Monday, October 31, 2011

UES International Solves Design Challenges with SolidWorks Simulation from Solidtec

UES International Pty Ltd is an Australian family owned company established in 1904, and is a leading global supplier and manufacturer of Seating, Marine and Transportation Hardware.



UES International Pty Ltd

UES International Pty Ltd is an Australian family owned company established in 1904, and is a leading global supplier and manufacturer of Seating, Marine and Transportation Hardware. UES also have a division dedicated to commercial, transport, and Healthcare seating. The projects involving seating for marine applications provide interesting and diverse challenges.  “We’ve done some work with Austal Ships who are another Australian icon, and some of our seating projects need to withstand up to 12 G’s of collision impact. We use a 3D printer for dimensional testing, but SolidWorks is essential for simulating high G-force collision testing. My colleague Brandon Clark and I have done some Simulation training with Solidtec which will prove invaluable when using SolidWorks Simulation to test and validate our seating designs for the marine industry in the near future” Daniel Behjat, Industrial Designer.

Challenges and Solutions
  • Material tolerances can be assessed easily
  • Reduction of over - design to maximise cost effectiveness in manufacturing and assembly stages. 
  • Minimising time taken to create design concepts
  • Expensive physical testing can be given higher foreseeable success  

Favourite Aspects of SolidWorks
  • Ability to visualise and easily communicate design concepts
  • Real life experience whilst designing by applying material properties in 3D
  • Solidtec Solutions training – sped up the time taken to transition to SolidWorks
  • Availability of third party partner products to extent SolidWorks functionality even further
  • Improved design productivity
  • Ease of use – SolidWorks layout means the software is intuitive and logical to use

“It costs around $20,000 to dynamically test one of our seats for the marine industry. They need to withstand a collision impact of up to 12G (for obvious reasons) so having SolidWorks help refine the design before this expensive testing exercise is very valuable indeed”. Daniel Behjat, Industrial Designer.

SolidWorks
UES implemented SolidWorks in 2009 and use the software extensively for their seating and hardware development programs. “SolidWorks has saved us huge amounts of time and money. Our productivity levels have increased and it is easy to see that we are developing products faster. SolidWorks has a superior user interface and its functionality and ease of use is superb” - Daniel Behjat, Industrial Designer.

Solidtec
“One of the reasons we chose Solidtec as our SolidWorks provider is that they have great technical support staff. They are very experienced and knowledgeable and always seem ready to help with the right answers. Solidtec also have regular events including free webinars for customers and we find that really valuable”. Daniel Behjat, Industrial Designer.
“It’s great to see companies utilising the range of SolidWorks products to solve differing design challenges and to save time during their design process. Companies like UES International are great examples of how SolidWorks Simulation helps Solidtec customers design more innovative products faster, and eliminate the need for physical testing, resulting in improved bottom line results.” – Shane Preston, CEO, Solidtec.