Automation
There are many jobs that no one but a robot or a specialized machine should do. These are jobs that are extremely repetitive, extremely precise, must be done at ultra-high speed and jobs that have to be done in dangerous and inhospitable environments.
These jobs are best done by robots and other automated tools. The challenge is to create tools that will do these specialized jobs and be reliable, repeatable and cost effective. The good news is that today, servos, sensors and programmable logic chips are less expensive than ever before.
Automation service is our pleasure and passion.
The sensors are better and the servos are more available. At Design Visionaries we’ve mastered the art of using these components to create fantastic specialized machines.
Our number one asset is the creativity that we bring to the table. It all start there. A gut feel for kinematics that comes from many years of experience gets us to the next level. Then the use of excellent design and analysis tools like Siemens NX, PTC’s Creo and Dassault Solidworks gets us to the next higher level.
To bring it home we have great in-house prototyping and manufacturing that allows us to provide an incredibly diverse customer base with custom tools that provide a great business advantage.
How it works
Here at DV we’ve created everything from multimillion dollar metal processing machines to 300-dollar enclosures. The principles are the same. Figure out what it has to do, come up with a great concept, build it. This kind of work is quite a blessing.
We do an assessment which includes meeting with your subject mater experts, film the current processes, if necessary, take notes, make measurements and collect samples. We leave no stone un-turned in order to truly capture the requirements. Former head of GM Charles Kettering said “A problem well stated is a problem half solved”.
Once we feel we have a winning concept, and with customer approval, we then get into the CAD modeling. It’s important to us to be extremely good at CAD. In fact, we literally wrote the book on using Siemens NX and Solidworks CAD systems. We’re regarded as world experts to such a degree that companies as far flung as Australia, China, Japan and the Netherlands request our CAD training services.
Next, we prototype the solution as insurance for when we perform the full-on manufacturing. There is an extra level of surety that comes with reducing all of your assumptions and suppositions to an actual mechanical device. Sometimes this can be done with something as inexpensive as a cardboard model. And sometimes the prototype is so close to the production model that you might as well skip the prototype step all together.
Wrap up and delivery is final. This includes documentation, final testing, performing installation and calibration. The trick is to be detailed oriented and have a great plan. We will work tirelessly with all the members of your team to ensure that the finished product is working in concert, is well made, well installed, reliable and of the highest quality.
Next is the ideation stage. We can usually come up with concepts pretty quickly that will do the majority of the work. We hand sketch the concept or concepts so that our customers can provide feedback right away. It’s amazing how many problems one can solve using a hand sketch done in sometimes second, rather than a heavy CAD model that may take hours or days.
Once we have a world class parametric CAD model and assembly, we have an excellent way of doing analysis. We can do kinematic analysis, stress analysis, heat transfer and any other high-end analyses necessary to ensure that our modeling is valid. This is an extremely important step before we take the more expensive step to create a prototype.
The next phase is testing. The prototype should be functional enough to ensure that when the production model is created, it will perform just like of better than the prototype.
Our Automation Services
