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Solid Edge Cuts Machine Design Time in Half

Mike Paludan

Switching from 2D AutoCAD to Windows-based solid modeling has reduced the time required to design and document a new machine by 50 percent for Nordson Corporation's Product Assembly group.

Nordson Corporation, headquartered in Westlake, Ohio, is a multinational company that designs, manufactures, and markets systems that apply adhesives, sealants and coatings to a broad range of consumer and industrial products. Nordson products are used around the world in the appliance, transportation, construction, container, filter, electronics, indoor/outdoor lighting, furniture, graphic arts, electrical enclosures, speakers, packaging and other diverse industries. The company has more than 4,000 employees worldwide working in nine business units.

Nordson’s Product Assembly group designs single and two-component dispensing systems that apply sealants, adhesives and gaskets during manufacturing. System components typically include hoses, applicators, pumps, and metering devices, and often robotic elements from third-party suppliers. Now, consistent with Nordson's overall "Package of Values®" approach, engineers can integrate the robotics with the rest of the machine when requested by a customer.

Move to Solids

Nordson had been using 2D AutoCAD to design its machines and produce drawings needed for manufacturing. But the complexity of the machines has increased with the inclusion of components such as robots. Machine designers tried using the layering capability of AutoCAD to place components in the context of the overall system, but this was an inefficient approach for the unit's large machines. "When we scaled down to try to visualize the entire system, we couldn't easily distinguish individual components," Mike Bordner, a senior designer in the Product Assembly group, explains.

To permit the design and assembly of entire systems onscreen, management decided to upgrade to a solid modeler with assembly modeling capabilities. A selection committee evaluated several design system options, reviewing features including speed, ease of use, cost, stability, ability to design individual parts in assembly mode, and so on. Each feature was rated on a weighted scale with the most important features carrying the most weight. The idea was to eliminate subjectivity.

The software that ranked highest was Solid Edge from Unigraphics Solutions. "The interface is the most efficient we have seen in any software," the committee's report stated. "Drawing creation times averaged about 40 percent faster than AutoCAD. This has benefited Nordson’s customers by reducing lead times.

Slashing Design Time

A recent project done with Solid Edge involved the design of a three-axis robotic dispensing system for bonding components. The customer contracted Nordson to supply the complete system including the three-axis robot.

Bordner's first step was to model the robotic and dispense systems’ components in Solid Edge. Working from dimensional drawings, he modeled these parts quickly thanks to the software's STREAM technology, which Bordner explains this way: "Solid Edge leads you down an ordered path and doesn't clutter the screen with a lot of dialog boxes or requests for user input. I wasn't doing a lot of typing or making a lot of mouse clicks to get something done."

When all the subassemblies were complete, he combined them with the robotic components into a single large assembly representing the entire system. Bordner used Solid Edge’s interference checking to make sure the robotic system components integrated smoothly with the dispense equipment. When he was sure that everything fit perfectly, he created drawings using the Solid Edge drafting environment. Total design time on the project, including drawing creation, was half the time needed to design a similar system with 2D AutoCAD. "Solid Edge made our fit checking procedure more efficient," Bordner explains.

"The customer benefits, too, because the solid models in their documentation help clarify the assemblies for their service people," he says.

Nordson Corp. used Solid Edge to design this three-axis automation system. the machine combines precision dispensing with excellent repeatability for dispensing adhesives and sealants in gasketing, bonding, molding and sealing applications in manufacture.

This standard dispensing system is offered to other customers who may require a different size robot. To quickly adapt the design, Bordner has set up a variable table within Solid Edge that will drive the dimensions of the system. For example, robot modules come in various lengths and the table top/frame assembly must be sized accordingly. Rather than changing each part individually, the variable table allows Bordner to simply fill in the dimensional information and the assembly will update in a matter of minutes.

In Nordson's business, fast turnaround is a necessity. Solid Edge helps further decrease response time, allowing Nordson to compete even more effectively in the fast-paced industries it serves. "In addition to the benefits to Nordson, we can pass along the efficiencies of Solid Edge to our customers," Bordner says.

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