Aniai Slashes Design Errors by 50% with SOLIDWORKS Connected to the Cloud

Aniai, Inc. is a growing New York City-based food industry startup leveraging AI-driven solutions designed to enhance efficiency, consistency, and quality in restaurants. Founded in 2020, its flagship product, the Alpha Grill, is already in high demand.

The Alpha Grill addresses the seemingly endless challenges faced by high-volume fast-food establishments, chief among them the consistency in kitchen and front of house labor shortages. Utilizing real-time sensory feedback and sophisticated robotics, the Alpha Grill ensures each hamburger patty is cooked to perfection, along with the capability to cook up to eight patties simultaneously or 200 patties per hour.

Automating repetitive functions such as flipping and pressing burgers not only slashes cooking time but also alleviates physical strain on staff, which enables them to concentrate on more critical culinary tasks. What’s more, Aniai is in the process of integrating sophisticated AI algorithms that can learn and adapt from each cooking cycle to further improve the capabilities and performance of each grill.

Initially, Aniai’s designers used a variety of tools such as SOLIDWORKS®, Onshape, NX, Fusion 360®, and AutoCAD® for product development. However the company’s exponential growth compelled the startup to rethink its strategy from individual-centric to a more collaborative team-oriented approach.

Technical Lead KangKyu Lee emphasized the company’s critical pivot when it adopted a suite of cloud-based modeling, design, simulation, and manufacturing tools. “The surge in the size and complexity of our organization highlighted the need for an efficient, companywide management system,” he recalls, emphasizing the shift from a fragmented to a unified product development environment.

This transition to the 3DEXPERIENCE platform has initiated significant improvements in Aniai’s operational efficiency. Lee continues: “The transition] also facilitates communication across departments, allowing easy sharing of models, drawings, and documents on a web-based platform, even for those who don’t use specialized 3D CAD programs.” 

Aniai’s approach has not only streamlined its own operations but also has empowered restaurants to improve service and productivity. The Alpha Grill has been adopted by several leading North American hamburger restaurant brands and seven South Korean franchises. With over 500 preorders it has an enviable market demand in the competitive food services industry.

Lee concludes, “We sought a solution that could streamline collaboration and address concerns such as server construction costs, time constraints, and security issues. The 3DEXPERIENCE cloud-based platform stood out for its ability to solve these problems completely. This choice marked a significant milestone in our company’s evolution, perfectly aligning with our dynamic and growing operational needs.”