SOLIDWORKS 3D modelling software has been available in Australia through Intercad for more than a decade. One Melbourne-based company who has been a customer almost as long, counts the software as critical to its endurance in the automotive industry.
MtM is a tier one supplier to automotive manufacturing companies in Australia and has an export business to the United States. The company designs and manufactures plastic components including inside inside/outside door handles, park brakes, automatic shifter control units, door checks and ashtray assemblies.
Alby Olguner is MtM’s CAD office manager and was involved in the initial purchase of SolidWorks back in 1996. At that time, it was the demands of large customers like Ford, General Motors and Toyota that encouraged MtM to upgrade from 2D drafting to 3D modelling software.
“The big car companies were moving in the path of 3D and they expected their suppliers to support them in 3D data as well. If you were still working in a 2D environment you could not support them,” Olguner told FEN.
MtM has not looked back since it first saw a demonstration of SolidWorks and bought it, according to Olguner.
“The whole 3D process has helped us to create better products with less defects in a shorter period of time than we would using 2D,” he said.
Over the years, MtM has also made extensive use of SolidWorks add-ons, CosmosWorks and MoldFlow Part Advisor. CosmosWorks enables the strength of the designed components to be analysed on screen. Part Advisor is a plastics analysis tool enabling parts to be manufactured to a good quality. Olguner said both have helped MtM build safeguards into its products.
“We are able to analyse for fitment and collisions of parts. In the past, we would have done many more costly, hand built prototypes to find out fitment issues in the assembly. With CosmosWorks motion analysis we can now see how things are interacting with each other and whether we have the correct gaps.”
On a maintenance contract with Intercad, MtM has received automatic upgrades to SolidWorks software since 1996. Olguner has observed the long-term effects of these upgrades on the business.
One major transformation has been the multi-skilling of MtM staff as recent versions of SolidWorks have included more functionality for engineers.
“Originally we trained all our AutoCAD users into SolidWorks, and then as time has progressed the engineers have also been trained in SolidWorks so that they can do their own concept 3D modelling,” Olguner said.
“It streamlines everything. When engineers are multi-skilled they don’t have to wait in queues to get jobs done.”
Olguner said SolidWorks has become easier to use with each new release. Not only this, but each new version includes useful additional functionalities. This is especially the case with the Tolerance Checker in SolidWorks 2008 which MtM has been “hanging out for”, according to Olguner.
“The Tolerance Checker is going to be very useful to analyse the tolerance stack-up you get in an assembly; we want to be able to make sure that we’re not losing our tolerance range. This is something that we would otherwise have bought separate software to do.”
Another benefit in SolidWorks 2008, is the Imported Data function. It means that when MtM receives a 3D model from a CAD package other than SolidWorks, the software now recognises the features of the imported data such holes and radius, which then can be modified simply if needed, rather than having to rebuild them.
Olguner described SolidWorks as one of the better packages for data translation since the early days, yet the issue of clean data translations remains one of his biggest complaints with CAD generally.
“With any data translation you can expect a certain degree of data loss as different companies use different versions and revisions of their software. I’d say 90% of the time the data goes through without problems.
Olguner would like to see more investment by all CAD companies into the development of clean and accurate data translators.
“For us, this would mean rework would be eliminated or at least greatly reduced. This is critical in the automotive industry where the production and delivery of a vehicle are set in concrete and it is very hard to meet some of those times if you’ve got data that has to be reworked.”
Olguner would also like to see the cost of new functionality come down.
“As more functionality is added, more hardware power is required to run it. It’s not easy to keep up with the demand and justify new hardware and software all the time, especially for smaller companies. I would like to see software providers reduce the demands on hardware and lean design their software programming to achieve the functionality.”
Today MtM employs over 200 staff and designs and manufactures on-site in Melbourne. Olguner sees a definite link between the company’s success and its ongoing investment in 3D CAD.
“Going to 3D modelling with SolidWorks has enabled us to keep our market share with our customers,” he said.
Olguner runs the Victorian SolidWorks User Group and represents all of the SolidWorks user groups for Australia and New Zealand. Olguner is also heavily involved in promoting the use of 3D software at high school and TAFE levels of the education system.
For more information contact Alby Olguner on 03 9535 7345 or Intercad on 1300 CAD CAM (1300 223 226).
www.intercad.com.au
www.mtmauto.com
www.solidworks.com
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