TLT-Babcock - Rulestream Case Study

PLM Components
TLT-Babcock
ETO solution speeds the development of industrial fans
Industry
Industrial machinery,
energy and utilities
Business challenges
Speed delivery of customdesigned fans
Maintain reputation
for quality
Increase global sourcing
Rulestream engineer-to-order
(ETO) software shaves hundreds
of hours off the design and
engineering of critical fan
components
Heavy-duty air movers
TLT-Babcock Inc., a subsidiary of the New
York Blower Company, manufactures axial
fans, centrifugal fans and ash handling
systems. An expert in heavy-duty air handling equipment, TLT-Babcock specializes
in customized fans that optimize plant performance. The company’s primary markets
are utility power plants and heavy industrial manufacturing installations, including
cement plants, steel mills, pulp and paper
mills, waste incinerators, mining, and subway and tunnel applications. It also
provides specialty wind tunnel applications
for automotive and aviation research.
Although TLT-Babcock fans are typically
chosen for the quality of the engineering
that goes into them, and the company’s
Keys to success
Interactive engineer-to-order
process initiated by sales force
Single repository for engineering knowledge and material
data
ETO integration with CAD
Results
Faster, more accurate
proposals
Design/engineering time for
fan housing reduced by
approximately 50 percent
(175-200 hours)
Standardized designs decrease
warranty and rework costs
Better information for vendors
worldwide
www.siemens.com/plm/rulestream
customer-focused service, the company is
not immune to pressure from foreign and
domestic competitors to deliver fans faster
and at lower costs. Given the hundreds of
hours required to tailor each fan to a
facility’s specific needs, TLT-Babcock management recognized early on the value of
engineer-to-order (ETO) software that
automates the customization process.
The company initially used the Knowledge
Based Engineering solution from Wisdom
Systems Inc. on its centrifugal fan product
line. “That showed the potential of ETO so
we decided to increase our use of the technology,” says Glenn Huebscher, R & D
manager at TLT-Babcock. “But we wanted a
more interactive ETO solution.” He and his
colleagues also wanted a scalable, enterprise framework in which they could
capture and structure the company’s
design rules. The company evaluated other
rule-based systems and found them to be
lacking in demonstrable capability and
robustness. In addition to scalability, their
goal was to have the ETO solution automate the creation of CAD geometry so that
the end product of the ETO process was an
actual solid model and the related drawings. “The lower-end customization
programs we looked at didn’t have that
kind range of functionality,” Huebscher
says of the MCAD automation tools considered by the company.
Order-specific CAD models
After evaluating a number of ETO solutions, TLT-Babcock chose Rulestream™
Engineer to Order software from Siemens
PLM Software. “Rulestream is a scalable
solution that supports our order engineering and upfront quotation processes,” says
Huebscher. They use Rulestream Architect,
the rule maintenance application, to
capture engineering logic. Engineering
knowledge is stored in a single repository
used by both engineering and sales
personnel. Rulestream generates orderspecific 3D models and drawings in
SolidWorks® software, TLT-Babcock’s
primary MCAD program.
The company currently uses Rulestream to
design the most challenging components
of its axial fans – the blades and the fan’s
steel housing. “The housing is a 10,000 to
50,000-pound machined part, the single
most complex component of the fan when
considering the number of features it contains and the variations within its possible
configurations,” explains Huebscher. “We
engineer the housing on every product
and, given its many features, the speed at
which we design this component has a
significant impact on overall project schedule.” Prior to using Rulestream, it took 350
to 400 hours for the design and engineering of a fan housing. “With Rulestream,
this process takes about half as long, with
fewer people involved. This represents a
Solutions/Services
Rulestream Engineer
to Order
www.siemens.com/plm/
rulestream
Customer’s primary business
TLT-Babcock is a leading provider of heavy-duty air and
material handling equipment.
www.tltbabcock.com
Customer location
Akron, Ohio
United States
“With Rulestream, we have a
structure where we can reliably generate a one-off
design. Rulestream gives us
confidence that what we’re
doing is correct.”
Glenn Huebscher
R & D Manager
TLT-Babcock
four-week savings, which is huge,”
Huebscher says. “Yet this is still a work in
progress. We expect additional gains as we
continue to add more rules.”
Accurate, repeatable designs
Proposals are generated faster with
Rulestream because “there is a lot less
research and looking at past designs,” as
Huebscher explains. And because proposals now include more information,
including a detailed drawing, cost estimates are more accurate. “The model and
drawings give our fabricators more details
about what we need,” Huebscher continues. “Ultimately that means fewer cost
overruns and fewer opportunities lost due
to inaccurate estimates.” More complete
proposals are especially useful as
TLT-Babcock expands globally. The company uses Rulestream to localize
deliverables to the customer’s or vendor’s
geographic region. “We’re always getting
new vendors as we expand around the
world. The accuracy of the proposals and
the ability to include drawings helps a lot
with that,” he adds.
engineers would have designed the housing differently, making their own decisions
about where to place stiffeners or support
vanes, for example. Today all of the engineering knowledge about the housing is
captured as rules in Rulestream. “Now we
have a strong, repeatable basis for the
design,” says Huebscher. This has benefits
throughout the fan development process,
including after the sale. “With the assurance that all design rules have been
applied, we will need less time for typical
corrective document quality control, giving
us more time for product improvement,”
Huebscher concludes. “Conformance to
the design rules will also streamline fabrication and assembly by eliminating
interruptions when the design is
nonstandard.”
Another key benefit of the new ETO solution is the accuracy and consistency of the
designs it generates. In the past, different
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