Full article is available for a fee
Ken Versprille
of
CPDA,
April 28, 2008
Leading edge product manufacturers are beginning to rely upon an
emerging design communication and collaboration concept to improve and
accelerate their design and manufacturing process: Model-Based
Definition. With a constant need to streamline process in order to gain
and maintain competitive advantage, these leaders in highly engineered
product markets focus attention on annotated 3D model data exchange as
their data communication conduit across internal product disciplines and
with their supply chain partners. Key players in the aerospace and
defense industry vertical stand on the forefront as early adopters of
the technology trend.
The central concept embodied in model-based definition is that the 3D
product model is the most appropriate vehicle for delivery of all the
detailed product information necessary for downstream organizations to
perform their part of the product delivery cycle. Any number of 3D views
of the model can be composed, detailed, and annotated for specific
downstream groups such as manufacturing planning, product services,
procurement, and marketing/sales. For example, a “live” model with a
sequence of prepared 3D views containing key dimensions and tolerances
provides a manufacturing partner in the supply chain a more intelligent
communication of what must be produced. To the manufacturer, the 3D
viewed model is live because they can accurately make additional
measurements of the product that would have been impossible (or worse,
measured incorrectly) if only 2D drawings of the product were delivered.
Additional views of the model are dimensioned and selectively
annotated for other downstream groups such as quality assurance and
validation of industry and regional standards compliance. With the
proper notations on the model for size and materials, costing analysis
is accomplished and that information is passed on to procurement
organizations.
Understanding the Business Drivers
Collaborative Product Development Associates (CPDA) recently
conducted a series of in-depth interviews with leading edge product
manufacturing companies in the Aerospace and Defense industry vertical.
The goal of the study was to assess how far they were into adoption of
the model-based definition process, what were their business drivers,
and a discussion of both the technical and cultural challenges they
faced. In addition, CPDA interviewed a few selected companies outside of
aerospace/defense to compare and contrast their experiences.
A sampling of their statements included:
- Lean down a process accurately and just-in-time for construction
- Improved accuracy working with all suppliers and manufacturing
partners
- Reduce the amount of drafting; reduce downstream printing of
drawings
- Interrogate models more efficiently
- Improved quality from a single data state -- no spawned data.
The 2D drawing, for example, could end up being the master
- Overcome breakdowns in associativity between models and 2D
drawings
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