Drawing Exchange File
BACKGROUND
An international manufacturer of industrial brushes sought a solution to a programming bottleneck. The CAD department responsible for the creation of the brush drawings had not standardized on a single package and the migration from the CAD drawing to the necessary motion control profile involved manual entry for each data point. This equated to hours of additional programming time and extensive rework due to programming errors – negatively impacting the client’s profit margin.
PROBLEM
The customer was incurring extensive overhead costs for each product due to the additional programming time. Since the product line is varied up to several times a day, the production bottleneck could be severe. An off the shelf solution for the transition from CAD to the proprietary motion control data program was not in existence. Furthermore, the customer needed to program the machine to produce the product in several stages, and needed an efficient method for specifying additional machine parameters such as zero point and absolute path. IAS was contacted to create a software tool which interpreted and converted the native CAD drawing into the much needed motion control program with the ability to specify additional machine operating parameters.
SOLUTION
IAS worked directly with the customers’ CAD department and machine operators to envision a solution which encompassed all the necessary requirements. The solution consisted of a custom interpreter operating on the CAD DXF (Drawing eXchange File) output file format. By performing the conversion from the DXF format rather than the native CAD format, the customer was free to migrate to different CAD packages without being limited by legacy software. The CAD personnel and machine operators were given the ability to create the motion profile, set additional machine constraints, and download to the shop floor from anywhere in the enterprise within seconds after completion of the drawing. The solution saved the customer extensive time on each product leading to increased efficiencies, higher profit margins, and greater production capacity. The software tool was also created with anticipated future needs in mind, allowing it to grow with the company and its production needs.
IAS - Integrating technologies to provide your engineered solution.
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