In 1975, Tim Leatherman was on a low-budget trip through Europe. He got fed
up with his standard scout knife. It just wasn't much help on old hotel plumbing
and his unreliable car. What he really needed was a compact pocketknife with
full-size pliers, but no such tool existed.
"I made notes of what I really needed," says Leatherman. "When
I returned to the United States, I went to work in my garage and started
designing a new kind of tool - one that would replace the old pocket knife with
something more useful." He says he was "trying to build a pocket tool
that met not only my needs, but the needs of others as well."
Tim spent the next eight years using his engineering background to design
such a tool. In 1983, after working with hundreds of prototypes, he and Steve
Berliner founded Leatherman Tool Group, Inc. (Portland, OR) and began production
of the original Leatherman Tool, known as the PST.
Today, Leatherman remains the leader in sales, quality and innovation within
the compact multi-purpose tool market. Close inspection reveals the quality and
attention to detail that make their products more useful and effective. All
parts are polished to ensure smooth operation and reduce the potential of
corrosion. Screwdrivers are ground sharp and square to hold a screw. The
Phillips screwdriver is specially modified to perfectly fit both #1 and #2
sizes. Hard-wire cutters have been incorporated that cut material no competitive
product can handle.
Outdoor enthusiasts comprise a large portion of Leatherman's market.
Leatherman tools are also popular with electricians, mariners, stagehands,
farmers, do-it-yourselfers, emergency services personnel and an ever-expanding
range of professional and recreational users.
A new pneumatic press system created with Inventor
Richard A. Chilton, senior manufacturing engineer at Leatherman Tool Group,
designs and implements new equipment to assist in the manufacture of the
Leatherman Multi-purpose folding tools, and trouble shooting existing equipment.
"Our customers expect quality, functionality, availability, and good prices
for our products," Chilton says. "We are able to accommodate those
challenges by starting at the computer - with the drawing program. The better
the drawing program, the easier the end products are to conceive. The same goes
for machine design. If the drawing package is an intuitive one, such as the
Inventor software from Autodesk, design options are very easy to introduce,
evaluate, and steer through the process of elimination while, moving forward
toward the end design. Inventor allows, through assembly constraints, motion to
be applied to the moving components. Each component moves through its respective
cycle while maintaining its constrained position. We no longer have to move each
component independently to achieve the final, end cycle, position. We can now
watch the system components interact simultaneously with each other. Necessary
changes are made with very little effort and drawings are automatically
updated," adds Chilton.
Chilton uses the "motion" generator, through assembly constraints
quite a bit. "It is a tremendous tool," adds Chilton.
He also says that the Adaptive Technology that is unique to Autodesk Inventor
software is another very useful feature. "I am, just now, getting familiar
with the real power of Adaptive Technology," says Chilton. "The
capability allows component parts to be designed to fit another particular
component, or assembly, and, not only maintain its position relative to that
component, but be sized to fit, automatically, with specific tolerances
introduced by the designer."
The Leatherman engineer users say Inventor is easy to learn and use. Chilton
says it took him just a couple of days to generate solid models once the system
was installed.
Chilton says, "In about a week and a half, I was producing working
designs. Ease of use is not Autodesk Inventor’s only attribute, however. The
software also translates .dxf,. iges and .sat files, both directions, very well.
It renders very well, with real building materials such as metal and aluminium
as choices instead of leaves, bricks, and grass like so many of the other 3D
drawing packages. Inventor was designed for machine designers," reports
Chilton.
Besides being easy to learn and use, Chilton says that Autodesk Inventor is
faster than other competitive MCAD products. In addition, the technology enables
Chilton and other Leatherman users to easily spread their design information
throughout other areas of the Leatherman company, where the information provides
a great deal of value. By being able to render extremely well with Inventor,
they can leverage their design information to create great presentations.
Inventor allows .wave files to be generated through the "motion"
system for design evaluation and presentations. The ease of manipulation of
drawings makes the designs flow well.
As an ex-Mechanical Desktop user, Chilton and the design team at Leatherman
considered other MCAD products, yet Autodesk Inventor won out. "We opted
for Inventor because of its ease of use and support through Autodesk reseller
Ketiv Technologies, Portland, OR," notes Chilton. "I think ease of use
was the strongest selling point. Inventor was easier to use and it had a couple
of bells and whistles that the others did not."
Chilton has not used Autodesk Inventor long enough to measure quantitative
advantages, however, he does recognize a much shorter design timetable as a
result of using the software. "This is advantageous, and the shorter
machine design time it affords us helps us remain competitive," adds
Chilton. In addition, as a result of implementing Autodesk Inventor, components
used for the machines he designs have undergone fewer changes.
Chilton concludes, "The use of technology is moving faster every day.
The one trend I see growing stronger, is the use of computer generated pictures
for sales. They can be used within the company for sales presentations, and or
market studies, and in the public domain to promote, actual sales. The more
realistic they are, the more believable they are. Autodesk has recognized this
and has developed Inventor to fill that void in the machine design arena."
