Tools enable lean product development

Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team Nov 29, 2005

Dutch design house Multin Hittech develops and manufactures mechanical and electronic products for an international customer base, and now manages the process using OneSpace.net.

Multin Hittech has added OneSpace.net to its portfolio of tools from CoCreate.

Multin, a design house based in Delft, The Netherlands, develops and manufactures mechanical and electronic products for an international customer base.

"Our products are complex", says Oscar de Boer, Engineering Manager at Multin Hittech.

"Add international customers and there's a risk that product development can turn to chaos".

So the company makes sure it works with tools and processes that offer excellent efficiency and communication.

In short, Multin Hittech is adopting what CoCreate calls lean product development - the developer's equivalent of lean manufacturing.

"We now hold online design reviews", says de Boer.

"We upload models during these reviews, and then share our screens using OneSpace.net so project members and customers anywhere can view models and other data online".

"We discuss, inspect, and change models during our design reviews and quickly make decisions".

"As a result, product development progresses quickly".

Many collaborative software packages offer application sharing.

But these often bog down so much under the weight of heavy graphics files used by engineers that the benefits of online collaboration are lost.

CoCreate built OneSpace.net specifically for engineers so they can share large graphics files.

"We benchmarked other collaboration tools, but only OneSpace.net offered the performance and convenience we needed", says de Boer.

The company uses the software by connecting to CoCreate's servers.

The "hosted system" approach to using software offers Multin Hittech a cost-effective alternative to owning licences.

It makes installation and deployment painless for customers.

Plus, Multin Hittech customers use the service to convert CAD files, from various CAD formats, in order to work on one common assembly within OneSpace.net.

And all for a fraction of the cost of a full OneSpace.net licence.

"That feature alone makes OneSpace.net appealing to any customer buying just a few licences", said Michiel van Bergen, Account Manager at CAD Services, who sold OneSpace.net to Multin Hittech.

Besides OneSpace.net, Multin Hittech actively works with other CoCreate products.

Namely, OneSpace Designer Modeling and its Surfacing module, which it uses to create topological trimmed surfaces and complete topological solid models.

"Designing in 3D creates benefits in areas that aren't immediately apparent", says de Boer.

"We annotate our 3D model with information about the design".

"Then, others don't have to re-enter that data when the model goes to manufacturing or other downstream entities".

"As a result", de Boer says, "costs stay low".

"With CoCreate and OneSpace.net, we design great products within very reasonable costs and timeframes", says de Boer.