Hardinge Reduces Design Time 40 Percent as it Competes in New
Low-Price Market
Autodesk Inventor 3D Mechanical Software Key to Successful
Design of New Machine Tool
Like many companies in the manufacturing industry, Hardinge Inc. is affected
by the new global economy where exchange rates, competition from foreign
markets, the U.S. recession, and the ability to create inexpensive, yet
high-quality products are critical business challenges. The machine tool
industry in which Hardinge competes is highly competitive, particularly from the
Japanese and German markets. In addition, due to the complex nature of the
machine tool industry, design times can be long, making it difficult to quickly
create a product in response to an immediate opportunity.
Hardinge has a very diverse customer base in the Automotive, Aerospace and
Medical industries¾ from tier-one automotive
suppliers to small job shops. Its product offering ranges from the COBRA lathe,
with basic 2-axis turning, to the multitasking QUEST lathe that is available
with options to address multiple spindles and turrets as well as X, Y, Z and C
machine-able axes. Pricing ranges from $35,000 for non-CNC tool room lathes to
$300,000 for advanced multitasking machines. Hardinge also offers machine tools
for vertical turning and vertical machining centers, as well as a wide range of
high-quality collets, chucks and other workholding products.
Hardinge decided to take on the new price-sensitive market by introducing a
lathe that is highly functional and accurate, but very affordable. The new ELITE
product would complement the baseline COBRA lathe and the high-end QUEST lathe,
expanding Hardinge’s market share and drawing from the reputation held by
Hardinge today. Autodesk Inventor 3D mechanical design software would be
instrumental in developing new ELITE product.
Over the last 10 years Hardinge has benefited from Autodesk products. The 39
licenses of AutoCAD and 22 licenses of Autodesk Mechanical Desktop currently in
its Research & Engineering and Manufacturing Engineering groups have allowed
Hardinge to shorten its product development time-to-market by reducing design
errors, enabling design alternatives for manufacturability and assembly, and
offering data compatibility with other manufacturing and NC tools. Autodesk
Mechanical Desktop,an option for mechanical designers who prefer to
create 3D designs in native AutoCAD software, has been successful in introducing
Hardinge to 3D design. However, a more innovative and comprehensive 3D
mechanical design solution was required to achieve both engineering and
enterprise wide productivity.
Meeting its Business Objectives
MGB Systems, Inc., an Autodesk Systems Center (ASC) that delivers
design-driven manufacturing solutions to companies in industries ranging from
Industrial Machinery to Aerospace to Tool and Die, has worked with Hardinge for
almost a decade. MGB Systems was brought in to help identify the right solution
to meet Hardinge’s business objectives, then implement and support that
solution to assure its success and adherence to Hardinge’s design and
manufacturing processes.
"Our value add is to understand, present, and implement solutions
specific to an organization’s processes," said Greg Baldwin, president
and owner of MGB Systems, Inc. in Clifton Springs, New York. "We are unique
in our determination to partner with our customers for long term success with
solutions that can adapt to their needs."
Following a benchmark test conducted by MGB Systems and Hardinge that was
specific to the engineering of the new ELITE product, Hardinge upgraded to six
licenses of Autodesk Inventor software from Autodesk Mechanical Desktop and
AutoCAD software in late 2001. A lot was at stake as this product had to help
Hardinge meet the following criteria:
• Uphold the company’s position as a "Leader by DesignTM"
• Compete in a market segment with a cost-competitive offering
• Continue to grow the company’s standard of excellence and innovative
solutions
• Significantly reduce time to market
• Incorporate innovation from the design team throughout the design process
• Execute with a focused project team
The Autodesk Inventor Series was chosen as the technology to help Hardinge
achieve these goals. It incorporates Autodesk Inventor, Autodesk Mechanical
Desktop and AutoCAD Mechanical software into one offering, making Autodesk
Inventor Series the only package that can fully integrate 2D and 3D. Autodesk
Inventor 3D mechanical design software, the cornerstone of Autodesk Inventor
Series, allowed Hardinge to build a model that adapted from concept to
production with concurrent access by the entire design team. The rest of the
Autodesk Inventor Series solution provided the import of 2D and 3D design data
from legacy sources such as Prime Medusa, AutoCAD, and Autodesk Mechanical
Desktop, and vendor supplied files in DWG, IGES, STEP, and ACIS formats.
Hardinge plans to migrate all of its Autodesk Mechanical Desktop and most of its
AutoCAD licenses to Autodesk Inventor Series, preserving a few AutoCAD licenses
to design electrical schematics.
