3D design drives instrument innovation

This paper introduces the successful case of Donghai Group's application of SolidWorks3D design and verification software to realize product innovation design and improve product quality and value.

With the growth of China's economy, Ningbo Donghai Group, which has been established for nearly half a century, mainly designs and produces water meters, electric energy meters, gas meters, heat meters, water meters, timers, program-controlled valves, smart meters and energy resource management systems. It is a new industrial base for measuring instruments in Zhejiang Province. In order to develop potential markets at home and abroad, the company actively promotes overseas investment development, establishes South East Asia DH instrument manufacturing base in East Asia, Hong Kong Donghai Instrument Company, and establishes strategic partnership with France's Wateau and Swiss SONTEX to further expand the global market sales network. .

Instrument 3D model

As a leader in the industry, the East China Sea Group's understanding of innovation is the core competitiveness of the company is also higher than its opponents. In order to cope with the increasingly competitive market, the Group fully implements information management. The company introduced enterprise management software, carried out technical equipment transformation, gradually improved the automation level of development, production, testing and management, implemented the business process re-engineering of the market and customers as the link, and integrated internal and external resources. At the same time, the company is gradually feeling that the old design concepts and general 2D design software can not meet the needs of innovative design, and the bottleneck of product development is increasingly prominent.

Lin Zhiliang, chief engineer of the East China Sea Group, said: "We need an efficient and simple 3D design software, and use the design and design verification methods on this platform to improve the quality and value of the product."

After careful market research, Donghai Group found that SolidWorks3D design and verification software is easy to use and easy to use. It can produce the most effective design data integration and unity in the product development process, which not only can optimize the design and manufacturing cost, but also maximize the efficiency. It can also help companies improve their product competitiveness.

"We have been using SolidWorks95 software since 1995. During the process, we have realized that SolidWorks has created considerable value for our company. SolidWorks is easy to use, the software provides an intuitive interface, and the effects of motion simulation. It allows us to play the near-real picture to our customers and help them improve their marketing capabilities.” As the technical director of Ningbo Donghai Group, a loyal user of SolidWorks, whenever he talks about SolidWorks software, Hu Kejian has an inexhaustible discourse. .

Harvest and improvement

In the process of applying SolidWorks, Donghai Group was pleasantly surprised to find that the design time was greatly shortened. In the design project of multi-series gas meters and water meters, they set up a multi-person design team. At the beginning of the design work, more than one hundred parts are involved. SolidWorks3DCAD design software allows designers to see the actual shape and component structure through 3D drawings, so that the use of 2DCAD system requires three weeks of work to be reduced to only one week. At the same time, the design error rate is reduced. Design changes are also very convenient and accurate, making the review work much easier.

When talking about the prospects of domestic enterprises for 3DCAD design and application, Xu Ang, manager of the technical information center of Donghai Group added: "At present, the penetration rate of 3DCAD design software for Chinese meter manufacturing enterprises is not very high. In addition to price factors, it is mainly The habits and concepts of enterprise use are difficult to change rapidly. Now the price and ease of use of SolidWorks3DCAD software have become more and more accepted by enterprises. Our experience shows that in order to design a more competitive product, our investment in 3DCAD system is completely worthwhile. of."

challenge

In order to improve the technical content and competitive advantage of the products, the East China Sea Group realized that it must strengthen its competitiveness at the design stage. With the development of the company, Donghai gradually felt that the original 2DCAD design software could not meet the design requirements of complex high-precision gas meters and water meters. The market pressure finally prompted Donghai Group to focus on 3DCAD design software.

solution

Through the introduction of SolidWorks project, engineers in the enterprise can use SolidWorks-easy-to-use 3D computer-aided design software to use the software to design professional products for enterprises. All the introduction plans are to create a SolidWorks design environment, which integrates all aspects of product design and production through the transmission of parameter data and a single geometric model, so as to speed up time-to-market and increase the competitiveness of the company.

The company also uses COSMOSMotion-virtual prototype simulation software to enable companies to ensure proper operation before manufacturing. The simulation results can save a lot of cost and time for prototyping. Enables engineers to test a variety of different design approaches during the design phase, reducing opportunities for failure and getting valuable engineering information ahead of time.

to sum up

In order to survive and thrive in an increasingly competitive market, companies must strive to improve their core competencies. The competitiveness comes from innovative design, but the 2D design software has a considerable restriction on the innovative design, so it must move towards 2D towards 2D. Throughout the current structural design software on the market, SolidWorks software uses the combination of variables and variables, and constructs the physical model in a characterization manner. Since its characteristics fully meet the needs of institutional designers in product design, 3D models will become all products. Designed platform. But just to achieve the use of a 3D modeling system, the effect of the company to improve the design process is still limited, we use SolidWorks as a tool to introduce 3D design, what is seen is the greater benefit enhancement brought by the back-end support system. Just as the introduction plan is comprehensive, not only can users smoothly transition to the 3D field in CAD, but also provide solutions according to the needs of different departments.

Hu Kejian, technical director of the East China Sea Group, said at the end: "If you want to maintain the industry's leading position and stand in the fierce market competition, you must improve the core competitiveness of the products, and the core competitiveness of the products is derived from the innovative design of the products. With the introduction of SolidWorks 3D CAD software, we are confident that we will be able to further improve the quality and competitiveness of our products."