Every company would like to reduce its prototype model production costs by more than 90 percent while also reducing time-to-assembly so it can consistently beat its competition to market? For one family-owned company that designs and manufactures specialty lighting products, that dream became a reality.

Based in Lexington, KY, Q-Lighting hand-builds portable and wearable lights used by musicians, doctors, campers, electricians, and anyone else with the need to illuminate small items in poorly lit places. Q-Lighting attempted to sell its lighting products into “big box” stores such as Wal-Mart and The Home Depot, but quickly realized its capacity would not meet the demand of these giants and the company would become too dependent on single contracts. That’s when the company expanded sales to specialty distribution outlets such as Ace Hardware and Eddie Bauer, but it still needed to improve design turnaround time to keep up with customization requests. The challenge was to shrink time-to-assembly and at the same eliminate massive part modeling costs.

To help solve their dilemma, engineers at Q-Lighting turned to Avatech Solutions, an engineering systems integrator that helps companies design, develop, and manage projects, products, and facilities. Carl Smith, a mechanical engineer and an Autodesk certified instructor, moved Q-Lighting from AutoCAD to Mechanical Desktop and then to Inventor to take advantage of 3D design capabilities.

Q-Lighting already had hundreds of components created in Mechanical Desktop and did not want to lose that work. Avatech ensured the components would stay in tact by helping to convert the geometry and providing customized title blocks and fonts using company standards. The turn-key solution enabled designers to concentrate on new work and innovation — not on details which were easily standardized. Smith then spent a week with the in-house design team to help them learn the new programs by working with them on actual production drawings as assignments.

Seeing Inventor’s ability to reduce the cost of modeling, Q-Lighting’s owner and president Ira Cooper decided to complement it by acquiring an in-house rapid prototyping machine. The engineering team generates 3D files for a new product and tests it virtually, all in Inventor. When the engineers are satisfied with the results, they send the Inventor file to the rapid prototyping machine to generate a 3D model.

“Virtual testing and crating physical models allows us to easily see whether the assembly will work prior to creating new parts,” Cooper says. “Instead of spending $30,000 for a fully built out working 3D model, it costs us around $7000 in materials, plus our time — and we control the process.”

“Because we are one of the last family-owned businesses in this market, we need every possible advantage to maintain an edge on our competition,” Cooper continues. “This new process with virtual testing capabilities in Inventor, and the rapid prototyping machine makes us an extremely efficient design organization, helping us to get our products on the shelf before our largest competitors.”

many parts Q-Lighting uses to house its electronics snap together. Different tolerances for the snap shafts and their corresponding holes are used for different purposes. With Inventor, designers can be assured that if they change a shaft diameter, the hole will resize to accommodate the change. “This lets us quickly adapt an existing part for a new product, without having to do the math because Inventor does the work for us,” Cooper says.

David Russell, a design engineer at Q-Lighting says working in 2D is a slow process. “It’s a drafting process, not a design process,” he says. “If you miss a detail on a design, or don’t remember to change a layer, you get problems. Inventor does away with all of that by automating updates. We’re not a big company and don’t have a huge design department, so Inventor makes us faster and more efficient.”

Q-Lighting is enjoying the benefits that Avatech has helped it achieve. One of the news products developed with the new system is the Bil-lite (shown), which attaches to a hat bill. “Q-Lighting has 16 new products in development and we know we can get them to market quicker than ever before,” Russell says. And, that’s good news for the company.

More information is available by contacting Avatech Solutions, 10715 Red Run Blvd., Ste. 101, Owings Mills, MD 21117, by calling 800-706-1000, or at www.avatech.com