CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
8 December 2004
Implementation Investments
Dorner Manufacturing Boosts Sales Leads with 3D PartStream.NET
Conveyor belt maker Dorner Manufacturing Corporation is using SolidWorks 3D PartStream.NET® service to let customers choose conveyors based on exact specifications for their assembly lines in minutes rather than days. Now engineers and designers from around the world can custom configure conveyors that will move everything from aspirin to appliances, and download a 3D model of that configuration in the design format of their choice to ensure it fits in their floor plans.
For more than 35 years, Wis.-based Dorner has helped suppliers to almost every Fortune 100 company move products through their packaging and assembly lines. Dorner conveyors operate in a broad range of industries, including consumer appliance, food packaging, pharmaceutical, metal working, and others. The company's specialty is providing custom conveyors that fit into confined spaces where competitors' conveyors can't go. Dorner had been using a static online library of 2D and 3D models to market its conveyors to customers. However, it has 28 different conveyor platforms in millions of different configurations, and its previous system limited what customers could access and configure. The company chose the 3D PartStream.NET service because it delivers the flexible self-configuration that lets customers quickly find the conveyor that best suits their needs and download it in the file format of their choice.
"We're currently offering over 75,000 3D models for customers to download and configure with just a couple of mouse clicks. There's no way we could have generated all of those files in-house," said Gary Wemmert, Dorner's director of marketing. "The best part for our customers is that they now have a parametric model that they can download in any design format and insert in their assembly line designs to ensure an exact fit in just a couple of minutes. Previously, it would have taken them at least two days working with our engineers to configure the right part, which would keep our engineers from designing new products and waste our customers' time."
Dorner has also expanded its marketing reach and visibility thanks to SolidWorks' 3D ContentCentral(SM) ( http://www.3dcontentcentral.com ), an online directory of suppliers offering downloadable 3D part models to hundreds of thousands of product designers and engineers around the world. Wemmert said that since Dorner was first listed on the site, the number of users registering to download 3D conveyor models has doubled.
"Walk through your local supermarket and you will see products that have been carried on Dorner conveyors in every aisle," said Bob Noftle, general manager of 3D content solutions at SolidWorks Corporation. "That kind of reach demands attention to almost every customer need. Providing an interactive catalog that lets customers self-configure the conveyor they need in a couple of mouse clicks helps Dorner get 'designed in' to customers' assembly lines."
Hartland, Wisconsin-based Dorner Manufacturing is a world leader in the design, manufacture, and distribution of high-quality conveyors and related equipment. For more information about products or company news call 1-800-397-8664.
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