By Dr. Andrew Anagnost

Sometimes product development is more than good business. For Wipaire, a manufacturer of floats for amphibious planes, that’s true. Its products help people and supplies get to hard-to-reach places and fight forest fires. Since different airplane models require floats that suit their particular weight, size, and shape, new product development has been a matter of survival for the float manufacturer, which currently has eight lines of floats.

Although the consequences of design success or failure may not be so dramatic for all companies, most manufacturers feel the pressure of increasingly global competition and the need to innovate. A Boston Consulting survey of 250 senior executives revealed nearly 70 percent saw innovation as a top priority, but more than half expressed dissatisfaction with the results of their investment in innovation.

The key, say business management experts, is not research and development spending and information technology. Diana Farrell, director of the McKinsey Global Institute, recently said successful innovation simply "has more to do with execution and getting products out better and faster."

Sometimes product development is more than good business. For Wipaire, a manufacturer of floats for amphibious planes, that’s true. Its products help people and supplies get to hard-to-reach places and fight forest fires. Since different airplane models require floats that suit their particular weight, size, and shape, new product development has been a matter of survival for the float manufacturer, which currently has eight lines of floats.

Although the consequences of design success or failure may not be so dramatic for all companies, most manufacturers feel the pressure of increasingly global competition and the need to innovate. A Boston Consulting survey of 250 senior executives revealed nearly 70 percent saw innovation as a top priority, but more than half expressed dissatisfaction with the results of their investment in innovation. ¹

Software with functional design capabilities lets the designer start with a depiction of the final product’s operating concepts, instead of the geometric dimensions of its parts, as shown here in the Design Accelerator of Autodesk Inventor 10.

The key, say business management experts, is not research and development spending and information technology. Diana Farrell, director of the McKinsey Global Institute, recently said successful innovation simply “has more to do with execution and getting products out better and faster.”²

Product development plays a big role in getting goods to market “better and faster.” But it’s difficult to streamline manufacturing when the product development process continues to depend on sequential, repetitive 2D drafting tasks that make it hard to update and validate designs. And moving to 3D can introduce additional complications as staff struggles to master brand new software and a different paradigm for design.

Whether it’s 2D or 3D, most design technology is not focused on the design process. Instead, it’s focused on the documentation process — that is, the creation of 2D drawings or 3D models of a product concept. Geometry is the focus of today’s design systems, but documentation of geometry only addresses form and fit. Design is about function.

Unfortunately, the focus on geometry is an all-consuming aspect of many design software systems, forcing users to “fit” together designs using concepts that have absolutely nothing to do with product function. Until they use a modeling system, most product designers and engineers have never encountered a “face-to-face mate.” And what’s a face-to-face mate got to do with a product’s actual mechanical function? Nothing at all.

The time is right for a breakthrough in 3D design tools’ usability. Call it “functional design” — capabilities that bridge the gap between the design process and the documentation process. We’re beginning to see just such products on the market.
Software with functional design capabilities lets the designer start with a depiction of the final product’s operating concepts, instead of the geometric dimensions of its parts. The engineer begins with an idea for a device’s function in the real world. Then, instead of translating mechanical action into geometry with commands such as sketch, extrude, and mate, he selects intelligent components (gears, shafts, and previously created designs) from a functional design library. Design geometry ends up as the outcome of his functional intent and the operating parameters he sets, such as torque, load and the like.

 

Functional libraries represent the design requirements of a component, instead of lines, arcs, circles, extrusions, and patterns.

For many manufacturers, functional design capabilities are instrumental to breakthrough customer service. Functional design capabilities also are helping supply chain manufacturers to expand their businesses beyond just components. Companies can now offer system solutions — that is, 3D designs that customers can incorporate into their own products. Customers choose from a library of proven products, view a model of the assembly with functional intelligence, and determine how it fits into their own plans for innovation. Then they can download the complete design.

Customers know what they want a product to do, and they ask for those functions — not the number of gears or size of belts required to make the product work. They establish relationships with vendors based on a master product design that gets modified slightly for new applications.

Certainly, if software works the way designers think, it’s a lot easier to embrace 3D. But most important, functional design allows the product engineer to address what the customer wants the product to do, and quickly produce a design that’s close to the customer’s specification. In lifelike 3D, the model approximates what the customer has requested much better than a conventional 2D drawing, to produce the right design — and the right product — more quickly.

From the airplane float specialist to the world’s automotive giants, manufacturers entrust customer satisfaction — and their own success — to the products they develop. Using functional design capabilities, these companies may find the road to 3D design is smoother than ever.

Functional Design Some examples of functional design capabilities users are starting to see in software now on the market include: Conceptual design tool: When trying to solve a design problem, designers want to lay out their ideas in 2D or quickly create a 3D representation without worrying about abstract modeling commands such as sketch, extrude, and cut. In a functional design system, simple layouts are the foundation for complex 3D models, and basic shapes can be used to quickly define a complex part. Intelligent libraries: Instead of lines, arcs, circles, extrusions, and patterns, functional libraries represent the design requirements of, say, a gear and how much torque it can support. While traditional modeling tools can describe the geometry of a gear, they don’t give any indication of how the gear will or should perform. Software with functional design capabilities enables components to “understand” how they need to respond within the context of a design. Relationships and connections: Today’s modeling systems rely on geometric relationships (flush, concentric, joined, and so forth) to describe how a model fits together. A functional design system performs in terms of joints, pivots, and sliders –—the mechanical relationships and connections that drive how a design functions.

About the Author

Dr. Andrew Anagnost is senior director of product management for the Manufacturing Solutions Division at Autodesk. Prior to joining Autodesk, he held positions in research, development, sales, and marketing related to CAD/CAM/CAE and the manufacturing industry at organizations including NASA, Stanford University, EXA Corp. and Lockheed Aeronautical Systems Co. He holds a bachelor’s of science degree in mechanical engineering from the California State University and a master’s of science degree in engineering science and a Ph.D. in aeronautical engineering and computer science from Stanford University.

References
1. Peter Engardio, “Scouring the Planet for Brainiacs.” BusinessWeek (October 11, 2004).
2. Peter Engardio, “Scouring the Planet for Brainiacs,” op.cit.

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