Automate the Creation of Models and Drawings for New Catalog

Customer Challenge:
Nord-Lock Group was in the process of launching a new product catalog and required fabrication drawings for the thousands of standard products that could be ordered through this new catalog. As the designs were new, all the fabrication models and drawings would have to be created. With the drafting department’s ongoing custom product workload, the standard catalog product designs would have to be created individually as they were ordered, typically outside of normal engineering capacity.

Project Goals:
Standard product designs had to be created more efficiently, to meet the end customer's need and engineering capacity. Models and drawings needed to be created for the new catalog without consuming the limited resources of the company drafting department. Also, the system must enable the reuse of previously generated components if they exist.

Solution:
A custom add-in program was developed that accepts a calculation spreadsheet for a complete design and generates Autodesk Inventor models, assembly, and drawings for the full design and each sub-component. Re-usability of existing design components was implemented so that if previous components matched the current designs needs the user would be provided the option to reuse the existing components if desired.

Business Outcome:
Nord-Lock Group was able to generate their entire catalog of products, representing approximately two years of drafting time, in only two weeks completely, outside of normal engineering capacity.

Conclusion:
The project has achieved its initial objectives and has been so successful that iterations of the program are planned to automate the creation of additional products for the company.

Project Summary:
Delivery Date
2020-05-14
Project Duration
 120 days
Autodesk Solutions 
Inventor

Services Provided
Customer Industry
Design & Manufacturing