Challenges and Rewards in Automating the Engineering and Design Process A Case Study: Robertson Ceco Robert Carr - VP Tech Services Who is Robertson Ceco? ► Part of the Heico Corporation -2.7 Billion ► Sales over 400 Million 2004 ► 7 Manufacturing Facilities 6 USA, 1 Canada ► 3 Competing Brand Names ► #3 supplier of “Pre-Engineered” Metal Buildings in the US today. Who is Robertson Ceco? ► Star Building Systems – Oklahoma City, OK Plants in Iowa, Tennessee, and California ► Ceco Building Systems – Columbus, MS Plants in Mississippi, Iowa, and North Carolina ► Robertson Building Systems – Hamilton, Ontario, Canada Plant in Hamilton, CS Office in Edmonton and Hamilton What is a “Pre-Engineered” Metal Building? ► In the 60’s and 70’s – Pre Engineered, stocked buildings – 17 widths, 6 heights ► In the 80’s and 90’s– more customized work ► “The winner will be the company that can process a custom building as fast and as efficiently as a standard building” ► Now – approximately 7,000 unique buildings/year What is a “Pre-Engineered” Metal Building? What is a “Pre-Engineered” Metal Building? What is a “Pre-Engineered” Metal Building? What is a “Pre-Engineered” Metal Building? What is a “Pre-Engineered” Metal Building? What is a “Pre-Engineered” Metal Building? What is a “Pre-Engineered” Metal Building? What is a “Pre-Engineered” Metal Building? Why Automate Design? ► Reduce effects of staff turnover ► Improve consistency of design and detailing ► Minimize repetitive monotonous procedures ► Reduce errors and omissions – quality and $ ► Reduce processing time -> increase sales ► Reduce processing costs -> increase sales ► Allow time to be spent on refining processes and products requiring innovation Why Automate Design? ► Price and delivery are Primary Customer goals ► Quality and technology are our niches ► Long learning curve ► Volume is seasonal and unpredictable ► Complexity is unpredictable ► Computer Automated Design versus Computer Aided Design – You can do both Why Not Automate? ► Automation leads to lost knowledge and dependency on systems Remedy: Strong continuing in-house involvement ► Who knows how it was designed Remedy: Separate legible domain rules from cryptic software engineering What is automated? ► The fundamental, repetitive, design and detailing decisions that are common place and second nature. ► The time consuming, detail oriented, well documented procedures that are less common. ► The high confusion details that repetitively produce errors. What is automated? ► Goals…. Reduce time… Front door to shop floor ►(time to money) Achieved Reduce back charges ►(keep the money) Achieved Reduce staff learning curve ►(save the money) Achieved Minimize impact of complex work ►(make more money) Achieved What is Product of Automation? ► Engineering Fully loaded, totally optimized design for all components, including design reports, pricing, 3D model and data for Drafting ► Drafting Complete set of Erection Drawings, Bill of Materials (by plant), Fabrication Drawings, 3D model, Data for Manufacturing How was it Automated? ► With a Knowledge Based 3D Engineering (KBE) model from Design Power, Inc. ► With AutoCAD for graphics and drawing creation. ► Developed by Domain Experts to process work like they think, and incrementally capture their design rules into Design++. ► Done using logical Objects that represent real concepts and tangible parts. How was it Automated? ► This Design++ tool is a design automation platform ► Design++ provided us with Object representation for real concepts and tangible parts in a “Bill-of-Material” like model Platform for knowledge capture with design rules averaging only 20 line per rule Built-in dependency mechanism that provides rule execution coordination and change management Interfaces to legacy and other software Options for graphic display of 3D model How was it Automated? ► Our vision… One person – one job Achieved One system – all complexities Achieved One system – all inputs and outputs Achieved Automate 90% of all product knowledge Achieved All design work in 3D Achieved Is it Feasible? ► In our case, most definitely YES! ► Before: 20% of Product Automated, 1 million lines of code ► After: 95% of Product, ½ million lines ► Business volume (tons) has increased 50% along with complexity – Drafting and Engineering departments are 10% larger. Challenges ► ROI – Getting commitments for higher production or lower costs ► Change – why? ► Schedule – 11 man year project ► Speed of system for low complexity ► Politics ► History of AI (KBE) projects in general Solutions ► ROI – Developers are Domain experts – let them speak for production departments ► Change – eventually sold on benefits ► Schedule – 3 people team – partial implementation at 14 months ► Speed – faster hardware ► Politics – Corporate management support ► History – Departmental successes – total solution that covered entire departmental needs Our Rewards… Complexity (1-10) Total number of parts 2 300 30 Unique parts Old Way Drafting Time 2 days Complexity (1-10) Now 1 day 10 Total number of parts 13,000 Unique parts 450 Old Way Now Drafting Time 45 days 25 days Our Rewards… Pre-Privatization RCC Design 1997-2000 1997 Base Year = 100 120.00% 110.00% Jobs Per Year Hours Per Job 100.00% Tons Per Job MH/T Avg Complexity 90.00% 80.00% 1997 1998 1999 2000 Training time cut 20% Back-charges cut by 60% Our Rewards… Pre-Privatization 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 1200 1000 800 600 400 200 0 1 2 1999 $ 3 4 2000 $ 5 6 7 1999 Jobs 8 9 10 2000 Jobs COMPLEX JOBS 6 - 10 Job count up 33% year-to-year Revenue up 50% year-to-year Job Count $ Million Job Complexity Distribution - Total Company Our Rewards …Today ► #3 supplier of “Pre-Engineered” Metal Buildings – We used to be #4 ► #1 – Indebted and sold to Australian Steel Company ► #2 – Bankrupt and sold to Mexican Steel Company ► #3 – Bankrupt and operating as smaller, separate companies ► #4 – RCC – Record Profits & Market Share Our Advantage Michael E. Porter: Cost OR Differentiation Leadership to achieve Sustainable Competitive Advantage Our Advantage: Cost AND Differentiation Leadership • Cost Leadership => man hours/ton • Differentiation Leadership => increased focus on complex Thank You