Sure but steady: 3D CAD lets manufacturer build better field hospitals for Norwegian Army
Malcolm Wheatley, senior contributing editor, Cambridge, U.K. -- Manufacturing Business Technology, 6/27/2008 5:00:00 PM
|
A move to Autodesk design software has paid dividends for a specialist manufacturer of military field hospitals. Usage of AutoCAD Inventor and AutoCAD Electrical has seen the company cost-effectively achieve both improved manufacturing quality and build an unprecedented amount of functionality into a batch of field hospitals delivered to the Norwegian Army.
And in the process, says John Prentice, design manager for Cambridge, U.K.-based Marshall SpecialistVehicles, the company has reaffirmed the wisdom of its "sure but steady" approach to software deployment—and discovered the productivity benefits of bolt-on application extensions such as AutoCAD Electrical.
Field hospitals have come a long way since the days of open-air triage and tent-based operating theatres depicted in movies like M*A*S*H, says Prentice. These days they are built into standard-size conventional transport containers capable of being shipped long distances by sea or road freight, and dropped into place behind a battlefield. A group of containers connected to each other can form an air-conditioned and extendable hospital—with specialist triage, operating theatre, and post-recovery capabilities all available as required.
But the requirement to cram as much functionality as possible into such a small and nonnegotiable cubic volume imposes a distinct design burden, he explains. Nor is creating the initial raw design the only challenge: So too is deriving visuals to show customers, as well as producing accurate manufacturing instructions that enable error-free and cost-effective manufacture.
3D design had obvious attractions, yet Marshall’s first move to 3D in 2001 was fraught with difficulties. An existing AutoCAD 2D user, the company found itself with licensed seats of a competing 3D solution, but was to make much use of its investment.
“The solution wasn’t particularly capable of dealing with large assemblies,” recalls Prentice. “It turned out 50 to 60 parts was the practical upper limit, and we typically build top-level assemblies with several thousand. We worked with a local specialist reseller, Micro Concepts [Cambridge, U.K.], to resolve the problems with software fixes and hardware upgrades, but more or less found ourselves drifting back to 2D as a way of getting things done.”
But the arrival of AutoCAD Inventor, Autodesk's flagship 3D solution, changed perceptions within the company about the value and practicality of 3D. WIth, as Prentice puts it, “its fingers burned” in the initial move to 3D, Marshall’s was more circumspect the second time around, making the decision only in 2005 to evaluate 3D once again.
“We had a couple of trial seats, experimented, and were impressed with what we saw,” Prentice explains. Over time, he adds, the seat count gradually increased, and 2D slowly gave way to 3D.
The recent award of the Norwegian contract accelerated the pace. As Mark Mills, technical sales manger at Micro Concepts, explains, the development of a new generation of field hospitals for the Norwegian Army would call for Marshall’s to “push the envelope” in terms of its use of 3D design. “The Norwegian project was one of the biggest and most complex contracts we’ve won, involving a lot of legacy data,” adds Prentice. “We had Inventor, but we needed to upgrade our capability.”
In particular, that capability upgrade required the company to bite the bullet and make the move to AutoCAD Electrical. “We were probably slow in seeing the benefits AutoCAD Electrical could give us,” says Prentice. “The time savings made by no longer having to draw every electrical symbol are considerable.”
Knowing that the Norwegian contract involved a lot of electrical schematics and designs, Prentice says “The decision pretty much made itself.”
Even so, caution remained the watchword. Of the six electrical design seats given over to the new contract, just two had AutoCAD Electrical installed. “Now that we know we’re happy with the application, the other four will be converted by the end of the year,” says Prentice.
This, adds Micro Concepts’ Mills, will see Marshall’s running 28 seats of Inventor software in total, 25 of which are standard Inventor, and three are Inventor Professional.
“We’re finding that when manufacturers like Marshall’s switch to AutoCAD, the reduction in licensing costs can be as much as 50 percent—with lower maintenance costs as well,” says Mills.
And 3D development certainly lived up to its promise, stresses Prentice. “There’s no doubt about it: The Norwegians were particularly impressed with the quality of the modeling and visualizations that we produced for them,” he concludes. Going forward, those same benefits will now be experienced by all Marshall’s customers.
Digital prototyping: Autodesk introduces 2010 design and simulation solutions for manufacturers
02/23/2009Autodesk announces support for Windows 7
10/27/2009Rockwell partners eye information management
11/30/2007The code in the machine
07/31/2008PDM white paper
05/31/2007
