Food & Retail Chain Metal & Wood Furniture Manufacturer, USA
A US based furniture manufacturer supplying furniture products to leading food chains and retail stores needed similar solution to reduce the engineering lead time and improve the product delivery to end customers.
Reducing engineering lead time to improve product delivery to end customers.
To reduce the lead time required for design and engineering, design automation was implemented to automate the configuration, documentation and quotation processes. A database was created to gather all the design, manufacturing and pricing data. Through automation design cycles were 70 times faster, which further reduced the manufacturing time and allowed faster product delivery.
SolidWorks & DriveWorks
Every new food chain restaurant or a retail store needs specific set of furniture to accommodate people. Furniture manufacturers as such constantly face the challenge of delivering the products on time and as per the store design and space requirements. Quoting price for an inquiry is thus time consuming as the products are manufactured to order. For manufacturers, it is important to quickly response to inquiries with right quote and also deliver the products on time to remain competitive in the market.
The design information was first developed in 3D using SolidWorks with all the required dimensions and manufacturing information. All the required data was then used to create a database to be utilized for further automation purposes. Using DriveWorks, rules were developed to automate the engineering, documentation and quotation processes.
By simply feeding the customization requirements in frontend user interface, the design changes are done automatically and manufacturing and other documents are generated along with the quotation. The engineering lead time was thus reduced from 4-5 days to one day, allowing manufacturer to manufacture and deliver the products faster. The design cycle was 70 times faster with enhanced quality and reduced material wastage.