Technical communications challenges are not limited to engineering or technical documentation alone, but also impact other departments across the enterprise in many different ways. Some of the very common concerns shared by different departments are, for example:
How can these issues be addressed? Are there any solutions that we can use to improve the communication effectiveness?
The answer lies in integration. Having an integrated system in place that enables designs to move seamlessly back and forth between design and manufacturing facilitates a collaborative environment for your engineers. Through the integration of technical communications with product design (CAD) software – be it in technical content publishing, video generation, quality control & inspection or photorealistic 3D rendering – it eliminates the need for data translation and allows design changes even in the later stage of the product development cycle, yet still be able to ensure the timeliness of product delivery.
For this, SOLIDWORKS provides a full range of technical communications and product visualization tools such as:
SOLIDWORKS Technical Communications Solutions
- SOLIDWORKS MBD (Model Based Definition)
Instead of using traditional 2D drawings, this integrated drawing-less manufacturing solution guides the manufacturing process directly in 3D. It defines, organizes, and publishes 3D PMI (Product Manufacturing Information) such as dimensions, tolerances, surface finish, notes, and other annotations in industry standard file formats. It helps designers or engineers to communicate their design intent better to others especially on the design details. As a result, it manages to streamline production, cut cycle time, reduce manufacturing errors and support industry standards such as Military-Standard-31000A, ASME Y14.41, ISO 16792, and DIN ISO 16792.
- SOLIDWORKS Composer
It provides you with the tools to prepare technical communication deliverables in parallel with product development — so your documentation keeps up with your design changes and is ready with your product. It also allows you to reuse 3D design data to rapidly create highly detailed 2D or 3D graphics or even 3D animations for your assembly instructions, product manuals, training material and marketing collateral for interactive trainings or marketing presentations.
- SOLIDWORKS Inspection
It helps you to streamline the creation of inspection documents by leveraging your existing 2D legacy data, regardless of file type – SOLIDWORKS files, PDFs, or TIFFs. QA engineers will then be able to automate their usually manual and tedious process, and quickly create ballooned inspection drawings and inspection sheets for the First Article Inspection (FAI). It helps drastically reduce the time needed to generate inspection reports yet avoid errors and inconsistencies traditionally associated with manual data input.
You may import files of various formats from SOLIDWORKS or other 3D CAD system to create compelling scenes and ultimately the most realistic content possible. It can produce static images, animations and web ready content with stunning graphics effect in shortest time, helping organizations to communicate within company and external parties especially nontechnical users.
To understand more about the capabilities of these solutions, don’t miss the chance to explore with us and other engineers who share the same concerns on how these tools may help in improving the technical communication effectiveness in your company.
REGISTER HERE and join us in the exclusive hands-on workshop “Go Beyond 2D Drawing for Effective Communication” on 19th April 2016 (Tuesday)!