Case Study l BraunAbility
BraunAbility partnered with Tata Technologies to significantly improve productivity in prototyping and parts programming to produce the most advanced accessible vehicles.
The challenge
The process of designing and manufacturing accessible vehicles that meet and exceed the needs of the end-users is time and labor intensive and requires precise prototyping to prove the design before beginning production. Any increase in productivity or decrease in man hours provides significant savings in both time and money. Also, many complex parts require additional time to design and manufacture, and the overflow requires outside assistance.
Ryan Hurlburt searched for a solution to improve design, simulation, prototyping and manufacturing processes with the intent to reduce man hours in design and programming and bring in the ability to design more complex parts, perform stress analysis to verify that these vehicles are
FMVSS compliant, and to reduce the number of vehicles sent for destructive testing. Also, each assembly required inspection of the kinematics and model-based dimensioning, critical to prototyping for use in the lab.
The company
BraunAbility is a global company with over 1200 employees serving more than 70 countries. With the most diverse product portfolio of any mobility vehicle company in the industry, BraunAbility delivers the right solution to more people than ever before.
Their latest success is a wheelchair accessible SUV. They have engineered a new wheelchair accessible SUV, and it is an industry leader and more spacious than any SUV on the market. It pairs sleek SUV styling with a roomier cabin space than some wheelchair accessible minivans.
An extra-wide ramp and doorway plus extra tall door opening means even large power chairs can enter and exit with ease. The power infloor ramp is rated at a 1000-lb weight capacity and stows quietly below the floor when not in use.
Their engineers spent over 15,000 hours in the design of this accessible SUV, and dependability and safety were top priorities. This new conversion features an innovative and important dual arm sliding door for improved stability and reliability when opening and closing.
The solution
Ryan’s research led to a solution that increased the use of Autodesk 2020, Inventor Professional, and implementation of Vault Professional and Power Inspect, with an eye to reducing the time from design to prototype. The decision to expand the use of Inventor Professional not only resolved the issues of inspecting the sub-assembly’s kinematics but also performing stress analysis and prototyping improvements through model-based dimensioning. And with the HSM nesting utilities, parts were sent direct without the need to go to drafting.
The result
By creating models in AutoCAD Inventor and eliminating the need for manually drafting a print for use in programming a part for machining and then using that model in programming, significant savings were realized. On average, over three hours of intensive labor was saved per prototype part for a reduction of over 130 hours in drafting and almost 900 in parts programming.
Always committed to growth and improvement, BraunAbility is now researching further gains in productivity, reductions in time to part, and the ability to design and produce increasingly more complex parts in-house. This continued pursuit of innovative solutions is what allows BraunAbility to continue to lead in producing the most advanced mobility solutions in the accessible vehicle marketplace.
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