The document discusses how traditional product design methods often do not optimize key parameters like geometry, motion, forces, and tolerances. This can lead to increased costs from changes later in the design process. It introduces Enventive software as a way to model and optimize these parameters earlier on through computer simulations. Enventive allows users to represent functional intent, model kinematics and forces, perform tolerance analysis, and optimize parameters. This helps users design products that are more effective, manufacturable, and cost-efficient.

1. Are you Optimizing Your
Parameters?

2. Design to Production –Traditional Method and Challenges
70% of the final product cost is determined during the design stage. DFMA is typically a team advisory
approach with minimal rigor and no method for optimization.
Background:
• Perfect manufacturing is impossible in the real world
• Products must be designed with proper functionality, yet with enough geometric
leeway to be effectively manufactured
• Product design incorporates geometry, motion, forces and tolerancing
• Optimization of these parameters is vital for cost-effective product design for
manufacturing and assembly (DFMA)

3. Design to Production –Traditional Method and Challenges
A single ECN can end up costing tens of thousands — in some cases
even millions — of pounds in tooling changes, scrap and rework,
change validation, warranty repairs and recalls.

4. Parameter Optimization
Parameters Considered
• Geometry
• A general idea of the part shape and
geometries is used to begin the
design process
• Motion
• Understanding and modeling the
kinematics of the mechanism places
constraints on the geometries
• Forces
• Must be modeling and analyzed to
determine optimum part function
and material choices
• Tolerances
• Tolerances are necessary to optimize
the overall part features and
function, and the manufacturing
process against overall development
costs
Challenges
• Geometry
• Geometries at beginning stages
must be loose so they do not
overly constrain motion and
tolerances
• Motion
• Sufficiently defined geometries
allow accurate motion simulation
• Forces
• Dependent on geometric and
kinematic constraints
• Tolerances
• Tolerances depend on and
determine geometries, motion and
forces
Optimizing all of these parameters together allows the part/assembly to
be as effective, manufactural and cost efficient as possible.

5. Design to Production –Traditional Method and Challenges
Current DFMA Areas:
• Miniaturization & Tolerance Truncation
• Designing to, and meeting smaller
tolerances produces better, more
reliable, and more powerful products
more cheaply
• Most common tools are simple
spreadsheets. Manual calculations are
slow, tedious, error prone
• Cycle-time Competing with Precision
Requirements
• Stricter requirements require longer
initial, detailed and prototyping design
phases. Longer cycle-times are bad for
competitive
engineering/design/manufacturing
businesses
• Modeling Kinematic Mechanisms
• Allows the derivation of the kinematic
function from a specification of its
parts’ shapes and motion constraints

6. Design to Production –Traditional Method and Challenges
• Manual reviews
• Cumbersome
• Time consuming
• Prone to errors
• Lack tools to enforce the checks
• Experienced design/manufacturing personnel are
retiring and leaving positions
• Their knowledge needs to be captured and
leveraged across design teams
• Companies are trying to balance the tradeoffs
between
• Time to market
• Product costs
• Production yields
It is a difficult equation to solve – compounded by
offshore manufacturing

7. High-Risk Issues
• Inability for designers to represent functional intent through engineering drawings
and specifications
• CAD models lose a lot of value and information since they are unable to
demonstrate the function and interconnection of
• Modeling the interaction of parts allows detailed communication throughout the
entire development team
• Enables quick and easy determination/elimination of problem areas
• Individuals are not trained to optimally and inspect product to engineering
drawings and specifications

8. How Companies can Solve These Problems
Two options exist to model and test kinematics:
• Prototyping
• Very costly and time consuming. Initial prototypes are built with estimations –
geometries, tolerances etc. not fully defined
• Computer simulations
• Software must be able to analyze and display motion of components in at least
2D. Making changes should display results in real time, allowing fasting
optimization

9. How Design Teams are Optimizing Parameters
Computer simulations are indispensible
• Ideally, a simulation tool will be:
• An equation solving system that's also a geometric modeling tool
• A tolerance analysis tool that’s also an integral part of the conceptual design process
• A sophisticated GD&T tool that also models kinematics, forces, and virtually any
physical phenomenon described with equations
• A critical parameter optimization system that also includes variation

10. Enventive
Enventive is a full-featured mechanical engineering design system that supports
intelligent modeling, incorporating product function in geometric models.
• Develop full working, dynamic models of mechanisms, including kinematics and
internal forces
• Designers/engineers can represent intended function through engineering
drawings and specifications
• Mechanism/force/performance modeling – see how parts interact and how
the resulting tolerance analysis changes as geometries do
• Design with tolerances in mind from the start
• Instant result display for efficient “what-if” scenario analysis
• Getting closer to the final design earlier in the design process

