Furniture design moves up to date
A
Cad-Capture product story
Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team
Jul 6, 2004
Cad-Capture is working in partnership on a novel CADCAM project with Steve Allen Originals (SAO) - a high-class designer and manufacturer of solid wood furniture.
Cad-Capture, based in Blackburn, Lancashire, is working in partnership on a CADCAM project with Steve Allen Originals (SAO) - a high-class designer and manufacturer of solid wood furniture.
SAO's designs include its popular Gothic, Acorn, Mackintosh and original children's furniture pieces which are sold in many shops on the high street.
Its children's furniture, such as the best-selling Princess Bed, is designed with safety in mind, featuring rounded edges and doors which help prevent fingers from being trapped.
The company required Cad-Capture to implement its expertise in CAD by vectorising its hand-drawn designs so they could be directly used in SAO's CAM facility.
The purpose being that the Computer Numerically Controlled (CNC) machine would mechanically carve out the intricate designs and therefore, increase productivity of the furniture.
In the short-term, Steve Allen, the Chairman of SAO visited Cad-Capture and worked closely with the CAD technicians so that the designs could be discussed and evolved in real-time.
The long-term objective was to enable both parties to synchronise their intuition thus reducing the reliance on Steve Allen personally being on-site for extended periods during the design process.
SAO sees its major strategic competitive advantages to be derived from its intuition about the wants and needs of the market and the innovative designs with which it responds.
This project is maximising the effect of this competitive advantage by allowing SAO to be more flexible with its designs and respond quicker to market demands by improving the time to market.
Sales are being increased by using the CAD designs to produce 3D models of concept furniture.
These 3D models, which are now taken to potential customers as sales aids, have improved the quality and effectiveness of sales presentations and reduce the reliance on expensive prototypes.
Design and manufacturing costs have been reduced by improving the time taken to create both finished designs and CNC programs.
The consistency and quality of the finished product has also been further improved by the mechanisation of these processes.
These benefits will also carry on multiplying well into the future as SAO will be able to easily evolve existing designs and re-use complete or part designs for use in new designs.
Steve Allen said: "Cad-Capture has helped us to progress technologically within a traditionally slow-moving industry".
"Similar companies are still using traditional methods to produce their furniture; SAO has been able to adapt modern techniques to gain competitive advantage".
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