Beyond
3D; Part 1
“Going For The Banana!” |
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As a reader of the CATI newsletter, one expects you and your company have adopted 3d design methodologies to some extent in your product development process. With this assumption in mind, there are several questions you are ready for while reviewing your current investment. I will help you summarize these questions into the one common denominator: Is your company leveraging the engineering corporate assets to their full potential in order to see the best return on investment (ROI)? If not, there are many opportunities for improvement throughout your business to leverage this initial investment. It also reminds me of a story one of my mentors recently sent me. With all due respect, read the following story to understand what may be causing the lack of ROI! “Start with a cage
containing five monkeys. Inside the cage, hang a banana on a string and
place a set of stairs under it. Before long, a monkey will go to the
stairs and start to climb towards the banana. As soon as he touches the
stairs, spray all of the other monkeys with cold water. After a while,
another monkey makes an attempt with the same result - all the other
monkeys are sprayed with cold water. Pretty soon, when another monkey
tries to climb the stairs, the other monkeys will try to prevent it. Now, put away the
cold water. Remove one monkey from the cage and replace it with a new
one. The new monkey sees the banana and wants to climb the stairs. To
his surprise and horror, all of the other monkeys attack him. After
another attempt and attack, he knows that if he tries to climb the
stairs, he will be assaulted. Next, remove another of the original five
monkeys and replace it with a new one. The newcomer goes to the stairs
and is attacked. The previous newcomer takes part in the punishment with
enthusiasm! Likewise, replace a third original monkey with a new one,
then a fourth, then the fifth. Every time the
newest monkey takes to the stairs, he is attacked. Most of the monkeys
that are beating him have no idea why they were not permitted to climb
the stairs or why they are participating in the beating of the newest
monkey. After replacing all the original monkeys, none of the remaining
monkeys have ever been sprayed with cold water. Nevertheless, no monkey
ever again approaches the stairs to try for the banana.
Why not? Because as far as they know that's the way it's always
been done around here!” Believe it or not, this
is more common than you might think. This inspired me to put together
several articles on ways to leverage your current investment beyond the
traditional 3d design/engineering department use.
The idea is to look at doing things in new ways instead of
fitting new tools to legacy techniques and processes.
Also understanding that you have several “Customers of
Engineering” that can capitalize from your SolidWorks 3D Parts,
Assemblies and 2D Drawings—This data is much more than a departmental
asset—3D data is a corporate asset. For many companies this
will be culture shock as mentioned in the above story “Going for the
Banana”. So why rock the
boat? Well, if your company
is achieving all of your financial, innovation and or efficiency goals,
there is no reason to read on! STOP HERE, SET YOUR TEE-TIME AND ENJOY
YOUR ROUND! However, for
you that are seeking some new ideas to improve your bottom line stay
tuned for some additional uses to leverage your SolidWorks 3d data. So what’s “Beyond
3D”? The basic definition of
“Beyond 3D” is fairly simple: Anything after your commitment to
adopting 3D, getting your hardware, network, software, core vendor
services (subscription, support, and training) and some real work
experience. This is
traditionally the extent most companies plan as the implementation
strategy. Unfortunately,
the tools and basic services are only the first steps towards building a
strategic weapon out of your engineering department. Hence the lack of
ROI can easily be tied to lack of corporate-wide leverage of the 3D data
causing a stalled implementation. In today’s marketplace, making drawings faster won’t impact the company’s bottom line or inspire your CFO to release funds as helping sales close deals with more innovative designs during a presentation. Or moving technical publications into the 3D Assembly, Maintenance, and Repair era-- never reproducing engineering’s data again and Internet ready--that’s using 3D where we traditionally didn’t expect it! Doing a virtual test on the product --before production starts--that’s going beyond 3d! Anything you can do with the 3D data during or after traditional tasks are completed is a major bonus to your bottom-line while empowering customers of engineering to benefit from your hard work! CATI, InFlow and our Partners are helping company’s everyday to discover these “processes-of-opportunity” to utilize 3D assets. For instance, CATI is sponsoring a one-day event on --“ Maximizing the Success of FEA in a Mainstream Design Environment”: For more details see www.cati.com. Help us help your company to break down the virtual walls that exist starting with this question: “Who are the customers of engineering at our company?” This will help identify who needs to be educated about the corporate assets. Don’t throw cold water on this just yet; part 2 will expand on how to manage this without adding to the Engineering work load. By the way, since you
are using 3D, you’ve got the 1st banana!
Did you know the majority of manufacturing firms are still using
2d CAD (~65%)? Just think about the competitive lead you are building
by considering your 3D data as a Corporate Strategic Weapon! But don’t
be fooled, there are many Bananas out there for the pick’ins. To help the “dimensionally-challenged” refer them to CATI
for the 3D-Skills Program! |