What I Learned: 3D Line of Sight, St. Paul's, and PLM

What I learned this week … came from watching

an episode of BBC program called Britain from Above,
which made me think about the applicability of 3D Line of Sight to
developing products and manufacturing processes. A strange line of
thinking, I have to admit, but I thought I would share
it. 

St. Paul’s
The show talked about the growth of London’s financial district,
and the challenges that they have in putting up new buildings. To
say it nicely, London grew organically. There was no master plan or
grid system in place as the city developed. Before this sounds like
a pure history lesson, isn’t that the case with a lot of
manufacturing plants? Maybe there was a plan, but over time a new
workstation or piece of equipment was added where it could be fit,
etc. So hopefully we have a better starting place in our plants.
The story talked about the importance of not damaging the line of
sight in London to St. Paul’s. It went further to show how 3D line
of site was used by creating a virtual 3D model of London that
shows the view lines to St. Paul’s. Very interesting, but if you
want more on that I would suggest you follow the link above. The
program was worth the time to watch.

Applicability to Product Design
Line of sight and how a product looks is very important in many
products. For any device that has a screen, there is a viewing
angle that is ideal (and can be specified in the design as needed).
For large, industrial equipment, the view to the work being done
(and the controls) can play a large role in customer satisfaction
and safety. For transportation or defense products, the ability to
view the surrounding area is critical. Many of you have probably
had a car with a “blind spot” and know the frustration from the
customer perspective.

For the most part, physical prototypes have been used to determine
line of sight. As product design moves to include more 3D design,
there is an opportunity to use digital mockups and virtual
prototypes to visualize line of sight prior to committing to a
physical a prototype. Along with other “Design for X”
topics, 3D models allow for early evaluation (and
hopefully optimization) of visual factors prior to physical
prototypes and far before release to manufacturing.

Applicability to Plant/Process Design
Beyond
the product itself, line of sight is incredibly important to plant
design and the development of efficient manufacturing processes.
Digital Manufacturing solutions are helping companies evaluate
issues such as line of sight for product workers (not to mention
other human factors such as reach, lift, etc.) to design better
processes and equipment. 

Of course, this requires 3D models of both the product and the
production environment. With the increased use of 3D in
product design, as well as the improving ease of use of tools for
both 3D modeling and simulation, I expect that we will see more
investment in this area. It is a natural extension for
companies that have already taken the first steps in 3D design and
formal manufacturing process management (including concurrent
design of product and production processes).

So the same use of 3D that is important to designing buildings
so they don’t interfere with the view of St. Paul’s might help you
design better products and process, I hope you found it
interesting. I didn’t, if you did let us know about it.