Controlling change

Companies at the sharp end of engineering production and development are increasingly realising that they need to adopt PLM (product lifecycle management) concepts and software tools, if they're to survive and prosper. Some are also finding that adopting newer techniques and technologies associated with PLM is creating new business streams. So it makes sense to take a look at what they're doing and to get a feel for the scale of support they're receiving from the IT community. Motorsport - from the multi-million pound Formula 1 teams to enthusiastic amateurs - are among leading adopters. Triple Eight Race Engineering, for example, which designs, builds and races Super Touring Vectras on behalf of Vauxhall motors for the British Touring Car Championship, was spurred on to its latest PLM foray when the race regulations changed for the 2007 season. That meant a complete redesign of the cars - something the company describes as "quite a challenge", but ably assisted by moving from Autodesk Mechanical Desktop up to Inventor and Productstream, effectively Autodesk's main PLM tool. Says technical director Kevin Berry: "We were recreating data several times throughout the design and production process, and this was jeopardising deadlines. We did a review process with Autodesk and they recommended Productstream." Better versioning And the result: "This ensures that only one person can take out a part to modify it, and has taken control of our BoMs [bills of materials]. Previously, we were using a separate piece of software to generate part numbers and Excel for BoMs, recreating data." As for getting quick access to data from the track, the company is implementing Autodesk's Productstream web client, with all data stored at Banbury, and access by satellite link. Another Autodesk user, albeit not directly for PLM, is Autoflame in south east London, which this year won a third Queen's Award for Innovation for its Mark 6 Evolution burner management system with water level control for industrial boilers. Managing director Brendan Kemp says his firm uses Autodesk Inventor for CAD, with a proprietary database based on Microsoft Access to manage version control for CAD data and production. Says Kemp: "Access is a terrific tool for a small- or medium-sized company. We have looked at other systems, but some are so complicated, we would have to hire somebody special to drive them. The least gifted person should be able to use this." Many businesses seem to adopt this approach for their PLM-like tools, and are able to work more collaboratively with others as a result. Banbury-based composites design and manufacturing firm Crompton Technology Group is another example. The company works in the aerospace, medical imaging, motorsport and subsea arenas, and its main CAD is Solid Edge. However, like Autoflame, it uses an in-house system to manage engineering data - although it is evaluating PLM and manufacturing data is managed by SAP. That clearly works well. Mike Dewhirst, engineering director, says: "We spend a lot of time on our business and quality processes so we can work with large companies. We want their auditors to find we have all the systems they would expect of a big company." Notable among those that have found it wise to invest in big-ticket PLM is Cosworth - in this case, not one system, but several. Sales and marketing manager Charles Adams explains that the organisation uses Unigraphics PLM under NX2 CAD/CAM on the engineering side, as well as EMC Documentum eRoom, to facilitate collaboration in its supply chain, integrated with mySAP ERP. Whether we should strictly call those suites PLM or not, the company has invested heavily in software to deal with its data management requirements. As Adams says: "The reason has been to do with our diversification strategy to find markets where Cosworth capabilities are appreciated. We have just got a contract with Lycoming, for example, to make forged aero engine pistons worth 20 million dollars and we remain heavily involved in manufacturing components for Formula 1." Key to all of this, however, is making sure the geometry and BoMs are in a computer system and ensuring that what is there is correct. Sometimes that means doing things a little differently, and CAD add-ons can make a difference. Dr Geoff Le Good, proprietor of Admeasure Scanning in Northwich, for example, says he is doing good business in aerospace and motorsport, by scanning in parts and tools as a starting point. "Often there are no CAD models and sometimes there are no drawings either," he explains. "It works just as well for making new parts for old aircraft, as new parts for new aircraft to old designs," he says. "Another area is hand modified parts, where there is often a lot of toolmaker's licence. We quite often scan stuff to capture what they are actually making, rather than what they think they are making. Parts are often modified to fit better for final assembly, for example, and once you have the CAD model of the real part, you can use it for whatever you want," he adds. His company uses a Faro laser line probe, with a Faro seven-axis arm driven by Geomagic Qualify software. Once the good CAD part model is in the system, it is possible to scan subsequent parts and compare the cloud of points generated with the original CAD model. A subsequent analysis can include colour contour maps projected onto the part model to show the magnitude of deviations from nominal. Even very small companies can take advantage of the technology. M-Tech Composites in Bridlington takes glass fibre reinforced polypropylene sheets from Saint-Gobain, and forms them to make floor guards and panels for rally cars. Until now, they have all been fitted by hand, but the company's Matt Rivett says: "We have just invested in a laser scanner and a CADstation, and expect that our capabilities will then go through the roof. Our time to market was our bottleneck, but it is now going to be rapidly reduced." The solution, as for Admeasure, is a Faro laser scanner and Geomagics software, used in conjunction with SolidWorks to reverse engineer the floor guards and manufacture new ones. A particular usefulness of laser scanning is that it also works with soft products like vehicle seats. Vistagy Seat Design Environment (SDE) 2.0 has been developed to integrate into commercial 3D CAD systems to manage all aspects of seat trim development more efficiently, from concept and cost modelling to document generation and manufacturing. 3D virtual product definition of the seat architecture and cover includes not only geometric information, but material specifications, stitch types and sewing instructions. New capabilities include the ability to automatically export product definition detail in the master CAD file in order to cost model documents so that engineers can decide on material types and quantities, seam placement, sewing instructions, assembly sequencing etc.