Dimensional Management

Dimensional management is a lifecycle that exists in the development and production of any physical product whether that lifecycle is realized by a company or not. If the company produces any dimensioned sketches, drawings, or annotated solid models, then the dimensional management lifecyle exists. The question is; "How is this lifecycle standardized, controlled, and used throughout the enterprise?" That is where CrawfordDM comes in.

CrawfordDM can help discover the true state of the lifecycle and then help develop and implement a new modern organized dimensional management lifecyle that fits corporate goals within corporate budgets.

Maximum Benefit

CrawfordDM analyzes and presents the estimated annual value a streamlined dimensional management process can bring to your company. Value can be realized not only in cost reduction but through product pipeline enrichment by maximizing existing team talent in high value added processes; reducing or eliminating non-value added processes all together.

CrawfordDM identifies metrics specific to your company's processes so that real dollar goals can be planned, achieved and verified.The most obvious metrics are drawing change notices, scrap rate, physical prototyping, and tool changes. However, CrawfordDM understands the many other business benefits. Steady state and time to volume are where we can find maximum value.

What would be the impact on your business if you can achieve time to volume in half the time all while improving customer satisfaction?

Product Design Definition

If traditional drawings or annotated models do not have proper GD&T on them, then there is no way the true design requirements are truly defined. The design intent transfer suffers and so does product quality. CrawfordDM provides training and mentoring to elevate the use of GD&T from simply dimensioning parts late in the design cycle to designing parts at the concept level using GD&T. Properly defining product design definition early on in the product development lifecycle greatly improves the communication across the enterprise, helps assure producability and verification of the design, reduces cycle times with fewer design interations, and greatly enhances concurrent manufacturing and inspection process development.

Model Based Defintion

Using CAD models for model based definition is nothing new. However, just as CAD has improved from 3D wireframe to solid models, 3D annotation on models has also improved in both application and downstream use by persons that would typically refer to a 2D drawing for information. A person can learn to read a 3D annotated model much faster and with greater clarity than using the older traditional orthographic drawing. The annotation on a 3D model is often referred to as PMI, product manufacturing information.

At the simplest level the use of 3D annotation can cut 2D drawing efforts in half and provide color shaded views of parts and assemblies rather than the same old black and white line drawing that used to be created by pencils.

(see the images on our home page)

At the highest level, the solid model has all the product design defintion completely contained within the 3D model and the duplicate non-value added effort of producing and controlling 2D drawings is eliminated. 

If your company has implemented all kinds of process and design excellence but still looking to realize transformational business benefits, then take a look at Model Based Defintion. The Army did. The DOD did. Many companies are getting on board with MBD.

(Take a look at our links page for your own research)

One of the standards in 3D digital product defnition is ASME Y14.41-2012, Digital Product Definition Data Practices, orignally released in 2003. There is also an ISO standard, ISO 16792. The bottom line is that model based defintion has been going on world wide for a long time. Some do it better than others.

MIL-STD-31000A is a much more comprehensive standard with regard to data package deliverables that may be required by US Miliatry contracts in a Model Based Enterprise environment.

Does your company really need to involve every detail of these standards? Probably not. CrawfordDM can help simplify MBD implementation to achieve immediate benefits. The rest can come later with an approach that provides scalability.

The GD&T Must Be Right !

If the culture in the company has not yet accepted proper use of geometric dimensioning and tolerancing, then that must be addressed first.

If GD&T is not used or applied correctly, all the model based defintion/enterprise process in the world will be of little benefit. One of the major benefits of Model Based Definition is that by its very nature drives improved use of GD&T. Applying GD&T on a model often uncovers hidden model, design, manufacturing, and inspection issues early in the development cycles. In reality, GD&T done right on 2D drawings can achieve similar benefits with exception to model checking. Unfortunately, 2D drawings are often not started until well after manufacturing has already started. Why? Because these days the 3D model is sent to suppliers long before 2D darwings are created and drawings take too much time. Drawings or no drawings, if the GD&T is not right, model based definition will not achieve the benefits you are looking for.

CrawfordDM specializes in the application of GD&T per the ASME Y14.5 standard. Help with the ISO standard is also Available.