Client Background

A part of globally acclaimed group of companies, Client is a leading manufacturer of Hi-tech Blister Packing and Carton Packing Machines. It offers end-to-end solutions in blister packing machines, cartoning machines, and end-of-lines packaging.

Design Process Analysis

The process at Pam-Pac involves manufacturing of Blister packaging machines according to the Blister design received from their clients. Each machine has to go through various operations viz., Forming, Feeding, Guiding, Sealing, Cooling, Main Cam, Indexing, Punching, Embossing, Perforation, Perforation+Embossing, Scoring, and Printing.The machine parts are categorised as "Format Parts" which change as per the blister design and "Standard Parts" which do not change from machine to machine.

Business Requirement

When PARAM Team analysed the current process of the client, the format parts for some operation were obtained partially with the help of Customized Applications built on AutoCAD while for some operations another customised tool for SolidEdge software was used where the parameters were changed by using logic in excel sheets. As such, these applications have their own limitations. The excel logic creations has its limitations and it is not possible to capture all design intents in excel sheets. Due to this, though there were automation software available, CAD designers had to do design & drafting for complex parts manually.

Format part function is a crucial business vertical of the client. Delivery of format parts is one of the most important criteria in Project Milestones. In a continuous endeavor of the client to serve it's customers better and faster, it was identified as the need of maximum possible automation for generation of Blister Format parts drawings for manufacturing & sub assembly + assembly. Therefore, the client was looking for a foolproof Customized solution built on SolidEdge Software.

Our Solution

The aim of the project was to create a knowledge-based system which would capture all details of the Blister drawing and produce format part drawings and BOM in SolidEdge automatically. PARAM Team studied the design process and along with Pam-Pac Design Team finalised the logic to determine the values of all variable parameters for the drawings under consideration. A User-friendly Web based interface was created by PARAM to take inputs for various Format parts. After keying in the necessary inputs, the software generates the Format Part Drawings & BOM Automatically. The comprehensive BOM will be ready to be uploaded to SAP.

Future Enhancements

The client's vision is to shift to a paperless factory. Sensing this requirement, PARAM has proposed a few Future Enhancements where this software will be integrated with an utility to generate CNC part programs automatically. This will ensure not only the paperless operations, but also, result in the considerable reduction of design and manufacturing cycle time.

Benefits

The Client has derived a range of benefits from the Design Automation Solution offered by PARAM, which are as follows:

• Faster design of Format parts
• Improved accuracy due to fully automated process
• Significant Improvement in delivery time
• Design team can spare time for future development
• No repetitive data entry
• Considerable Reduction in rejections in Manufacturing due to manual errors, which in turn boosted the productivity.

Other Solutions developed for the Client

The client was using an Enquiry Tracking Software called FPDMS developed by a third-party where all the Design related data was captured right from the inquiry stage. However, due to the poor support, the software was left with few bugs. Also, the client found a few limitations in the software, because of which, the design cycle time was longer.

But, as the users of the client had become familiar with the software, client wanted huge feature enhancements (around 55 in total) along with the bug fixing for the same software. After receiving this project from the client, PARAM developed the entire software freshly with all the new feature enhancements and which will be free of previously caused errors. The software is developed as a web based application so that, it could be accessed from any remote location from the sales team.PARAM had also proposed to integrate this software with the BQS Design Automation Software, and after "go Ahead " PARAM has successfully integrated both the software which helped in preventing data duplicity.