Door designing and manufacturing tasks seem to be simple with the possible geometrical dimensioning customization in length, breadth, and height. However, when explored with keen interest the geometry goes beyond what is apparent.
Let’s assume a commercial door drawing or a model that is to be made prior to the actual manufacturing. With the current situation in the industrial design engineers and manufacturing companies are keen on implementing ETO to deliver customer-centric services with CAD configurator achieved through design automation and 3D CAD modeling.
As a result, there is a range of options available for the same geometrical dimensions with changing locks, door materials, surface finish, hinges, fixtures like knobs, mainframe, panel, stoppers etc. It, thus, goes without saying that when the metallurgy changes, the fabrication techniques change and hence the shop drawings. Also, when customization is made on a micro scale of design features like stated above, the manufacturing CAD drawings, installation, and assembly drawings also change.
Owing to the multiple options only in the martial of door viz. Aluminum doors, wooden, fire resistant door, etc. the manufacturing instruction changes. Secondly, the aforementioned parameters add to the combinations for a single model.
When a CAD drafter initiates the development of a 2D manufacturing drawing or a 3D model, these high numbers of customization will only make the job tedious. Additionally, the time taken to generate precise drawings for each door order would be endless.
Now for a product like a door, where the design mix is very high, and production is never mass production, the costs incurred due to the delay in customization would account for losses that cannot be compensated.
To avoid the last minute hassle in customizing minute design features of a door design and manufacturing it on time, accelerating design cycle is the turnkey solution. This fact has been realized by numerous named door manufacturing companies and various automation tools have been implemented.
But that is not it. Using functional add-ons, inbuilt functions, and other CAD configurator platforms are proving to be the most successful means to achieve the desired customization and achieve quality levels. A product configurator essentially takes inputs from the user, a direct customer or sales team, for design features once all the possible options of designs are modeled and populated in the configurator.
The configurator can contain all the options for designs of doors, frame, knobs, hinges, other fixtures, etc. and all these for available materials. Such options are populated in the configurator based on the design capabilities and custom shop floor tooling capacity of the manufacturing facility.
Not only designs cycles, but a configurator also contributes significantly to accelerate the overall engineering lead time. Firstly, as the customer selects the custom options and different variants of the fixtures, a corresponding 3D model is displayed simultaneously which gives a comprehensive idea and better sales experience to the salesmen as well as the customer. Such a 3D display of the model of the actual door gives a better idea and the customer too can select the right design mix based on their requirement.
Secondly, when the door is completely configured an immediate accurately made pricing quote generated which impacts the decision-making capacity. One interesting thing is that the quotes so generated are accurate as against to the estimates made by a metal contractor.
Furthermore, as the order is placed by the user through configurator, manufacturing drawings and shop drawings are immediately generated and sent to shop floor for manufacturing. This kick-starts the manufacturing the same day as the order is placed by eliminating the delays in costuming the manufacturing drawings all over again.
Today, markets for doors manufacturing is highly in demand for commercial construction including offices designs, retails shops, hotels etc. and delivering quality with custom deliverables is nearly impossible with just CAD modeling. It is, thus, right advice to make a better choice once of adopting and implementing CAD configurator and accelerate the product design development time, than to make superb models each time and spend energy, money, and time all at once.
