proposed (such as a more powerful engine to lift a given load).

Maintenance constraints can be taken into account:

• A maximum number of components of a certain type can be imposed in a sub-set in order to make the maintenance easier (if specified in the client specifications).
• If the maintenance department capitalizes the references of faulty parts, the rules for choosing components, which are integrated at the level of the engineering department, can take into account these data in order to select higher quality components.

Implementation of the Solution

Whatever the company business and size, Dassault Systemes and its partners propose training sessions for the users, and the necessary methodology for implementation and optimal use of the modules of Generative Mechanical Design.

The implementation stages are as follows:

• Identification of the repetitive modules of the company. For example, a paper machine includes various modules such as the body head, the dryer, the layer (for some types of paper), and the coiler. Each module must always be adapted to the client’s need, which can be done entirely using the generative approach.
• Definition and capitalization of the design rules for these modules.
• Building of the generic module and integration of the design rules in CATIA V5.
• On site implementation
• Use by the engineering department.

Two modules of implementation are possible:

• The company defines and sets its design rules in the specifications. It does not need to modify them on the short term. The network of Dassault Systemes Business Partners provides the support for the implementation of the company design rules. In this case, the company only acquires the ‘Run” modules to use these knowledge rules.
• The company defines its own rules and wishes to see them evolve. It then acquires the “Build” modules to integrate these rules in its processes, and modify them on demand, as well as the “run” modules to use them.

This initial investment will rapidly be amortized, especially if its use is carefully prepared. Indeed, gains over 50% were measured in the design stages, after implementation of the business rules and methodologies by the company.

It has been noted that the project preparation time, if it is superior to the time of a simple 3D design, allows to reduce the design phase to less than 30% and the modification phase to 10% of the overall time, and to therefore to reduce by 50% the total time to carry out of the project.

In addition, in order to promote collaborative work and optimize the business processes, Dassault Systemes proposes the use of SMARTEAM, a Collaborative Product Data Management tool, which offers, in particular, functionalities of information and workflow management, a web interface, and also the management of bills of material and the automatic production of quotations.

SMARTEAM allows to share the rules and to ensure that the company processes are compiled with, as for example the validation stages of a project, or the proper use of the traceability rules established to meet the market standards.

Conclusion

Promoting innovation, reducing errors, increasing margins, winning market shares: all these are benefits which are rapidly acquired by Small and Medium-sized Businesses which have implemented the Dassault Systemes offer of Generative Mechanical Design, in sectors as varied as special machines, the design of PVC windows, tooling, or ventilation systems. Whatever the business processes or the company standards, Generative Design is a differentiator for companies wishing to go even further in their PLM efforts, in order to offer their clients the best products while remaining competitive.