Clarity on PLM

What I learned this week … came from a Crowdsourced Manufacturing? blog entry by Wayne Hodgkins. I haven’t read his Off Course-On Target blog before, but I liked what he had to say.  He made me really start to look at 3D Printing as a viable manufacturing options as opposed to a prototyping / design validation tool. This post is interesting, but I also took a quick look at his posts on printing in stainless steel and a very cool contraption that includes an onion, a laser scanner, and a 3D printer. Click through his site to David Bowen’s and see a video of that machine in action, it is a piece of art.

My Preconceptions about 3D Printing

OK, here is where I open myself up to criticism. I have always considered 3D Printing a tremendously valuable tool for developing rapid, inexpensive prototypes. To me, a digital 3D model is a great way to visualize a design, but it is (in the end) still presented on a 2D screen. As much work has been done in adding life-like reality to digital models, there is still something very significant about holding something in your hands. My impression of the 3D printing technologies was a way to quickly make a model of a part to help validate the design of the real part.

What I Have Learned

3D printing is not an area I have spent much time researching, so I may just be behind the curve. But what I am starting to get a glimpse into is the world where 3D printing means serious manufacturing. The post about printing with stainless steel, for example, talks about printing molds for real parts. But then goes further to explain how stainless parts can be printed by a company called Shapeways. I love the term used in one of the blogs, DIY Manufacturing (DIY for “do it yourself”). Clearly this is not going to replace manufacturing as we know it any time soon, but these technologies will certainly have a place and will make an impact.

Implications for Manufacturers

I want to revise something I said above. I now see 3D Printing as a viable manufacturing options in addition to being a prototyping / design validation tool. Both are very valuable and can change the interaction between design and manufacturing. By lowering the barriers between the digital model and the physical part (whether prototype or real) the potential for rapid innovation and design iteration explodes. It also opens up great possibilities to allow parts to be designed in one location and “printed” in another. We have gone from drawings and physical prototypes to digital prototypes. Now, I am starting to imagine a collaboration where one engineer effectively “e-mails” a part to a supplier, or “faxes” a part to another engineer by laser scanning a physical part or prototype and sending the model to be printed. One step further, why can’t I order a 3D model from anywhere in the world and just go to my local printer (unless I have one in my garage) to pick up the part? Who knows, maybe this is already happening somewhere.

So this is clearly an area I need to learn more about, I hope you found it interesting. Who knew? I didn’t, if you did let me know about it.

A quick peek into some research on … the use of digital prototyping techniques and technologies to design (and redesign) efficient manufacturing plants. Most of the times I discuss “digital prototyping” it regards products. But the same concepts apply when using digital prototyping in the plant – namely using digital models to increase design efficiency and get designs right the first time. Today I am happy to share my new report with you, Digital Prototyping in the Plant: Improving Manufacturing Agility with the Digital Factory.

Why Digital Prototyping Now?

Clearly, the economy has been tough on manufacturers across the globe. Today, manufacturers are facing a series of demands to survive today and thrive during the economic recovery. I researched engineering’s role in a survive and thrive strategy from a product perspective earlier this year, noting that Engineering can make short-term impacts on both the top and bottom lines in the near term while innovating to prepare for the future. But what impact does the economic downturn have on manufacturing and plant engineers? In the plant right now, you are probably facing:

• The need to cut cost
• The demand to improve efficiency
• The requirement to adjust to plant or line consolidations, volume/mix changes, and potentially new products
• Lean resources to accomplish all of the above

What Did the Research Reveal?

Tech-Clarity interviewed leading manufacturers including Android, Robert Bosch, and General Motors on their use of digital prototyping. By leveraging 3D models in their plants, these manufacturers are improving their ability to design and reuse optimal tooling at a detail level as well as optimizing workstations, lines, and plants at a macro level. They are leveraging the tools to validate and optimize changes in a virtual environment before commiting to physical changes. In return, they are able to “find hundreds of issues … early in the process” and ensure smooth production in the plant when modifications are brought online.

One interesting finding was the use of 3D laser scanning to create 3D models of older plants that were likely designed using 2D drawings. In these scenarios, 3D for prototypes is created “using 3D laser scanning (LIDAR) to capture 3D point clouds of existing brownfield sites and pulling those into our CAD models.” This helps to reduce the barrier to entry for digital prototyping in existing plants.

Another interesting finding was the use of digital prototypes to collaborate with tooling suppliers, who are frequently geographically dispersed. With lower travel budgets and short time frames, electronic collaboration can bridge the gap. As one participant said, “This enables engineers collaborating deeply with external design suppliers to see the changes much faster and with less errors than in the 2D world.” Of course digital prototypes also help enable collaboration with design engineers in a concurrent engineering approach to get new products ramped up quickly.

Implications for Manufacturers

Cost saving opportunities are available, and change is inevitable. Manufacturers today have the opportunity to increase their agility and improve efficiency through digital prototyping technology. Please read the report for more recommendations. You may also be interested in a prior report, Leveraging the Digital Factory: Enhancing Productivity from Operator to Enterprise on the use of digital prototyping and Manufacturing Process Management (MPM) and Digital Manufacturing solutions to reduce cost, speed time to market, and improve product quality.

So that was a quick peek into some recent research on digital prototyping in the plant, I hope you found it interesting. Does the research reflect your experiences? Do you see it differently? Let us know what it looks like from your perspective.

Please feel free to review more free research and white papers about PLM and other enterprise software for manufacturers from Tech-Clarity.