Supplier/OEM Integration within the Product Development Process
... A "Don't Miss It" Seminar -- sponsored and hosted by WAMware
    Salt Lake City, USA, 27-January-1998

How can you share 3D data with your suppliers and customers -- and shave weeks or even months off your product development time?!

This was the topic of a half-day seminar attended by 20 managers and users of CAD/CAM/CAE in the Salt Lake City area.  WAMware was pleased to host the seminar in its new headquarters meeting and training facility. In this article we'll provide a brief summary of the event. Please contact WAMware for additional information on this lively seminar and for information on our future quarterly seminars.

Agenda

Participating Sponsors and Vendor Partners

Overview

After ably conquering some logistical challenges, Greg warmly welcomed the seminar attendees and provided an overview of the activities of WAMware Engineering Solutions.  In short, WAMware provides high-quality implementation services plus software and hardware products centered on the CAD/CAM/CAE offerings of SDRC.  As a member of the WAMware Global Alliance, WAMware Engineering Solutions is also able to coordinate global services via its partners TESIS WAMware in Germany and Sony MDA in Japan.  For details, see www.wamware.com -- pick WAMware Engineering Solutions.

Mike Cecchini discussed how Daystrom and CAE WAMware complement one another, with Daystrom providing CAM consulting and support services for the SDRC I-DEAS, SmartCAM, and Camand product lines.

Supplier/OEM Integration

Wayne began by setting a stake in the ground that a good CAD/CAM/CAE implementation can deliver "2x" business benefits... e.g. twice as fast to market, one half the product warranty claims, one half the product costs, etc... if the implementation is driven strategically rather than merely as a collection of tactical technology tools.  See Assuring Successful CAD/CAM/CAE Implementations.

A prerequisite for driving the implementation strategically is the direct involvement and commitment from management.  See Getting Your Management Involved. Management must lead the organization in defining and putting in place some very critical process changes. 

In order to streamline the process, and specifically to better involve suppliers and customers in the process, the traditional 2D drawing (whether paper or electronic) must be moved off the critical path.  The 3D data asset created as part of product design must be leveraged to dramatically improve delivered part and subassembly quality and to, perhaps most importantly, reduce delivery time on purchased products.   Companies around the world are releasing 3D designs to manufacturing with great success.  For more specifics (and philosophy) on this, see Oh, Say Can You See.

An exciting adjoining topic -- How do we make this 3D data asset available to the hundreds or thousands of people in the virual enterprise (including OEMs and suppliers) who have no idea how to run a CAD system?  Recently products, such as EAI's VisProducts, have come on the market that allow viewing and measurement of complex 3D models, in real time, on even low end Windows 95 desktop and laptop systems.   Today the 3D product models can indeed be the communication and collaboration backbone of the entire product development process.

Mini-Demo of Internet-based Collaboration

Wayne then proceeded with a series of mini-demos.  The first demo illustrated the ability to "publish" and then view 3D part and subassembly models to the web in VRML format.  This allows any supplier or OEM that has access to a portion (probably passworded) of your intranet to be able to review product designs... literally from around the world, on a laptop, with a dial-in modem or network line... with either Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator (both free) and a VRML plugin (free).   Click the image below to view the 3D model and for details on browser requirements.

Taking the next step beyond "communication" to "collaboration" is even more exciting... and also free!  Wayne and Greg Albrechtsen (hidden away somewhere else in the building) demonstrated Microsoft NetMeeting on the WAMware intranet.  They were able to talk with one another in full-duplex (they like to both talk at the same time) and also use the Whiteboard for sketching (and editing) notes and graphics simultaneously.  Wayne mentioned that just for fun he had recently participated in NetMeetings over 28.8kb, 56kb, and ISDN lines with people in Italy, England, and the Barbados with very acceptable audio performance (video is very choppy at anything less than dedicated lines)... without any long distance telephone charges!

Greg and Wayne then also used NetMeeting to review a 3D I-DEAS model.  We've provided some details on how to setup NetMeeting and use it with I-DEAS at A Primer on Microsoft NetMeeting.

The final demo vignette was a live NetMeeting collaboration in conjuction with the VisProducts from EAI.  Wayne (acting the salesman's part, lying on a beach in Hawaii) dialed into Engineering (Greg slaving away in the mines) to review a new fishing reel design concept.  This included real-time sectioning of the full assembly while at the same time browsing the project web pages.

I-DEAS Team Demonstration

Greg Albrechtsen (as design analyst), Brett Player (as industrial designer), and Mike Morse (as tool designer and NC part programmer) conducted a very fast paced emulation of a real team engineering mini-project.  Wayne provided some narration and was generally kept busy switching wall projections in order to keep up with the frenetic pace of the three I-DEAS users.