Diamond Systems Upgrades to Solid Edge 3D to Maintain its Reputation for
Leadership
Implementing Solid Edge gives this agricultural equipment manufacturer a
visible advantage over the competition
To maintain its reputation as the technology leader, Diamond Systems
wanted presentations to customers to look leading-edge.
“I don’t understand why everyone isn’t using 3D. You couldn’t
take it away from us.” Doug Flege Vice President, Engineering Diamond Systems
Fast-moving machines that don’t break eggs
After using 2D AutoCAD for many years, designers and engineers at Diamond
Systems switched to 3D CAD (Solid Edge from UGS). An important reason for
the transition was to maintain the company’s leadership position among
manufacturers of egg handling systems. “We’ve always been known as the
technology leader in our industry, so one of the main things driving the
upgrade was to make sure that presentations to our customers, in areas such
as documentation and even sales meetings, were visibly leading edge,” says
Doug Flege, vice president of Engineering at Diamond Systems. “With Solid
Edge, we now have that. This, in my opinion, is as important as other
advantages we have gained from 3D modeling, such as faster time to market
and lower development costs.” Diamond Systems, based in Farmington Hills,
Michigan, is the world leader in egg packing, grading and breaking machines.
The company develops, manufactures, markets and services its products to egg
producers and egg processors on six continents. These complex machines have
capacities from 22,000 to 72,000 eggs per hour. Grading systems load, wash,
inspect, weigh and pack eggs into cartons and tray at rates of 14,000 to
144,000 eggs per hour.
Breaker-separators load, wash, inspect, break and separate egg yolks from
egg whites at speeds of 36,000 to 144,000 eggs per hour. Not only are these
machines complex, they must operate flawlessly because of the extremely
fragile nature of the product they handle.
Considering, implementing 3D Every designer and engineer at Diamond
Systems participated in the evaluation process for the new CAD software.
They ruled out Autodesk Inventor early on. They briefly considered AutoCAD
Mechanical Desktop but ruled it out as well because it looked too difficult
to learn. The selection process came down to a thorough, side-by-side
comparison of Solid Edge and SolidWorks. Solid Edge easily outperformed
SolidWorks in sheet metal modeling, which was a critical need of the machine
designers. Solid Edge also excelled in ease of use, which was another
important requirement. “Most of our staff went from the drawing board to
AutoCAD without training years ago, and their only experience has been in
2D,” explains Jason West, mechanical project engineer. “One thing that
was really noticeable about Solid Edge was that, compared to SolidWorks, it
is much easier to use. You need fewer commands and keystrokes to create
parts and assemblies.” Drafting was another where Solid Edge excelled. “A
test assembly took an entire day to produce in SolidWorks,” says West. “The
same draft took two hours in Solid Edge.” Overall, they found Solid Edge
to be more stable, and that it worked as promised. “Some of SolidWorks
claims did not prove true. Everything Solid Edge promised, worked,” West
adds. Flege expected a certain amount of disruption as his staff learned the
new software. To his pleasant surprise, the disruption was minimal. “Switching
to 3D wasn’t a lot of trouble, and the big part of that is because we went
with Solid Edge,” Flege says. “The main disruption was that we lost a
week when we sent everyone to training. (Training was conducted by the
reseller, CAM Logic.) But that actually paid off because by the end of that
week most people were back to their previous level of productivity. And not
long after, they surpassed that level.” Flege notes that the company’s
chief engineer is 80 years old and the senior mechanical designer is in his
60s. Both made the transition to 3D easily. “They were up and running as
fast as anyone else,” he says.
One key to the smooth transition to 3D, Flege believes, is that people
were aware and excited about it before it happened. “Rather than coming in
saying, ‘You guys are all going to training next week to learn to draw in
3D,’ we got everyone involved from the start,” he explains. “Participating
in the selection process got them excited about going to 3D. So when it came
time for training, everyone was excited and ready to go.” Looking good and
working well Diamond Systems now designs its machines as virtual assemblies
in Solid Edge. Individual components are modeled as solids and then put
together into sub-assemblies and assemblies onscreen. Component modeling in
Solid Edge takes no longer than drawing a part in AutoCAD, according to
West. “It takes me the same or less time to create a model in Solid Edge
than it did to draw three views in AutoCAD,” says West. “And once you
have a solid model, there is so much more value to it than a drawing.” For
example, Solid Edge component and assembly models are used in Diamond
Systems’ technical documentation and in assembly drawings for the shop
floor.
“It takes very little time to create a 3D isometric view in Solid Edge,
and the software even lets you shade it,” West adds. “When we include
shaded iso (isometric) views on our drawings, it really helps the people on
the shop floor see how things go together.” Building machines virtually in
Solid Edge makes it possible to detect interferences between parts in a way
that was not possible previously with 2D. “We estimate that we’ve
reduced engineering change orders (ECOs) by 40 percent or more since we
moved from AutoCAD to Solid Edge,” says West. Fewer revisions mean lower
costs and faster time to market. In addition, the company no longer builds
physical prototypes to make sure things fit. That is done on-screen in Solid
Edge. Now, the first prototype that is made is the one that goes in the
field for testing at production speeds. Solid Edge has help meet Diamond
Systems’ goal of maintaining its reputation as a technology leader. “Now
when our customers look at our documentation to order parts or to repair a
machine, they see shaded solid models. The competition is still presenting
flat 2D drawings so this reinforces our reputation,” says Flege. “Also,
we rarely sell to individual farms any longer. When we go into sales
meetings, we’re going into corporate headquarters where our 3D
presentations are really appreciated.” Speaking about the move from 2D to
3D in general, Flege concludes, “I don’t understand why everyone isn’t
using 3D. You couldn’t take it away from us.”
Diamond Systems of Farmington Hills, Michigan is the world leader in egg
packing, grading and breaking machines.
