——Hubei Century CoSCO ThinkDesign case analysis

In recent years, the word "lean" has been widely mentioned in the manufacturing industry, from "lean production", "lean management", "lean RESEARCH and development", "lean design"... Indeed, with the continuous development of social productivity, the market demand for products is becoming more and more strict and harsh, especially in the field of industrial design, how to produce in the shortest possible time to adapt to market demand the product, and reduce the energy consumption and to the greatest extent is the problem that each enterprise is thinking, the concept of "lean" is created. "Lean" not only requires "precision" -- fine, accurate and professional, but also requires "benefit" -- effectively improve the level of core research and development of the enterprise, so that the enterprise and the customers facing the enterprise benefit comprehensively. Generally speaking, lean is to enable enterprises to make the most advantageous products with the most professional means in the shortest time and obtain the maximum income. So how do you achieve "lean"?

In 2008, Hubei Century CoSCO Group chose to cooperate with extech, a leading manufacturer in the field of manufacturing information technology, and fully applied their new design product "ThinkDesign". After more than half a year of application, ThinkDesign achieved success in the enterprise, and initially realized "lean design".

Hubei CoSCO Century Group Co., LTD. (hereinafter referred to as COSCO century), located in Shiyan City, Hubei Province, is a well-known enterprise in the area with an annual output value of nearly ONE billion yuan and more than 1,000 employees. The company has been engaged in the production of raw vehicles and auto parts for many years, with nearly ten subsidiaries, such as special vehicles, light vehicles, axle plants, frame plants, interior parts, special parts for cars and real estate. Vehicle products are light truck, mobile stage car, mobile sales car, mobile reading car, electric car and so on; Automotive chassis parts and components products are mainly frame, bridge, seat and so on.

Cosco has a wide range of products and a complex design process. In order to improve the design level and work efficiency, before the introduction of ThinkDesign 3D design system, CoSCO used a variety of design software, almost all mainstream 2D / 3D products on the market have been applied, but none of the products can help enterprises complete the whole design process. And a mixture of a variety of design software, also to the enterprise chain has brought many problems, such as chaos, not compatible design data, 3 d data and 2 d data conversion and so on, finally caused within the enterprise, more than 90% of the 3 d data is no parameters, cannot repeat editors use, send this to the research and development design are of great distress, greatly increases the repetitive work, It's not at the level of "lean design." Therefore, enterprises are in urgent need of a software that can meet the whole design process to establish a unified design platform, and try to straighten out the chaotic historical data as much as possible, and maximize the use of the original design data.

Based on the above requirements, thinkDesign, a new product launched by Extech, has entered the vision of COSCO. Its most prominent advantages are that it covers the whole process of product development, has an integrated modeling environment and diversified modeling methods. Moreover, its flexibility and ease of use is also unmatched by other design software. Although this product is not familiar to the majority of Chinese users, but it has been in Europe for more than 30 years, has helped many international well-known enterprises to improve the design and development level, enjoys a high reputation overseas. 08, the local leading enterprises of manufacturing industry informatization extech through the way of joint venture, has achieved the outstanding all intellectual property and source code, software design and based on this to do an in-depth localization of research and development, make it become the only in the domestic market has the international leading technology, global r&d network and rich culture and local products. World class technology, localized service and price enhanced coSCO's confidence and they decided to try ThinkDesign.

According to the requirements of COSCO in 3D modeling, large assembly, engineering drawing and structural analysis, Extech helped the enterprise customize a set of overall implementation of "ThinkDesign". Includes professional design package TD Engineering, TD Drafting software TD Drafting and direct Parasolid module, covering the whole design process from industrial design, engineering design, die design, CNC machining etc.

Cosco's trust in ThinkDesign and Extech has paid off in a very short period of time. Thinkdesign, once used, effectively solves the problem that data cannot be modified between a variety of enterprise software and inherits the original design drawings to the maximum extent. Moreover, it also solves the problem of inconsistent design data among various departments, which not only helps enterprises shorten the RESEARCH and development cycle, but also improves the quality of delivered products. This is undoubtedly a successful attempt to prove that COSCO's choice of ThinkDesign is wise. "Thinkdesign" is so easy to achieve the "lean design" that enterprises have been spending a lot of money to pursue.

