To implement effective model-based enterprise (MBE) processes, it’s not enough for a company to begin using model-based definition (MBD) and then send information-rich CAD models through the pipeline from engineering to manufacturing to the supply chain. It is critical for a company to ensure that documents generated in the MBD process are accurate and contain all of the right information.
Two companies in the MBE space, interoperability specialist International TechneGroup Incorporated (ITI) and visual collaboration and 3D MBE publishing leader Anark Corporation, have partnered to help manufacturers ensure the delivery of accurate, high-fidelity MBE documents and technical data packages. ENGINEERING.com spoke with James Flerlage, Executive Vice President of Global Business Development at ITI, and Stephen Collins, CEO of Anark, to learn about the significance of this partnership.
As CAD Approaches the Digital Twin
While every new individual technology sector—say, the Industrial Internet of Things, Digital Thread, or additive manufacturing—seems like a breakthrough in its own right, it is becoming increasingly clear that what is really emerging is an entirely new manufacturing paradigm, the fourth industrial revolution.
As these disparate fields coalesce into Industry 4.0, a new infrastructure will need to be built, one that considers the need to communicate product designs in 3D, from inception to manufacturing. This infrastructure is beginning to take shape with the help of product lifecycle management (PLM) software and effective MBE processes and solutions. By leveraging these tools, businesses can escape the last century’s use of 2D drawings and cumbersome communication processes to become true MBEs.
As manufacturing is evolving toward Industry 4.0, companies are beginning to incorporate the CAD models themselves, including required manufacturing information along with them, into their production workflows. Then, when a physical part or assembly is made, it can be matched against the original CAD model to ensure accuracy.
“As a part of this evolution, companies are moving away from drawings and embedding all of the product manufacturing information inside the 3D model itself,” Flerlage said. “Those 3D models can obviously come from a number of different proprietary software systems. Often those systems will produce various visualization formats that will include a 3D model or assembly with product manufacturing information embedded directly within the package.”
Flerlage pointed out that 3D PDF has become ubiquitous throughout the discrete manufacturing sector as a mechanism to effectively share MBD data. This is due in part to the fact that Adobe Acrobat is already used across business as a PDF reader. Additionally, 3D PDF is an ISO standard.
One solution for publishing a complete technical data package with advanced MBD support is Anark Core. Anark Core is an automated, template based content publishing system for open-standard formats such as 3D PDF and HTML5 with WebGL for the delivery of effective and dynamic technical content that supports a broad range of data types — such as 3D CAD with high-fidelity MBD, 2D drawings, lists, notes, product requirements and field service data. This capability enables more effective and efficient communication and collaboration with knowledge workers throughout the extended enterprise and supply-chain.
Going from CAD to MBD
However, when CAD data is translated into a rich MBD package, conversion issues can occur whereby some of the original data isn’t accurately translated. In order to be as powerful as it is, MBD is necessarily complex and information rich, and ensuring the validity of a conversion is an essential element to delivering useful, high-fidelity 3D MBE documents and content.
“The ROI numbers for major manufacturing organizations at the forefront of the MBE movement are just staggering,” added Stephen Collins, CEO of Anark. “But, if you cannot consistently publish high-fidelity data within your MBE documents being used across the enterprise and the supply chain, then the whole system breaks down. Basically, it’s the old adage of garbage in, garbage out. Anark has made substantial technology investments in its software to make sure that it is publishing precise data, and working closely with ITI provides one more safeguard to ensure that our customers are working with accurate, validated MBD in their technical documents.”
ITI’s CADIQ software will help by validating MBD data, checking it against the initial CAD file and reporting any discrepancies. This should streamline the production process because errors in the MBD data can be detected before the data moves onto the next step in product development or manufacturing.
“ITI’s CADIQ is a validation tool that clearly understands the Anark transformation process. Because it’s possible to access the geometry and PMI inside a 3D PDF container, we validate the accuracy between a 3D PDF and the native output from the original CAD software,” Flerlage elaborated. “CADIQ identifies any changes to the vector symbols, the geometry and topology, thus validating whether or not the model and its associated data in the 3D PDF output are completely accurate..”
CADIQ and Anark Core
ITI and Anark serve many of the same customers, helping them to take advantage of their PLM and MBE products. While Anark is mainly involved on the document publishing and collaboration side of the equation with its Anark Core and Anark MBEWeb products, ITI’s CADIQ works to ensure that businesses’ MBD data matches the original CAD files.
According to Flerlage and Collins, the partnership was a natural fit. Each company’s respective customers were often users of the other company’s products in solving MBD needs. As a result, ITI and Anark would end up working together on behalf of that customer as they were brought into joint projects. Thus, the partnership was, to a degree, driven by customers.
Now that the partnership has been formalized, Anark and ITI will collaborate even more closely and open up their products to each other. “It’s a tighter collaboration between the companies and therefore a collaboration between our products,” Collins said. “Our teams talk to each other regularly. And it’s not just sales teams; it’s the R&D teams that are meeting about how our products work together or relate to each other to make sure that they are as effective and seamless as possible for the customer.”
As market pressures continue to push manufacturers to embrace the next industrial revolution and Industry 4.0, ITI and Anark believe this partnership will help empower both large and small manufacturers to get there by enabling MBE.
“Essentially, we’ve provided access to each other’s respective technologies in order to make both toolsets better,” Flerlage added. “The customers now see us working together. We have software and services at ITI that enable interoperability between a whole host of systems: CAD, CAM, CAE, PLM, PDM. Anark fits into work streams where ITI products are also used, and it just made sense for us to figure out a way to work together more seamlessly. We work in accounts jointly so that we can now come to customers with a single-minded strategy in terms of solution architecture implementation.”
The Future for ITI and Anark
While in the near term the companies anticipate this partnership will result in CADIQ and Anark Core working together seamlessly with publishing and validating high-fidelity 3D PDFs, both organizations envision their work together naturally extending further. In the works already is collaboration on Anark MBEWeb. This will allow technical data packages to be generated as HTML5 web content, visualized in WebGL and validated by CADIQ.
“MBEWeb is our cloud and web-based visual collaboration system,” Collins explained. “Basically, it utilizes the same automated data transformation and content publishing capabilities provided by Anark Core, and packages as hosted HTML5 web content. This opens up more ways to deploy MBE and related technical content, including web browser, smartphone and iPad support for use on the shop floor or in the field, while also providing more advanced commenting and collaboration features.”
Whether it is 3D PDF now or HTML5 in the near future, the result, according to Flerlage, is that MBEs are able to achieve a much more efficient architecture at a reduced cost. Businesses tend to wind up with a plethora of point solutions that solve problems issue by issue. By bringing together two large interoperability providers together, it’s possible to offer one ubiquitous solution—a effective, fully validated 3D MBE technical documents and content.
“The goal for us is to get the technology deployed so it’s production ready and so that the return on investment promised by MBD and MBE can be realized,” Flerlage said. “We’re not just here to sell software and walk away. We’re here to provide a consulting approach, an advisory role to help customers implement a solution that for some is still a next-generation technology or capability. I think the partnership is going to benefit our customers by getting them into production faster with a high level of quality and confidence.”
By working together, ITI and Anark are laying the initial groundwork for a robust infrastructure on which Industry 4.0 relies. As PLM and MBE tools are implemented effectively and cooperating with each other, the world of manufacturing are one step closer to being fully digitalized and the fourth industrial revolution can really begin to take off.
ITI has sponsored this post. They have no editorial input to this post. All opinions are mine. —Michael Molitch-Hou