DESign SA breaks into Aerospace market with world-class industry solutions

Date: 25/07/2006

DESign South Africa is a leading supplier of engineering solutions, supplying mechanical design, manufacturing, simulation, automation and robot programming services to industry. The company was established in South Africa in 1997 and currently has branches -  in Durban, Port Elizabeth and Johannesburg  - as well as important strategic alliances with similar operations in Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom.

DESign SA has implemented IBM/ Dassault Systémes Product Lifecycle management (PLM) solutions (including CATIA V5) for design and manufacturing, and Delmia Igrip for robotic simulation and offline programming. DESign SA established its name in the automotive industry, but more recently obtained additional seats of CATIA V5 to enable it to start supplying to the aerospace industry – which is growing rapidly in SA and opens up additional opportunities to local companies, especially those that can offer CATIA V5 capabilities.

Above: left John Mulgrew, Managing Director of DESign SA. Right Shane Bruwer, Engineering Director of DESign SA

CATIA V5 is the de facto standard CAD/CAM software used in both the automotive and aerospace industries. DESign SA frequently received large numbers of CATIA-format design files from its customers. The company constantly needed to carry out costly and time-consuming conversions to other CAD/CAM data formats. When it came under pressure from the Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) to adopt CATIA V5 as its core design software, DESign SA realised that the company would need to standardise on a single platform throughout the design and manufacturing process if it wished to compete against overseas companies for large projects. To facilitate this transition, DESign set up an in-house training programme to provide its designers with the necessary CATIA skills and to speed up the changeover from other CAD systems to CATIA V5.

DESign SA possesses the ultimate combination of highly skilled CATIA engineers and operators, the latest in advanced technologies (including CATIA and DELMIA), and immense jigs & fixtures experience; this enables it to compete for projects and win against fierce international aerospace competition. The company was recently awarded a project to design and manufacture tooling and assembly jigs for the Airbus A400M project. John Mulgrew, Managing Director of DESign SA, commented that having CATIA is a requirement of Airbus and is essential in order to bid for projects. The Airbus A400M is designed exclusively on CATIA V5, and all aerospace suppliers throughout the supply-chain are required to implement CATIA V5 if they wish to be eligible to bid for business. DESign SA designs and manufactures the ICY jigs, which DENEL uses to assemble all the individual parts and sub-assemblies prior to shipment to the final assembly line. DESign also provides the sub-assemblies for the aircraft doors and fuselage, and all the loose tooling for approximately 360 sheet metal parts and aluminium extrusions. DESign SA is proud to be considered the largest local supplier to Denel Aviation and is the only local supplier ever to have undertaken an aerospace project of this magnitude. Thus far DESign has received very positive feedback from DENEL and Airbus on both the quality of work and the fast service delivery it has provided.

Above Airbus Check & Gauge and Denel ICY Jig on CATIA V5

DESign SA is implementing DELMIA in the Airbus project for ergonomics, kinematics, and assembly collision detection, so as to optimise its manufacturing processes. The company has been using DELMIA Igrip since 1999 for its robotic simulations and off-line programming, and first reported successful implementation of DELMIA many years ago when it was used for the Opel Epsilon project. DESign SA has now become one of the strongest and most experienced competitors in the automation field world-wide. Digital manufacturing is changing the way manufacturers develop new products and DELMIA, with its advanced 3-D simulation, dramatically speeds manufacturers' new product time-to-market while simultaneously cutting manufacturing costs considerably. DESign SA, for example, uses DELMIA to check for collisions between tooling jigs and robots on an assembly line, thereby avoiding expensive errors on the shop floor. Today DELMIA, which is part of Dassault Systémes/IBM suite of PLM solutions, is fully integrated with CATIA, thus allowing companies to cover design, manufacturing and simulation using a single integrated platform.

Since implementing CATIA, the company has experienced an increase in productivity, improved quality in design, and a significant shortening of its product development times (by as much as 40%). DESign SA Senior Designer Kenny Raasch reports that the company’s designers are now enjoying and making extensive use of the many benefits of the functionality provided by CATIA V5.

DESign SA recently opened a new manufacturing facility in Kwazulu-Natal in order to increase its manufacturing capacity and cater for large design and manufacturing projects such as the Ford Orion project, on which they are working in collaboration with Dana corporation in Australia. For this purpose they replaced their existing machining software with CATIA V5 in order to use a common language throughout the design and manufacturing process. CATIA’s powerful machining capabilities enable the company’s designers to read complex surface geometry, which was not possible with their previous NC-machining packages. The simulation department will also be moving to the new manufacturing facility, where all robotic and other simulation will be done using DELMIA Igrip.

DESign’s adoption of PLM Solutions from Dassault Systémes/IBM has enabled it to maintain a leading position within the highly competitive automotive and aerospace supplier segments. Kenny Raasch commented, “Our customers are happy, and this is reflected in our growing number of orders. Our productivity in both the design and manufacturing departments has improved and we have experienced an increase in our customer satisfaction.”

Above: Robotic & Human Simulations  using DELMIA

PLM solutions allow DESign SA to engage in a greater number of business opportunities and deliver a competitive advantage to its customers. “Compared to all the CAD/CAM systems we have used, CATIA is noticeably quicker and more efficient”, noted Shane Bruwer, Engineering manager of DESign SA.