Lattice Technology Blog

Going paperless in manufacturing by relying on 3D models instead of 2D drawings reduces lead time for the this mold manufacturer in the auto industry.

This release included extensive updates for creating and managing the manufacturing Bill of Materials (mBOM) and manufacturing process planning.

What Is a Work Instruction?

Learn how manufacturing planning can seamlessly re-use 3D engineering CAD model data for detailed planning and validation (eBOM to mBOM to process planning).

What is an Interactive 3D model?

If a picture is worth a thousand words, an interactive animation must be worth millions. Interactive 3D models are models coupled with interactive viewing control and enhanced access to important meta-data. They deliver understanding that transcends language barriers and educational shortcomings. 

Collaboration drives ultra-fast order turnaround and reduces man-power by 90% for die and mold company by using XVL from Lattice Technology.

Enterprise Information Portal

In order to provide ultra-fast turnaround, Tsubamex (manufacturer of tooling and molds in Japan) implemented a collaborative production process that includes all functional areas in the company — from sales to finishing. At the center of the collaboration is the Enterprise Information Portal (EIP) containing all of the information about a customer’s order and the parts to be manufactured. The EIP is powered by Lattice Technology’s XVL-based solutions, allowing anyone to easily access an accurate 3D model of the parts and the associated data — using even light-weight devices like Apple® iPads®. Eighty percent of their 120 employees use the portal to complete their job, creating an efficient collaboration environment for ensuring a quality product is produced efficiently and delivered with industry-leading speed.

The Need for Better Product & Technical Communications

The MAN Commercial Vehicles Group realized there had to be a better way to communicate with internal stakeholders and their supply chain when it came to part geometry and related information. Like most companies who design complex products, they are using 3D CAD. The problem was that the 3D models were “locked” away in engineering. There was a barrier…a fence around the engineering data. How could they effectively share these complex models with any stakeholder, inside and outside of their company, including with non-engineers?

The Solution - XVL and Lattice3D

The solution that MAN discovered was XVL and Lattice Technology. Lattice Technolog repurposes the 3D CAD data from all the major CAD companies. Within the Lattice3D environment, additional information can be authored with the technical instruction software. And best of all, the 3D model and information can be shared and consumed for free. The sharing is similar to how documents are shared as a PDF. Just as the Adobe PDF reader is free, so is the Lattice3D Player - free as a download from the Lattice3D website.

Casio uses Lattice's technology to create customer manuals 50-60% faster than ever before. In addition, Casio's manuals are now more accurate and easier for the consumer to read.

"Explaining how to use our products properly is extremely important to us. Products, such as the latest digital cameras, can be a bit complex for people. So user manuals need to be easy to understand, accurate and up-to-date. The 3D CAD/CAM data files that we need to develop technical illustrations are huge, require a lot of training to manipulate, and are difficult to transfer to paper easily. Keeping the material updated, and therefore accurate, presents even more of a challenge," explained Casio.

Toyota’s Goal

In January 2013, Beth Stackpole of Desktop Engineering published an article on how to view 3D models and work instructions in Microsoft Excel using Lattice3D Reporter version 6.0.

Since then, there have been more updates (we are now on version 7.1) to the product that have included some very powerful features. The most significant feature added in version 7.1 is the ability to create an interactive 3D PDF directly from Microsoft Excel, read more about it in this post.