11. Examples of clients using Enventive

12. Examples of clients using Enventive

13. Enventive
• Rapidly inspect , determine and eliminate problem sources as they arise
• Analyze and optimize performance parameters directly from the tolerance report
• Problems in prototyping/manufacturing, reduce the downtime associated with
redesigning by fixing the source immediately
• Fully dependent on equation modelling
• Allows representation of internal mechanism forces
• Enventive stores mathematical information – CAD tools do not compare
• Internally integrated with Excel spread sheets
• Engineers won’t lose their engineering spread sheets, or the familiarity they have
with them

14. Enventive Capabilities
Design/Modeling/Sketching Capabilities:
• Sketches and graphical representations of the parts drive the models
• Contains mathematical relationships between CAD surfaces
• Allows modelling of exact contact points
• Normal and friction forces directly at the contact points in complex mechanical
shapes
• pawl / claw, cam / profile, pin / hole
• Used in preliminary designs to make decisions on nominals and tolerances of key
design parameters
• Including all functional tolerance and design aspects
• Forces, frictions, complex contacts, wear and deformation
• Pre-CAD stage tolerance analysis
• Communication with manufacturing can begin earlier
• Callouts clearly justified and critical features fully understood

15. Enventive Capabilities
Optimization/Variation Capabilities:
• Performs variation analysis and optimization for any parameter
• Geometric parameters: travel, forces, gaps, pressure, friction, and assemble-ability.
• Non-geometric parameters: spring forces, deflections, stress, thermal or electrical
properties, and cost
• Includes variation from orientation constraints
• Parallelism and perpendicularity
• Accounts for the orientation variation implied by feature of size tolerances
• Ability to quickly optimize all the important design parameters and tolerances of
mechanical designs
• Important functional parameters of those designs are within specifications
• Design software that gives you power
• Choose materials and manufacturing processes
• Detailed design based on knowledge about performance requirements and
variation

16. Enventive Capabilities
Calculation/Analysis Capabilities:
• Sensitivity values are calculated for each contributor
• Key contributors are clearly identified
• Easily perturb each feature to visualize its impact
• Easily analyze kinematics and free-body diagrams
• Forces and moments through a mechanism’s entire range of motion, including the
contributions of frictional forces
• Diverse types of complex analyses:
• Complex kinematics
• Complex ISO tolerancing
• Physical aspects (forces, contacts): need for DOE and prototypes reduced

17. Enventive Portfolio
Cost/Supplier Analysis and Capabilities:
• Structured Cost Optimization for Transfer Functions:
• Number of contributors
• Sensitivities
• Tolerances
• Process Capabilities
• Tolerances on small impacts contributor
• Consider the Price / Robustness ratio proposed by a new supplier
• Check the interaction of design variability between two subsystems provided by two
suppliers

18. Enventive Parameter Optimization Examples
• Enabling engineers to embed formulas computing functional properties in component
models.
• Engineers can examine and modify graphical and mathematical views of their model
simultaneously.
• Changes automatically reflected in model, sketch, equations, and parameters

19. Enventive Parameter Optimization Examples
Latch system operating in 3D including transmission by cable:

20. Enventive Parameter Optimization Examples
Electrical Engine (Analysis of rotor / stator electrical gaps)

21. Enventive Parameter Optimization Examples
Camshaft accuracy analysis:

22. Enventive Features: Product Overview
Enventive Highlights
 Tolerance Analysis
 Conceptual Design
 Travel and Effort Studies
 Mechanisms & Tolerance-in-
Motion
 Performance Modeling
 Optimization
 Smart Components
Enventive Benefits
 Easier to learn and use than
similar tools
 Combines geometry, variation,
kinematics and loads
 Combines geometric and non-geometric
data
 Embeds spreadsheet analysis
 Can be connected to CAD models
via SQL
 Automatic detection of
contributors

23. Comments from Enventive Users…
“We can conceptualize design concepts ten times faster in Enventive than we can with our native CAD
system…
Rather than seeking to simply avoid problems, by using tolerance-based optimization early in the
product development process, well up-front of traditional CAD, we’re able to use Enventive to target
and achieve optimized design solutions and aggressively establish competitive product offerings.”
Yves Le Pottier – Electrical Device Supplier
“I cannot leave a discussion of Enventive without mentioning it is fun to use. The software is graphically
based. Sketches and graphical representations of the parts drive the models. This, coupled with the
easy to use interface, creates “Stack-up Junkies” who want to do the analysis because the software
helps them easily visualize the impact a design change can have on the product.”
Eric Pattok – Delphi Steering Systems
“Our engineering team has been able to use Enventive after 4 days of training. We have been able to
correct some design mistakes that were done in the past due to the limitations of the tools we were
using. In the end, our customer praised us for the speed and professionalism with which we have
been able to complete and present the DFSS phase on this project.”
Pedro Lopes – Ficosa International

24. ENVENTIVEWILL
OPTIMIZE YOUR
PARAMETERS!