3DMojo

Apologies for the little, er, technical glitch there the past few days. Our DSN woes have been resolved, and both the blog and the forum are back online.

Which reminds me to tell you that we have some big chages in store for the blog. I will be kicking the soap box aside, and giving you -- our valuable readers -- a better way to dialog with us. We'll also be re-categorizing everything to make finding those video tips much easier too.

Stay tuned for those changes, coming this summer.

--G

I was just reading Patrick Michel's article in Manufacturing Business Technology. It's a pretty good read, as he makes people aware that "being green" in manufacturing doesn't necessarily mean implementing the stereotypical alternative fixes such as solar panels on the plant roof.

While he is mostly talking about plant layout and simulation, using 3D web based digital manufacturing solutions, what really caught my eye was the comment someone gave at the end of the article:

The use of paper is still utilized and graphics and instructions are created for hand off to mechanics. It is in many cases too difficult to provide a laptop with the information, the laptop becomes cumbersome and difficult to maneuver and the opportunity for damage and theft to occur rises.

When you think about digital plant layout, process planning, and simulation in 3D, it is a natural extension to think about how the assembly instruction will be delivered. For those industries where sending interactive 3D work instructions to the shop floor is possible, this further adds to the "green" message: no more paper! Plus, using interactive 3D experiences to communicate instructions on the shop floor has been proven to be more efficient and improves quality (just ask our customers).

For those industries where paper is still a requirement, as the above commenter mentions, incredible time can still be saved if the documents can be automatically generated from the 3D digital manufacturing process plan. And since that digital plan can be easily kept up to date with process changes, geometry changes, configuration changes, effectivity changes, and work instruction changes, the paper documentation can easily be regenerated as needed. Plus the interactive 3D work instructions can still be used as a reference for new employees or for training purposes.

<soapbox alert>

And what Patrick didn't say in the article, I will say: DELMIA is amazing when it comes to digital manufacturing. And of course, 3DVIA Composer is amazing when it comes to visual and interactive instructions. Imagine what you can get if you combine the two?

</soapbox alert>

Happy New Year everyone!

Take a look at this article about Creation, a UK-based company that is making great use of 3DVIA Composer to bring real-time on-demand service instructions to in-service vehicles. (That's my attempt for the New Year to link as many hyphenated words together in once sentence as possible!)

As mentioned in the article:

3DVIA Composer coupled with on-board vehicle breakage detectors provide condition reports and repair instructions that are also transmitted to base. 3D animated repair options are presented to the crew providing them the information they need to make better decisions in the event of breakage. This application of 3DVIA Composer is based on the same technical publications data that accompanies the vehicle into service to provide Z fleet operators with lower through life costs resulting from this advanced source of information.

(more...)

The new release of 3DVIA Composer V6R2009x is being launched this week as part of the overall V6 portfolio update. As part of the press release, we have updated our website. Let us know what you think!

Information about the new 3DVIA Composer enhancements can be see here, and will be available on Friday for general distribution.

Watch our very own Henning Lochner introduce and present 3DVIA Composer and 3DVIA Virtools at this year's European CATIA Forum. Henning will be presenting on Wednesday @ 2 pm (that's 14h00).