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Beyond 3-D design

Bharat Kumar

Remember telling your child in its first year of school, ``Don't talk to strangers, accept sweetmeats from them or accompany them anywhere!''? That was one sure way of ensuring your child's safety.

Lucas-TVS uses the same spirit to ensure the security of its networks. ``We do not open e-mails that are from unknown sources. That's a clear diktat to employees.'' This, claims, K.R. Anandakumaran Nair, President, Development, at Chennai-b ased auto parts manufacturer Lucas-TVS, saves the company a lot of trouble from viruses that stalk the Net.

So, why is the chief of development, whose primary responsibility is to drive research, design and development of auto parts, worried about usage of e-mail, viruses and the Internet?

Nair has reason enough to be concerned about security. His company has recently Web-enabled a commercial software product that allows 3-D design. Which means that design engineers have instant access to the Web to obtain information, posted by the company's raw material suppliers and product buyers, that are necessary for the design.

And, that's only part of the story. The crux here is that the software, which Lucas-TVS has developed and which works with Parametric Technology Corporation's Pro/Engineer, allows Lucas-TVS' engineers to cut down the time taken for a new au to part design to one day. This is significant compared to the 30 days that it took earlier.

Web enabling is only one feature that the software has, contends Nair. He explains that the primary advantage here is that, ``the user does not have to go through the motions of drilling, cutting and the like on the 3-D model. He merely has to specify parameters that define an auto part, such as length, breadth, diameter of circle and the like. The software is then able generate the new product in minutes.''

This is possible because the company is making the best of generic design common to most products in a family. Explains Nair, ``for instance, most car manufacturers that we supply to require alternators from us. Through the Web-enabled system, which makes access to data and tweaking specifications easier, we are able to start with the generic design that is already in place. All that remains is making a few changes in parameters. This substantially reduces total design time.' '

Why is reduced design time important? Says Nair, ``India alone has about 35 car models plying its roads. Europe, a market that we are interested in, should have atleast 350 models. For each model, our customer will require different designs of the same item, such as an alternator. We cannot afford to start from scratch for each design order that we clinch.''

If a components manufacturer should require such time to manufacture, then the order size should be large. But that is not common. The engineering department's people say that they should be ready to fulfil say, 10 orders of 500 alternators e ach, and that they cannot wait for one order of 5000 units to commence design and production.

Given this, for an order of 500 units, a manufacturer cannot afford to take the same time to design, develop and manufacture, as it would for an order of 5000 units. Since the work involved is the same, software -- such as that developed by Luca s-TVS to work with 3-D CAD software -- becomes crucial in reducing time to manufacture.

Prior to this, Lucas-TVS had graduated into 3-D modelling from 2-D for design of auto parts. Why was this so important? According to Nair, ``Apart from the actual design engineer, we have others in the chain such as personnel in the planning departme nt, the tools design department and the tool room in addition to the customer who wants to be involved in the design process. In order that each of these people visualises the product easily, 3-D is a must.

Otherwise, only the design engineer will be the one with a clear idea of the product till a model is made. At the time, if any one else notices a flaw when bringing in his inputs to the table, it will cost more to rectify that flaw than it would at th e design stage.''

However, it's still not 3-D all the way for Lucas-TVS. It still retains its paper-based designs from its 1960s era. Computer-based two-dimensional drawings are still on, so as to meet requirements of some customers who are still to graduate to 3-D. Says Nair, ``We have still not converted our paper designs to 3-D, because we are yet to discover a satisfactory method of converting those into 3-D designs. Now, it consumes a lot of time and effort to convert those. However, we still base our new 3-D designs on the old, paper-based ones.''

The company has about 15 work-stations that allow 3-D modelling. Not only have staff been trained to work on 3-D, but Lucas-TVS' own team of designers -- whose core competence is to design auto components -- developed the software that works with PTC 's Pro/E, using Java with SQL Server as the database, in a period of about 14 months.

With software enabling such advances, skills requirement at the draughting level has been reduced. However, says Nair, ``we have enough manpower requirements in the organisation. Where we found manpower skills excess, we have redeployed them wi thin the organisation itself.''

The company invested about Rs. 1 crore in equipment, manpower training and the like. How about returns on investment? Nair says that it is difficult to measure the value of a design. Clearly, reduced time to manufacture will result in benefits, such as quick turnaround and more orders due to faster deliveries.

Finally comes the question of retaining manpower when it seeks greener pastures. The lure of the software industry has proved to be a bane to other industries. Says Nair, ``Our manpower attrition rate is about eight per cent. These are typically engineers with 3 to 5 years of experience and who wish to move into the software industry.''

Doesn't this affect the value that a person with increasing experience adds to the company? This is where technology plays a key role again for Lucas-TVS. Says Nair, ``In addition to giving as exciting a challenge as is possible to our people, we have designed our software such that ``knowledge'' of individuals is captured.''

Such ``knowledge capture'' aids in retaining value. For instance, if one experienced designer takes the trouble to find out measurements of outsourced components from the Web sites of suppliers, that data is stored. Should a fresh engineer come in later for another product design using the old design as the base, he can imbibe the same knowledge from the software.

As much as you would want your child to ignore kidnappers and mischief mongers, so would you want it to benefit from its erudite teachers and brilliant peers. Lucas-TVS' technology helps its fresh recruits gain the same benefits, in ca se such companionship is absent.