Let's take a closer look at how ThinkDesign helped COSCO achieve "lean design".

　•Covering the whole process of product development

Thinkdesign is based on a unified data platform. It is a fully integrated solution with completely independent intellectual property rights, covering the whole process from product concept design to manufacturing management. It can avoid the tedious and risk of data conversion, ensure the synchronization of product development and shorten the development cycle. In addition, ThinkDesign also has a unified operation interface, easy to learn and use.

•Integrated modeling environment　

In practical engineering, I often come into contact with a variety of files and data, such as 2d data, 3D data, solid model, surface model, point cloud file, grid file and so on. In the past, the processing of these data needs to switch back and forth between different systems. With ThinkDesign, all of this data or files can be opened and processed in one unified system. We can easily convert a 2D graph into a 3D entity, can also be solid modeling technology and surface modeling technology for a certain amount of "mixing", can also point cloud file and ordinary surface integration...... All this is done in the same system, in the same window, under the same interface.

•Diverse modeling methods　　

Thinkdesign provides a variety of modeling methods and means. We can either carry out conventional parametric design or use ISM function to deal with parametric model. We can use intelligent objects to design common structures, entities and assemblies, thus avoiding a lot of repetitive work and ensuring the consistency of design standards within the company. We can use GSM to make structural changes to products at any stage of design... All of this can greatly increase design flexibility and shorten product development cycles.

Here, I would like to mention two features of ThinkDesign that are most satisfactory to COSCO

First, subvert the traditional super three-dimensional modeling ability:

3 d parts, is one of the powerful features of the thinkdesign, which is the most one of cosco's favorite function by century, its unique way of hybrid modeling as well as the world's leading technology, GSM global shape modeling completely subvert the traditional modeling method and the idea, has solved the problems enterprises have long curved surface and the real characteristics of two kinds of hybrid structures, the problem of hard, GSM technology also breaks the limitations of modeling shapes, providing designers with a new, efficient, completely free modification method, greatly improving the design flexibility, thinkDesign many new technologies greatly improve the design efficiency.

"Thinkdesign has cut our design cycle by more than half and cut our workload by 50 percent," he said. The design idea we adopted is the design method of solid trim. In the design process, we really realized the flexibility of ThinkDesign. The flexible conversion of two different features of surface and solid under the same operation interface fundamentally breaks the limitation of solid feature modeling." In addition, when designing a part with a complex structure, designers were surprised to find that a part composed of many irregular features, which used to take two or three days to complete, can be completed in only six hours using ThinkDesign's hybrid solid and surface modeling technology. "We never imagined that this part could be made in a few hours. These changes were made by ThinkDesign." "Said the designer.

　The staff in the r&d center also experienced the new design experience brought by ThinkDesign. When making an irregular part, ThinkDesign shortened his design time from 6-8 hours to 2 hours. "With its irregular U-slot structure, ThinkDesign offers a variety of strategies for constructing continuous surfaces, ensuring efficiency and high quality. The power of the ThinkDesign software's curved surfaces has completely changed our approach to design, enabling us to deliver higher quality products to our customers and significantly shortening our design cycle, which is what we want to do 'lean design'!"

Second, excellent 2D / 3D conversion:

Automobile axle is one of coSCO's main products, but this product is composed of a large amount of 2D data, and the original 2D design can not be lost after upgrading to the 3D design platform. The department applied the mature 2d to 3D function of ThinkDesign to build a 3D data platform for the product on the existing basis, maximizing the use of the original design data. The advantages of 3D design also emerged in a very short time, greatly shortening the research and development cycle of new products.

At present, with the in-depth application of ThinkDesign, CoSCO group straightening out the design process of the enterprise, the data between various departments has been effectively integrated, the original data format confusion has been greatly improved. The benefits of ThinkDesign for enterprises have been initially shown, and "lean design" is thus realized. With the continuous advancement of enterprise "lean RESEARCH and development" process, ThinkDesign, a flexible and efficient helper, will bring more benefits to enterprises. (reprinted by China International Die & Mould Network