"Back to basics" approach speeds tractor design

Industrial design group Lakes System Design has just submitted a project management and product development plan to one of Canada's newest manufacturers of industrial turf tractors.

Leading North American industrial design group Lakes System Design has just submitted a project management and product development plan to one of Canada's newest manufacturers of industrial turf tractors.

"The mobile equipment market has very defined seasons.

If you miss the season by even 3 weeks, you will not be selling product until the following year", says Jeff Hunt of Lakes System Design.

"This particular client already has an engineering database to build from.

Completing the production design will just be a matter of drafting horsepower".

But the project had one critical path that kept tripping people.

"The tractor company had presented visual presentations to their potential customers, and it was well received.

Now the customers wanted to see a prototype actually demonstrated".

Lakes System Design developed a project management system to deal with the ultimate test: produce a working prototype to transport to potential customers in 6 weeks.

"We had to get back to basics", Hunt said, "The database was done in Autodesk Inventor, and there wasn't any drafting help available in Northern Ontario that could jump on Inventor and start revisions quickly.

So we proposed turning the project upside down, and actually prototyping on the shop floor starting with a previous model.

This cut 14 weeks off of the most critical stage getting the road show started".

The prototype sketches, marked-up drawings and photos will then be applied to the Database after the prototype is reviewed and a drafting group is hired, trained and fully operational in the software.

"It's how it was done in the good old days", Hunt says, "Every prototype used to be shop-developed, and then engineering would document the results.

With today's CAD and better infrastructure systems, most companies have gone away from floor prototyping, but it was the best solution for this client".

Is Lakes System Design now experiencing "the good old days"? "Good days are pretty common if you can spend the day before planning for it", says Hunt.

"I just hope it doesn't look so easy now that they decide to try the next project themselves".

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