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Case Study - The Ridge Tool Co.

Elyria
Glassco, Roy T.
 Ohio 
The Ridge Tool Co.
 USA 
 		Roy T.  Glassco
CAD/CAM System Manager,  The Ridge Tool Co. 
 400 Clark St.
Elyria  (Ohio)  (USA) 44035 
Email: rglassco@ridgid.com

Biographical notice

Roy Glassco has been with The Ridge Tool Co. for 15 years. He is responsible for the implementation of Manufacturing and Product Engineering Computer Graphics Applications. Ridge tool, headquartered in Elyria, Ohio, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Emerson Electric Co. with 7 Manufacturing facilities world wide. Ridge Tool has a diversified product line sold under the Ridgid brand name. Products for the Plumbing Industry include Pipe Wrenches, Power Threading Equipment and Drain Cleaning Equipment.

 In 1983 Ridge Tool received approval to purchase a large scale CAD/CAM System. After careful vendor selection and the preparation of an elaborate specification, Intergraph Corporation was selected as a single Vendor solution.
 A Vax Based system with 6 dual monitor workstations was installed. The centralized workstation environment was very carefully designed to take into account operator comfort and equipment reliability. A room layout with spacious reference tables, subdued lighting, power conditioning, atmospheric controls and security was constructed.
 Candidates with no prior experience that represented both Product and Manufacturing Engineering were assigned to be trained in house. Vendor Instructors agreed to be video taped, which proved to be invaluable for future training and operator reinforcement.
 The first system management issue to address was to develop a file identification system. Due to several acquisitions over the years Ridge had inherited many different part numbering systems. After the evaluation of each numbering system, it was apparent a separate schema needed to be devised. The introduction of 3D models to the Engineering environment brought about several new document types such as Numerical Control and Engineering Analysis. An 8 digit classification system was adopted. The part number "xxx-xx-xxx" would identify projects and document types. The first 3 digits would identify a project typically assigned to a new product. The second 2 digits would identify the document class, "00" would be constructive geometry, "01" would identify a 3D model, "02" would identify detail drawings,"03" for Numerical Control files, "04" identified Finite Element Analysis, and so on. To date we have classified 22 file types. The last 3 digits are incremental and have no significance. A typical project would have around 250 components with around 750 files.
 After 6 weeks of initial training, a pilot project was selected, a new Power Threading machine. A Power Threader designed with traditional methods would take several years to introduce. Even with the learning curve of CAD/CAM and the new methodology of 3D modeling the pilot project was competed in less than 2 years.
 Ridge Tool was aggressive in participating in Beta software programs. A conscientious decision was made not to customize any software. The development of Manufacturing software was top priority. With over 70 different Machine Tools throughout the shop floor communications and machine languages became a challenge. The tight integration of both Product and Manufacturing information was crucial.
 During the late 80's the migration to a UNIX based system had began. By this time the number of workstations had doubled. With the new developments in hardware and software, along with the operator experience, a 4:1 productivity increase was achieved. Several new file formats were introduced. Simultaneous projects were being developed. The design cycle was reduced to about 1 year. The number of files was escalating at a rate of about 2000 annually.
 In the early 90's a Team approach was devised. Team Rooms were constructed for each of Ridge Tool's business sectors. Each of the Team Rooms were furnished with UNIX Workstations, access to the Mainframe Database and meeting areas. Individuals from each discipline, Manufacturing, Product Design, Marketing and Procurement were assigned to the Team. The exchange of information and concurrent engineering further reduced the design cycle. Manual drafting was eliminated throughout. The number of workstations was up to 22 with over 60 trained operators.
 Marketing was proactive in the use of computer graphics. Several iterations of styling and material analysis could be evaluated during the design process. Artistic parts manuals, assembly instructions and repair kits that were once done by high cost outside contractors could now be done in house.
 With the elimination of manual drafting 75 years of legacy data needed to be captured electronically. Literally thousands of drawings were scanned into a CITT format. Due to the poor reproduction of ancient originals an aggressive campaign was launched to 100% inspect the quality of the raster images. In many cases vector information was added to clean up unrecognizable areas. A new file identifier was assigned to each document.
 File management was becoming a real issue. A task force was created to investigate various Product Data Management Systems on the market. The existing Mainframe Database was inadequate to handle Engineering documentation.
