Product category:
Manufacturing Information Technology systems
News Release from: Desktop Engineering | Subject: CenitDesktop IT support
Edited by the Manufacturingtalk Editorial
Team on 25 July 2006
Subcontract press shop accepts CATIA 5
data
A UK sub-contract press shop was aware of the CATIA Version 5 pilot trials taking place at its customers' sites, and wanted to ensure that it was able to effectively deal with their data.
Swindon Pressings (SPL) provides pressings and full systems engineering As a world class supplier to the automotive industry, SPL's customers include BMW Group, Land Rover, MG Rover, Honda and Nissan
This article was originally published on Manufacturingtalk on 14 Dec 2006 at 8.00am (UK)
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* CATIA V5 migration - SPL was aware of the CATIA Version 5 pilot trials taking place at its customers' sites, and wanted to ensure that it was able to effectively deal with their data.
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BMW was also piloting the software, and had declared its intention to migrate in line with the development of one of its future models.
Because of the development cycle for tooling, SPL anticipated that it would soon be receiving new designs in V5.
It appreciated that there were considerable interface and functionality differences between V4 and V5 together with a new hardware platform.
The requirement to avoid any delays and difficulties in interpreting customers' data led SPL to instigate its own V5 pilot project.
Currently SPL have 25 floating licences of CATIA V4 available across 40 workstations.
The ultimate aim is to migrate these all to V5 on a PC platform.
* Ideal partner - CenitDesktop, an IBM Business Partner, already had a strong working relationship with SPL, working with it on day-to-day CATIA support and the installation and maintenance of IBM's Tivoli network management software.
It was originally chosen for its specialist skills, which mapped directly to the requirements of SPL.
Additionally, CenitDesktop has extensive skill sets in CAM and manufacturing, making it the natural choice for SPL to guide it through its V5 pilot project.
* Helpful and knowledgeable - the on site training provided by CenitDesktop covered basic and advanced techniques, interspersed with self study elements.
Following the initial training, weekly individual training sessions helped the SPL engineers to work with real jobs and solve practical task related problems.
A project engineer at SPL commented, "Directly after the course, 95% of my design work was completed in V5".
"The on-site arrangement was excellent, providing the flexibility to fit in with our work load." CenitDesktop provides a resident engineer at Swindon, who offers first line support, and coordinates the response.
The project engineer continued, "The support desk is helpful and knowledgeable - a two hour turn around is typical." * Design benefits - SPL found considerable benefits to justify the migration.
For design they proved that V5 was faster in every respect, especially in design modification where eight fold speed improvements were recorded.
Their engineers also found it was easier to use, had the benefits of a Windows interface, and enabled easier sharing of data with other software packages including Microsoft Excel and Word.
Impressive as these improvements were, even greater benefits were achieved at SPL's Prototype Area.
* 30h savings - a number of pilot trials were carried out to compare results achieved with V5 with what had been achieved with V4.
Tooling being machined on SPL's Prototype Area's 5-axis Mecof machine can be over 3m long, so calculation times for the software were an important factor.
Here, V5 gave savings of up to 32h, enabling work to reach the shop floor far quicker than was previously possible.
In addition, the NC Verify software for toolpath checking offered tools to eliminate collisions, which could have resulted in costly damage to the machine tool.
The new machining strategies in V5 were also appreciated by the Prototype Area's engineers, by helping to reduce the number of head turns on the Mecof, and also reducing head and tool wear.
A further benefit was the quality of postprocessing which was found to be superior in V5, making any editing of the NC code unnecessary.
The company also recorded great improvements in the quality of the surface finish straight off the machine.
This had a major impact on the time spent on bench finishing saving 30 hours per job in some cases.
Peter Tyrrell, IT systems project manager, Swindon, said, "The pilot within the NC area at SPL's Prototype Area proved very successful.
The design pilot was also successful.
The potential savings are not as extensive as those found within NC, but they do prove a business case for migrating to CATIA V5." CenitDesktop has provided some valuable assistance in the successful execution of SPL's pilot project. Request a free brochure from Desktop Engineering ...
Tyrrell added, "CenitDesktop have provided one point of contact for build, support and training, with the same people providing support throughout the pilot." Tyrrell continued, "They have proved to be an excellent and reliable resource.".
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