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Mori Seiki - Time From Design To Prototype Cut In Half

Mori Seiki revolutionized the lathe industry with the announcement of its NL Series in June 2004. Solid Edge provided the 3D design power that contributed to Mori Seiki’s revolutionary designs.

Mori Seiki’s design review process was rejuvenated by the implementation of 3D design using Solid Edge from UGS. Solid Edge made it easier for Mori Seki to analyze designs as well as evaluate performance prior to the production of actual prototypes. By implementing Solid Edge, Mori Seiki was able to cut their design to manufacturing lead time in half and increase their ability to release many more new products.

The NL Series: Revolutionizing the lathe industry and selling like hot cakes; Solid Edge: powering Mori Seiki’s 3D design process

Since producing its first lathe back in 1968, Mori Seiki has produced approximately 100 types of CNC lathes over the years. In June 2004, Mori Seki revolutionized the lathe industry with the introduction of its NL Series, the latest model series in Mori Seiki’s new product N Series line up that reflects its impressive performance record and an uncompromising commitment to customer feedback. The greatest feature of the NL Series is that it is a lathe with a sophisticated machining functionality. Up until now, no lathes had been equipped with simple machining functionality. This is the first lathe to address the needs of the machining world.

Makoto Fujishima, Director and General Manager of Mori Seiki, said that “the NL Series has been selling like hot cakes since its debut.” Fujishima also noted that other N Series products are also selling extremely well and that the overall share of N Series products is rapidly increasing. He believes the reason for acceptance of Mori Seiki’s N Series among its users is due to its highly acclaimed “relentless improvement of basic performance” N Series design concept. Mori Seiki has always been one of the main contenders for the top position in the cutting tool market, but the introduction of its N Series has definitely contributed to boosting its competitive power to a much higher level.

Solid Edge is the support behind Mori Seiki’s product design advancements. Mori Seiki began using host facilitated 2D CAD tools in 1984 and then downsized to EWS in 1994. In 1999, Mori Seiki made the transition to Solid Edge and implemented the 3D CAD design system across the board. Currently Mori Seiki owns 280 Solid Edge licenses making them what you might call a “heavy user” of Solid Edge.

“The purpose for introducing 3D design tools was to reduce our design-to-manufacturing lead time and vastly improve our quality of design,” explained Kiyoshi Fujimoto, Information System Manager for Mori Seiki. “In retrospect, we had reached the limit possible with 2D design tools.”

It was then that Mori Seiki looked into several 3D CAD products and decided to implement a midrange product that was easy for anyone to use and eliminated curves not necessary to designing cutting tools.

In addition, Mori Seiki could see that the Parasolid kernel was going to be the future standard for solid modeling and so they made their decision to use Solid Edge throughout their enterprise.

Rejuvenated design review and analysis made easy; design to prototype lead time cut in half

The first benefit of the introduction of Solid Edge was that Mori Seiki’s design review process was rejuvenated. “When we were using 2D drawings in our design review process, it was often the case that only the designers could understand the designs,” said Fujimoto. However, since making the switch, even the non-designers are able to easily grasp the design concepts and thereby more easily contribute their ideas to the design process. Often times Mori Seiki’s design review will include the designer’s supervisors, staff from the production site, sales executives and even management executives for a lively exchange of opinions. Before the introduction of 3D modeling, it was often the case that problems weren’t discovered until Mori Seiki reached to the assembly stage. However, now it is possible to catch and clear such assembly related problems during the design review stage.

3D modeling has made it easier to perform various types of analysis, which play a critical role a in improving design quality. Mori Seiki uses an array of analysis tools to perform vibration, structure, thermal and operational performance analysis. Fujimoto says that this makes it possible to grasp how much product performance can be anticipated during the design stage. Thanks to 3D modeling, Mori Seiki has been able to improve the basic performance of its products and reduce manufacturing time by 20 to 30 percent with its N Series when compared to that of conventional products at equivalent prices. This has contributed to a sharp reduction in the overall lead time from development to manufacturing.

Fujishima commented that “it used to take us about six months from development to prototype, but now we are able to complete prototype in about three months.” Fujishima went on to explain how the transition to Solid Edge has enabled Mori Seiki to double its new product development pace. In particular, from 2003 to 2004, Mori Seiki has introduced the most new products in company history and demonstrated a great number of them at various exhibitions.

Mori Seiki has been able to dramatically reduce the number of design flaws. Interference between parts has dropped remarkably, and there are no longer problems related to the inconsistency in dimensions that were common when using 2D drawings. Even the designers themselves have noticed the dramatic drop in design flaws.

User training only takes two and a half days; outlook to the future: CAM and Teamcenter

Solid Edge has bridged the gap in regard to the request for something that anyone can easily use. “It takes hardly any time at all before you are able to use Solid Edge on your own. After just two and half days of training, users were able to master Solid Edge in accordance to their own designing abilities,” said Masanori Kato, Mori Seiki’s Information System Leader.

All new products are completely designed using Solid Edge and Mori Seiki is working to move design of as many common parts as possible to 3D modeling. Some work is still done using 2D, but this is limited to maintenance of old products.

One of the themes at Mori Seiki is working toward an implementation of CAM. The production site still uses 2D drawings, so if 3D models are used with CAM, Mori Seiki should be able to achieve an even greater reduction in its lead time. In addition, Mori Seiki’s marketing manager plans on aggressively using 3D modeled drawings and data in Mori Seiki’s product catalogs, service manuals and assembly manuals.

Data is currently shared using a file server, but Mori Seiki is reviewing the possibility of transitioning to UGS’ data management system Teamcenter for this role in the future. If Teamcenter is used, Mori Seiki will be able to not only share files, but also implement check-in/check-out exclusionary controls, unify management of various design information and improve its overall work flow as it becomes easier to share information with other divisions.

“What we ultimately want to achieve is an environment that makes full use of 3D modeling in every aspect possible,” said Fujishima. It has been five years since Mori Seiki began using Solid Edge, and they now appear to be entering a new phase in the world of 3D design.

Mori Seiki is a leading company and major contender for the top share in the field of cutting tools. They have improved the core performance compared to the conventional products and users are especially praiseworthy of Mori Seiki’s N Series. The NL Series, in particular, has revolutionized the lathe industry and is selling at explosive levels. Mori Seiki has a 24/7 service center to users every day of the year and to form a powerful partnership with its customers. 

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