Nidec Motor Corporation
Electrical motors designed-to-order, instantly!
Rapid customization provides a definite competitive edge to Nidec Motor Corporation (NMC) of St. Louis, MO. To facilitate instant design-to-order of fractional horsepower electrical motors NMC selected Design++® technology to provide these advantages:
- Instant motor configuration optimizing the use of standard parts
- Instant engineering and design of custom parts
- Automatic generation of requisite drawings
- Rapid sample turn-around for early customer commitment
- Increased customer satisfaction
speed specialty motor business process
Increasing Customer Satisfaction
Nidec Motor Corporation is well known for their commitment to quality and speed in delivering fractional horsepower electrical motors that meet their customers' specific requirements. As part of their continuing quest for improving customer service, NMC looked for means to speed up their sales supply-chain process. Shortening the time for engineering, design, and sample delivery for customer testing also provides a significant competitive advantage. NMC found that Design++ technology would provide this advantage with its unique capabilities in configuration, automatic creation of 3D models and drawings, and its ability to integrate with existing tools and databases.
Automating the Engineering Work-Process
Small specialty electrical motors are supplied to manufacturers of white goods, other electrical and electronic appliances and entertainment products. For tight fit and proper performance these motors are designed to fit the application. Application engineers record the physical constraints and electrical requirements into mechanical and electrical specifications. Traditionally these specifications are sent to engineering for design using conventional tools. Sample motors are then made and sent to the customer for validation. After final approval the customer places a quantity production order.
NMC decided to significantly reduce the time a customer has to wait for the sample motor by applying Design++ technology to make instant engineering and design possible. Charlie Spaulding, an in-house systems and product specialist, captured NMC's motor configuration, engineering, design, and part selection knowledge into the Design++ environment.
Instant Custom Drawings
A set of output drawings was specified using Design++ AutoDrafter. "Implementation with Design++ is straightforward, and its incremental nature allows the application to be easily sustained and extended as the underlying motor technology changes," says Charlie.
The system today accepts the mechanical and electrical specifications, automatically produces a detailed and engineered motor design, presents it in a 3D model, and automatically produces fully annotated and dimensioned drawings and required technical documentation. The system lets NMC's engineers immediately review the design, before a sample is created, and any changes they want can be implemented instantly.