VisualNastran 4D lets designers simulate an entire assembly rather than one part or subassembly for more accurate FEA results.

With today’s pressing economic crunch, minimizing time-to-market is moving up the priority list for motion system designers. Be it automotive transmissions or chicken pot pies, speeding product down the line starts with smart, swift design of the automated production and handling equipment.

There are plenty of tools, services, and methodologies to help engineers shorten their motion systems development cycles. For some it’s simulation software that saves the day, eliminating re-design work late in the game. For others it’s consulting services with streamlined approaches to design and vast resources. Another big time saver: Collaborating with product designers early on, which simplifies manufacturability and parts handling. Good working relationships with distributors and suppliers pay off as well, mainly in quicker order delivery and five-star support service. Often shortening the design cycle also involves more of a grassroots effort, such as engineers striving to communicate more clearly and efficiently with one another.

A helping hand

Sometimes a single company designing or automating a production line can stray off schedule while tackling international standards and out-of-the-ordinary designs. This is where automation experts can come to the rescue. Full-service-oriented companies, like Bayside Automation, Canonsburg, Pa., can bail out engineers anywhere in the design cycle, from the proverbial cocktail napkin idea on.

By working with hundreds of customers and vendors, Bayside Automation has compiled more than 200,000 CAD models in a searchable design library. In other words, they rarely have to start from scratch. Not only that, they have a heads-up as to what initial questions to ask. These are the types of things that for the less experienced may come much later in the design process and add weeks to the development cycle, such as examining complex or problematic processes, like soldering instead of welding, or logging process parameters for quality programs. Another example is building in contingencies like extra space for a vision inspection station on a gluing line, even though it’s not included initially.

Bayside also saves time by implementing distributed rather than centralized controls on automation equipment. Engineers don’t have to wait for an entire assembly system to be completed before beginning testing. Individual I/O blocks are put on modules, so smaller portions can be assembled and tested in parallel for a more concurrent engineering design cycle.

Also, when starting on an assembly concept, Bayside sets up meetings with the design team, but also includes production employees and operators to get their input. They design in 3D, which is helpful in visualizing the design concept for those not directly involved, says Roger Hambro, vice president of projects, Bayside Automation.

In this cam-driven machine, Dynamic Designer from Mechanical Dynamics simulates and animates the functional performance of mechanical systems directly in the CAD environment. Results include loads due to contact as well as the motion (positions and velocity) of all components within the system. Virtual testing reduces the reliance on hand calculations and physical testing which assists in speeding products to market with less risk.

By using a standard set of vendors, Bayside Automation earns priority delivery of large orders, preferred pricing, and in-person engineering support. Whether large customers, like Bayside Automation, or smaller firms, engineering groups are benefiting from changes in system component distribution, as distributors are becoming more involved in the design process. Designers today rely on distributor support to literally design systems and program controls to fill the voids in their own staffs and keep on schedule.

“Distributors have been struggling with the question ‘where can I add value?’ and the design area has surfaced as a significant answer,” says David Witwer, general manager, Reserve Motion Control Systems, Strongsville, Ohio. In the last ten years engineering personnel at the companies he’s served has declined, and the current economic downturn has caused layoffs in plant, product, and design engineering. With timeto- market ever more critical, Witwer says that engineers expect “out-ofthe- box” components and subsystems, placing more of the design and set-up burden on the distributor. Another distributor, Shingle & Gibb Co., Moorestown, N.J., has consequently beefed up its application engineer staff to fill the daily requests to provide CAD drawings, build control panels, and do programming. They often receive system parameters and are expected to design systems from their stock of components. Because distributor application engineers are familiar with the vendors’ products, they can perform tasks like programming a control much more quickly than an engineer who may have to spend 40 hours learning the necessary programming language before even attempting the job, explains Jim Visconti, vice president of engineering at Shingle & Gibb.

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