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Chief Automotive Systems : Autodesk Inventor Auto body repair shops around the world have relied on Chief Automotive Systems' (Grand Island, NE) collision repair equipment for more than 27 years. The company's flagship products are frame straightening machines. However, the company also produces measuring devices that determine vehicle frame integrity. Dan McClellan is a senior design engineer in new product development at Chief Automotive. He says that designing Chief's products can be tricky since all the components in the moderately complex structures must fit together accurately. "With each new design," says McClellan, "we strive to provide our customers with more functionality so that they can easily and quickly estimate jobs and repair automobiles. We are also concerned with making the equipment as safe as possible." Akin to most manufacturers, Chief Automotive faces tough customer requirements. Product cost, equipment versatility, and pulling power are critical customer issues. McClellan adds, "Those requirements are defined up front and are the driving force in developing design concepts. For instance, it's important to design the towers that perform the actual pulling action on vehicle frames early in the design cycle. Also at the design concept stage, we are concerned with making the system strong enough so that it can pull with enough force to bend the frame back to where it was originally. "Over the last two decades, the automobile industry has evolved to produce cars with a uni-body structure. In other words, the combined body parts form the frame. As a result of this design, crash damaged cars are deemed completely destroyed more often because repair shops are not able to replace parts or straighten damaged components. In today's market, cars are made to crash safely yet this makes the repair work more difficult." Technology in place For many years, McClellan and his colleagues used AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT software products in a 2D-design environment. Several months ago, Chief's Autodesk distributor AVATECH SOLUTIONS invited Chief engineers to an Inventor seminar. "We were very impressed with the product's strengths," notes McClellan. As a result, the company purchased Inventor and McClellan is currently the primary user. However, the company plans to purchase additional seats for other engineers in new product development, manufacturing, and technicians working in the electronic measuring system department. McClellan says Inventor allows users to design using methodology that is counter to the traditional style. "In new product development, we used to typically conceptualize new designs in our heads and then put it on paper. Using Inventor, however, the conceptualization process begins on-screen. Inventor adapts to changes in the design and automatically updates the mating parts and documentation, making the process of making changes much simpler. Before, as we designed products, the process of change built up momentum due to the amount of work to change existing documentation. That phenomenon built up a resistance to change towards the end of the project. However, using Inventor I am anticipating that the change process won't be nearly as prohibitive." Project using Inventor McClellan is currently using Inventor to develop several new products related to the automotive repair industry. "Inventor is very useful in the design process because it helps me visualize how the mechanism is going to work. I can obtain a proportionate model of the design very quickly. From the very beginning of the project, with no formal training besides the seminar, I was able to use Inventor, create components, and match them together much more quickly than using any other product. "Today's commercial parametric programs are too hard to learn and use. Companies experience critical downtime when engineers have to spend a semester or more trying to understand the technology. Other design packages I have tried have tried to anticipate what the user wants; it becomes a real nightmare when the system guesses incorrectly. I am very impressed with Inventor because it doesn't guess wrong very often. The product is very accurate at anticipating what we need in our designs." Chief Automotive Systems reviewed other popular software products prior to selecting Inventor. "The systems are competitive," notes McClellan, "but the time to get people up and running is prohibitive. We believe that Inventor stands out as next-generation MCAD technology. Other systems force users to define the surfaces and parts before they can get to the business of design. Inventor, on the other hand, allows us to sketch the design in real time and change it very easily. That is a step ahead of the pack in my book. I am pleased with the product and I haven't been disappointed even though the product is fairly new. Often times, when software is brand new there are usually lots of bugs and it takes a while to get off the ground to where you can use it and it takes a few brave souls to buy it and move forward. Inventor has been very easy to use from the initial implementation. It provides great functionality for our needs and we anticipate further enhancements from Autodesk." Measured savings Inventor allows Chief to deliver new ideas from concept to production much sooner than before. This scenario enables the company to take advantage of marketplace surprise factors rather than being beaten by the competition. The company's traditional design cycle before Inventor has been drastically reduced. In addition, Chief Automotive has needed to build several stages of prototypes, which are expensive in both time and money. Using Inventor, McClellan aims to reduce the need for prototypes to just one or two at the most. Trends in the marketplace McClellan cites some automation trends in the marketplace. "Besides some of the newer design technologies that are helpful to manufacturers, there are a lot of automated processes that are coming into play that can save upfront in the development as well as in production of new materials. It is amazing how many manufacturers are trying to automate many of their processes. As more companies move in that direction, sophistication can be built into the processes and technology to assure that products are easier to handle, easier to use, and more effective. I believe that Inventor will help us become more automated in our processes." Author: Laura Carrabine |