CAD software meets TV deadlines

Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team Sep 21, 2007

The demands of an American television show required production-ready prototypes to be crated in 3.5 weeks.

Pulse Global was able to meet seemingly impossible deadlines on national television with the support of CoCreate OneSpace Modeling.

ABC's American Inventor is one of the most compressed product development timelines a design firm may ever face.

The development cycle starts with being selected only hours before participating on the show and ends in 3.5 weeks.

"We were given a two sentence description for each of the different inventions the day before we met the inventors".

"From that, we created concept sketches of what we thought the different product ideas might be".

"We even went so far as to rough out some CAD models to start thinking about manufacturing approaches", said Tim Nugent, Pulse Global founder and partner.

"When we met the six different finalist teams the next day we presented our company's product development capabilities".

"The natural dynamics we had with some of the inventors caused us to stand out from the many different design firms competing for contracts that day".

"We were selected by two different teams to finalise design concepts for The Claw bicycle storage mechanism and the Wrap-a-Way gift wrapping station into production ready prototypes in just 3.5 weeks".

"The time compression was crazy".

Winning two contracts for the show doubled the demands upon Pulse Global and the eyes of the American TV audience were watching.

In order to meet the show's demanding timeline, Pulse Global's other founder and partner, Alan Fujii, switched from using a history-based 3D CAD system to the dynamic modelling based approach of CoCreate OneSpace Modeling".

"Speed was required to do the show and I don't think we could have done what was needed using a history- based 3D CAD system - it just takes too much time", said Fujii.

"Fast, innovative design is what Pulse Global offers to their customers and 'American Inventor' put the design firm to test".

"Everything is about speed and how we compress the timetable for our customers".

"Key to our success is the ability to move and evolve an idea quickly".

"So in regards to the American Inventor show, one product needed a facelift in 24 hours".

"We had originally scheduled four days for doing the 3D design but I knew that I could get the CAD work done overnight and buy more time for prototyping", said Nugent.

Evolving an idea quickly is critical to the innovation process, allowing companies to rapidly learn and respond within new product development.

That comes from having the ability to rapidly perform multiple iterative design cycles within the development schedule.

"In order to be an effective source for innovation we have to be able to explore a multitude of ideas quickly, which requires tools having the ability to move fast", said Nugent.

"American Inventor is a true test of a design firm's capability to perform under pressure while celebrating the spirit of innovation".

"One of the great things about American Inventor was that it allowed us to show how fluid our development process is", said Nugent.

"We did so many things in parallel to hit the timeline".

"Some people would be working on the design to finish mechanical components".

"Others would be taking CAD data to make parts on our in-house manufacturing equipment".

"While others would be creating quick prototypes to validate the design, as yet another would be creating the tooling".

"The timeline for American Inventor was so compressed that it really highlighted the strengths of OneSpace Modeling".

"We couldn't have done this without CoCreate".

"The American Inventor experience made me a believer", said Fujii.