Designing a Successful Entrée into the Market
In May 2002 Hardinge introduced the ELITE 8/51 CNC lathe, its first product
to be designed with Autodesk Inventor Series. Using Autodesk’s latest
technology for mechanical design, Autodesk Inventor, Hardinge saved 40 percent
in comparable design time over Autodesk Mechanical Desktop. Despite its
moderately complex design with approximately 5,000 parts, the first ELITE 8/51
was designed and built in approximately five months. Hardinge is now competing
in a price-sensitive market with a very attractive product. The ELITE
8/51 lathe is designed for ease of operation, reliability, serviceability,
machining accuracy, and efficient metal removal rates. It features the ability
to quickly accept an 8" three-jaw chuck to provide flexibility for large
parts, or a 20C collet with up to 2"/51mm bar capacity without the use of a
spindle adapter to offer an optimum solution for a high-volume production shop.
It also comes standard with live-tooling/C-axis, shop floor programming software
provided by GE Fanuc, and a very compact footprint for small shop operations.
Autodesk Inventor image of the ELITE™ 8/51 lathe, a new
product designed by Hardinge with Autodesk Inventor software.
"With Autodesk Inventor, we increased our productivity of the ELITE 8/51
by 40 percent and expect additional productivity improvements of at least 15
percent for all other products. The accuracy of designs continues to improve so
that we can manufacture flawless products. This helps us reduce costs,
accelerate time to market, and deliver to customers a price-competitive
product," said Clive Danby, vice president of Research & Engineering at
Hardinge Inc. in Elmira, New York. "Because of the benefits that Autodesk
Inventor brings, we were able to design and manufacture the ELITE 8/51 in record
time and compete in a new market that has a lower price point without
compromising high quality."
Benefits of Autodesk Inventor Software
Autodesk Inventor software brings many benefits to Hardinge. Based on
Autodesk’s adaptive technology, Autodesk Inventor software’s
assembly-centric environment and segmented database provides not only the
performance needed to design a 5,000-piece machine tool, engineers can design
parts within the context of the assembly. Advanced graphics and integrated
support of 2D and 3D parts allow for immediate feedback on form, fit and
function of parts and sub-assemblies. Unlike traditional CAD tools that are
based on parametric technologies, relationships between parts in Autodesk
Inventor are stored in the assembly with assembly constraints, allowing parts to
be reused and still maintaining adaptive relationships to other parts. Adaptive
relationships allow design changes to be incorporated quickly and easily to
improve the quality and functionality without increasing costs and design time.
Autodesk Inventor software allowed Hardinge to focus on designing a new machine
tool, without having to develop a strategy to manage large-model performance and
cross part relationships.
"Autodesk Inventor is a superior tool to Autodesk Mechanical Desktop for
3D design. It allows us to have different engineers working on the same product
and then to merge the designs for overall fit," added Danby. "Using
Autodesk Inventor for the complete design of the ELITE 8/51 machine has allowed
us to capitalize on existing design modules in Autodesk Mechanical
Desktop."
Hardinge is looking to extend the use of Autodesk Inventor software beyond
the Research & Engineering Department to the Manufacturing Engineering
Department for documentation of manufacturing processes and for tooling and
fixture design. Animations are also a powerful tool allowing sales and marketing
professionals to demonstrate the technical advantages of its products.
Presentation files provide exploded views for assembly drawings and manuals, as
well as animations for assembly instructions, field service, and electronic
service manuals. Autodesk Streamline is currently being evaluated as a solution
to collaborate and communicate assembly/disassembly instructions to its
customers and service engineers in the field. It can also use the hosted service
to collaborate with vendors.
Service and Support Are Key Ingredients
The final ingredients to assure success are service and support. MGB Systems
worked hand in hand with Hardinge to structure the procedures to enforce
standards and manage revisions. These techniques were instructed to the design
team in a custom training class focused on machine design, allowing users to
start designing before the training was complete.
According to Baldwin, "Taking into consideration Hardinge’s
procedures, we trained six engineers at Hardinge for four days. The team was
able to use Autodesk Inventor immediately and they are becoming more proficient
every day."
Implementation and training are only the beginning. It is impossible to
anticipate all of the situations that will arise when an engineering team
designs a 5,000-piece machine. Ongoing support allows MGB and Hardinge to
identify and resolve problems early, eliminating potential roadblocks.
For more information about Autodesk, Inc. call 800-964-6432 or visit www.autodesk.com;
for information on the ELITE machine or other Hardinge Inc. products call
800-843-8801 or visit www.hardinge.com;
and for MGB Systems, Inc. call 315-462-2207 or visit www.mgbsys.com.