 During the mid 90's the introduction of Windows NT brought about a new platform for Engineering data. Although the tight integration of a high end UNIX environment was working quite well, the advantages of a low cost mid range product offering was very attractive. Windows NT Workstations were added to each Team Room. Once again Ridge Tool was eager to participate in the Beta development of Engineering Applications on the new platform. Many new vendors now had niche solutions. No longer was Ridge Tool tied to a single vendor. Mechanism Modeling software was widely used to evaluate the effect of motion on elaborate assemblies. Easy to use 3-Axis machining applications allowed a Product Designer to create Toolpaths for machined Prototypes and Casting Patterns. Production was not disrupted and any migration to Windows NT could be thoroughly tested. Standard Word Processor and Spreadsheet applications were now essential parts of the Engineering environment.
 Cost effective Ethernet Networks and Electronic Mail opened the door to Decentralized Engineering. Desktop solutions gave in excess of a hundred Engineers simultaneous access to Engineering data. File Servers were constantly being upgraded.
 Choosing a File Management System was like hitting a moving target. Just when you complete a vendor evaluation, one you previously evaluated made changes to incorporated functionality found in other systems. The decision was made to set up a pilot project with Intergraph's Asset Information Management system. This proved to be a low cost, low risk decision. Several factors that helped make this choice was AIM's use of a in house Oracle database and the vendor was best suited to handle their own graphic formats. The vendor could also supply hardware, which reduced the chance of incompatible driver issues. The vendor's web gateway used any standard Internet browser. Our choice was Microsoft Internet Explorer. The use of Active CGM file format gave us quality images no matter the zoom factor. Active CGM allowed us to hot spot assembly drawings. An offline plot driver would be used to bulkload drawings into the database. Search engines with Full Text Retrieval could give Engineers the ability to find components in a variety of ways.
 To best identify the requirements, an Assessment Workshop was organized. This intensive 1 week session would involve a representative from every discipline within Ridge Tool. In June of 1997 these 13 representatives brought more than 250 years of combined experience to the table. They were assigned to a team to monitor goals and accomplishments. The vendor also established a team of representatives with various areas of expertise. These teams kept the continuity of the project as it progressed. The cross boundary information gathered during the Assessment Workshop made way for phase I of our On-Line Viewing System. In October of 1997 hardware was being put in place.
 During the Assessment Workshop many needs and wants were defined. A simple viewing system was needed. An elaborate file management system was wanted. Compromises had to be made and realistic goals had to be set. 3 phases of implementation were defined. Phase I would define the hardware and setup the Intranet along with bulkloading the database. Phase II would concentrate on ease of use. Phase III would handle revision control.
 Phase I proved to be the most critical. Simultaneously to the implementation of the On-Line Viewing System a major upgrade to the existing Mainframe Database was being implemented. Although this was a blessing in disguise, valuable resources had to be shared. The main objective of the On-Line Viewing System was to minimize the need for paper drawings. The cost justification came from the elimination of microfilm. There were 6 Microfilm Stations strategically located throughout the Elyria facility. They were replaced with Intergraph TDZ NT Workstations, which are high performance graphics workstations. Fiber Optics was run to the ViewStations to support 100BaseT Ethernet. The intention was to make access to drawings as fast as possible. Finding the document was a significant success of the On-Line Viewing System. Engineers in Tech Service could find drawings by Catalog numbers. Engineers in Production Control could find drawings by Item numbers. Engineers in Manufacturing could find drawings by Drawing numbers. Anyone could find a drawing by simply searching for a keyword in the description. Around 500 entries were being bulkloaded into the database every week.
 Phase II began in June of 1998. This included the installation of a new release to the AIM Software, along with the latest release of Microsoft Internet Explorer. Several cosmetic changes were made to the search engine. Printing and Redlining were the focus of much of the effort. Output devices were attached to the ViewStations. The print command needed to be changed to incorporate a banner that showed the file name, revision level and date stamp.
 The requirements specification is presently being written for phase III. ECN and ECR control will be addressed during this phase. It was decided to have 3 versions of documents on-line, past, present and future. Remote sites are being tied into the Viewing System. A more effective use of the 3D model is being investigated.
 The challenge for the future is to keep up with the Technology. It becomes more and more difficult to justify changes when you have something in place that works. Our goal at Ridge Tool is to concentrate on ease of use and make subtle changes that are transparent to the user.
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