CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
8 March 2005
Implementation Investments
GKN Aerospace Chem-tronics Selects Proficiency to Enable Digital Product Definition Validation
Proficiency announced that GKN Aerospace Chem-tronics Inc. has selected the Proficiency Collaboration GatewayT to ensure data exchange quality and traceability throughout its product development lifecycle. By using Proficiency's Collaboration Gateway for feature-based CAD interoperability, GKN Aerospace Chem-tronics anticipates improved efficiency by being able to accept and send native data in each customer's CAD, finding errors in parts before manufacturing, and hopes to realize decreased machining costs as a result of working on native files instead of STEP.
Based in El Cajon, Calif., GKN Aerospace Chem-tronics, a member of GKN's Propulsion Systems & Special Products division, manufactures products for commercial and military aircraft and space launch vehicle systems. GKN Aerospace Chem-tronics designs in Unigraphics® NX, but as a contractor, the company needs to accept and send these designs to its OEMs in other formats, including CATIA® v4 and CATIA® v5, and Pro/ENGINEER®. To GKN Aerospace Chem-tronics, simply translating these designs was not enough: the company also needed to meet digital product definition requirements set forth by one of its OEMs, mandating that no deviation in the model took place during the exchange process.
"The reporting tool alone is what sold us on Proficiency," said Miles Espley, engineering services group leader for GKN Aerospace Chem-tronics, Inc. "Unlike the tactical translators on the market, the Collaboration Gateway matches the workflow of our strategic product development process, and is the only commercial solution we could find that can prove there are no errors in that translation by delivering detailed reports of each exchange process."
The Proficiency Collaboration Gateway is a Web-based, feature-level CAD interoperability software application that facilitates the sharing of product design information, including features, history, constraints, assembly structure, dimensions, and metadata, throughout the extended aerospace product lifecycle process. Job history records are maintained and managed for each exchange task, allowing users to quickly review overall status or drill down for complete detail. The Collaboration Gateway enables companies like GKN Aerospace Chem-tronics to exchange native parametric CAD models between Dassault Systèmes' CATIA v4 and CATIA v5, PTC's Pro/ENGINEER and Pro/ENGINEER® WildfireT, and UGS' Unigraphics® NX and I-deas® NX Series. GKN Aerospace Chem-tronics plans to roll out the Collaboration Gateway this month.
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