CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
11 July 2007
Implementation Investments
Techshot Deploys SpaceClaim to Boost Productivity and Innovation
Techshot , an engineering and product development company based in Greenville, Indiana, has deployed SpaceClaim Professional 2007 to boost its engineers' productivity and to fully capture innovative ideas in 3D. As Professional Innovators whose ideas have flown on seven NASA space shuttle missions, Techshot's engineers require a powerful and flexible 3D modeling tool. SpaceClaim's dynamic modeling allows them to exercise their design models in unanticipated directions and quickly explore multiple design alternatives.
The full Techshot case study is available at http://www.spaceclaim.com/success.aspx
"We work in a multi-disciplinary environment, where we all need to do a little bit of everything," Techshot's Nathan Thomas, explains. "So, although I'm an electrical engineer, I often need to do some mechanical design as well, particularly in the early stages of a design."
As in so many other product development firms, the benefits of 3D modeling had been limited to Techshot's mechanical designers who are dedicated CAD specialists. Before using SpaceClaim, Thomas had never used a 3D modeling system for his conceptual designs, which meant that he relied on others to help formulate his ideas. This limited his design productivity by making "on-the-fly" changes difficult and hampered his communication with the rest of Techshot's product development team.
With SpaceClaim, Thomas is successfully using SpaceClaim to model his own designs. He recently used SpaceClaim to create a complex bracket to mount connectors inside a new proprietary device for a highly competitive industry. The bracket required both machining and bending to fabricate, so the modeling task was fairly complicated.
"I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to use SpaceClaim," reports Thomas. "Its dynamic modeling capabilities make it simple to create and modify part geometry and its user interface is well-designed, making the software very intuitive. In fact, the amount of time it took me to model the part was less than the time it took me to actually measure the product it was going into!"
" SpaceClaim saved us both time and money, eliminating the inefficiency of a manual conceptual design process and the redundancy of having our CAD operators recreate my design," concludes Thomas. "SpaceClaim exceeded my expectations. Now I can quickly and easily model my own designs. I don't have to be a CAD operator; instead I can be a designer."
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