Business Need

Our Client, a dormant and historic manufacturing company that produced turbomachinery, was being re-started after an acquisition.  They could sell a few updated units from their obsolete product line, but a complete modernization was in order.  They had selected Solid Edge, and when we were engaged, were staffing with CAD engineers.  If a world-class design operation and modernized product line could be established, our client would become profitable and make their comeback.


Project Description
An innovative and competitive, scalable, modern product line was mandated.  Working closely with the client’s team, we developed variational assemblies with standard workflows, to create a stage-based modeling approach, thus defining a modular product line with steps in cost and performance.  We incorporated fluidics analyses by importing CFD output geometries directly into Solid Edge, as templates for parts and assemblies.

On the production side, further innovation was introduced.  The old school sand-casted vaned parts using wood patterns, that were defined by hand-drawn paper.  We introduced Model-Based Manufacturing for flow-path parts that are traditionally difficult to document and expensive to manufacture. CFD-optimized solid models went to rapid prototyping, which generated a core for investment-cast prototypes. 

For production, the RP cores generated wax core molds, from which multiple wax cores were cast, which then produced aluminum parts -- with the advantage that no designed performance was lost by carving wood patterns.  These near-net parts required little machining and could be built from simple drawings.

Benefits
Optimized and standardized Solid Edge processes accelerated design, and enabled critical foreign CFD data to define parts.  Documented workflows updated the entire product line, making it competitive with the industry’s best.  Model-based Manufacturing streamlined production, cutting costs dramatically while improving performance.  These design and production innovations established the way to profitability.

SOLD ADVANTAGE CASE STUDIES :
CELL CONCENTRATOR : FUEL TANK TOOLING : PATHOGEN DETECTOR : SOLID EDGE IMPLEMENTATION