Rossendale takes engineering outside design office

Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team Sep 3, 2002

The Rossendale Group has upgraded its CAD operations to SolidWorks, complete with DriveWorks knowledge based engineering software.

The Rossendale Group is a GBP 6 million company, trusted by lifting equipment users in all sectors of industry.

The company's approach is based on providing outstanding levels of customer service and after-sales support.

Safelift lifting equipment is the exclusive Rossendale brand, offering ultimate peace of mind highest quality, safe, fully certified and ISO9000 quality assured products, manufactured in approved production facilities.

Rossendale's in-house Design Office uses CAD and finite element analysis to ensure the safety of all lifting equipment.

The company recently chose to upgrade its CAD system to SolidWorks.

"The decision to select SolidWorks was in part based on our desire to satisfy customer demand to be able to "design-to-order".

We found that by choosing DriveWorks the knowledge based engineering software that is fully integrated with SolidWorks and a SolidWorks Certified Gold Partner Product, that we could achieve these wider commercial objectives", said Simon Bamford, Managing Director, Rossendale.

"The combined power of DriveWorks and SolidWorks is being used initially to specify our Safelift runway system, and will also be use on our Safelift jib cranes, portable gantries and spreader beams".

Sarah Clegg, who has been trained on SolidWorks and DriveWorks said, "During the 5 day training course on DriveWorks, we were able to capture the stress and strain rules for the runway system and then apply the equations to allow those specifying the product to pick the relevant parts.

The output includes all the drawings (2D and 3D), the cutting list, bill of materials and manufacturing data required for each individual product, and its all achieved in a fraction of the time that it would have taken us previously".

"Because DriveWorks has been developed with administrator and user seats, once the rules have been captured, using the administrator version, our non-technical staff and customers can then design their lifting equipment to meet their very own unique specifications with "user" version".

In terms of the return anticipated by Rossendale, Simon Bamford added, "We expect to reduce the time taken from design input to output of manufacturing drawings/materials lists/calculations for our standard products from an average of 16 hours to 1 hour.

We also expect the output to be more accurate, comprehensive, consistent and reliable".

Rossendale is fulfilling its customer service goals, providing customers with shorter lead times, cost savings, and enhanced quality control.

The next step will be to offer an Internet based facility for specifying, providing quotations and online ordering.

With this type of solution, the engineers can get on with developing other new products in the company's range without having to "waste" time redrawing "variations on a theme".

Instead the drawings and data output can be left to the computer and the customer-facing staff all within the strict "rules" dictated by the engineering department.

It is a very effective way of taking the engineering skills outside the design office to deliver real benefits for the customer and the manufacturer.