KV Ltd. to increase efficiency, streamline product development with SolidWorks products
Leading UK pneumatic product maker is deploying SolidWorks Office Professional to help automate such vital business processes as billing, scheduling
CONCORD, Mass., May 2, 2005 ? The U.K.'s largest privately owned customized pneumatic product and control systems manufacturer is deploying SolidWork® Office Professional software to help accelerate product development for everything from design to prototyping, costing, and delivery. KV Ltd., which has designed products with SolidWorks software since 1998, will use PDMWorks® product data management tool (included in SolidWorks Office Professional) to link its product design operations with its enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. Bridging this gap will enable the company to automate such vital processes as scheduling and billing.
KV established a leading market position by quickly and accurately designing the standard and customized pneumatic products and control systems it delivers to clients in a host of industries around the world. The company originally chose SolidWorks 3D mechanical design software so it could migrate from 2D drawings to speed time to market, reduce errors, and minimize prototyping costs. KV now completes complex product designs in 3D five times faster than in 2D.
By deploying SolidWorks Office Professional, KV will take the first step toward automating how it manages every phase of product development from concept to shipping. PDMWorks software will enable engineers to maintain version control of part models while providing a secure place to store designs and audit capabilities to track progress. By connecting PDMWorks to its new ERP system, the company will be able to automate product pricing by linking that process to the bill of materials in SolidWorks. It will also link product design time to scheduling, delivery, and billing. Automating these processes will increase the company's efficiency while reducing product development time as well as the errors associated with manual data entry.
Maximizing the power of 3D
?Pneumatics involves lots of pipe work, which becomes difficult to design and validate in 2D because of the many different layers of drawings required,? said Nic Copley, technical director at KV Ltd. ?SolidWorks allows us to make the outer face transparent so we can see all of the piping and ensure against any inaccuracies. This means that we have to do less work up front to arrive at a more accurate design than with 2D.?
SolidWorks lets KV quickly apply customer design changes by automating them throughout the entire design without having to re-create any part from scratch. Product designers save time with SolidWorks' part mating tool that locates and auto-fits parts throughout the solid model. Engineers also use COSMOSXpress? design validation tool to see how pneumatic components will stand up to various operational pressures. eDrawings? e-mail-enabled design collaboration tool allows KV Ltd. to share designs with customers who can view, rotate, and comment on 3D pneumatic component models as if they were holding them in their hands, without downloading any software.
?Increased product customization and reduced delivery times run at odds, often squeezing engineers and their ability to be creative,? said Neil McArthur, regional director for the U.K. and Ireland at SolidWorks. ?KV is taking the problem head-on by enabling its engineers to work quickly and efficiently while automating many of the processes throughout product development. That's how the company will stay ahead of the rest of the market.?
KV relies on SolidWorks reseller NT CADCAM for ongoing software training, implementation, and support.
About KV Ltd.
KV Limited is a market leader in the design, development, and production of the complete range of high-quality pneumatic products to meet every customer need in the field of valves, cylinders, vacuums, fittings and ancillaries, and air preparation. Based in Milton Keynes, the company also enjoys a solid reputation for providing large and small pneumatic or electro-pneumatic systems and custom designed special products. The success story continues outside the U.K., with KV subsidiaries in France, Holland, Spain, Australia, India, and the U.S., plus a worldwide network of distributors bringing KV products to the international pneumatics market. For further information about KV Ltd., visit the Web site at www.kvglobal.com.
About NT CADCAM
NT CADCAM has offices in five locations across the U.K. and Ireland, and has in-house expertise in the fields of FEA, CAM, PDM, ERP, and the integration of all these disciplines. A SolidWorks Solution Partner, NT CADCAM provides complete end-to-end design and manufacturing solutions by offering SolidWorks software. Supporting a wide range of SolidWorks Gold Partner and Solution Partner products, NT CADCAM provides organizations with a total solution, including support, training, consulting services, and API programming. For more information, visit the Web site at www.ntcadcam.co.uk.
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