Analysts in Southfield work closely with designers and engineers in the product divisions. At one time, Eaton, like most manufacturers, often skipped analysis due to time or budget constraints. "Analyzing something today requires much less time and money than it used to," said Tom Chimner, engineering analyst supervisor.
Eaton divisions are rapidly adopting analysis. Increasingly, they offer initial concepts to analysts. Previously, designers tended to wait until their work was nearly done. By then, almost any change was difficult.
Eaton leveraged its success by standardizing on ANSYS. ANSYS offers design integration software such as ANSYS/ProFEA® and DesignSpace to help introduce new users to this technology.
This close teamwork has led to breakthroughs in technique. A good example is the design of a supercharger for a leading car manufacturer. This was done jointly in Southfield and Eaton's Supercharger Division in Marshall, MI. Working together, engineers broke some boundaries between disciplines. Temperature, stress, vibration, and noise were evaluated using ANSYS to ensure the integrity of the design.
Chimner believes the single most helpful factor was direct CAD translation and automatic meshing. Importing and meshing CAD geometry from Marshall erased departmental boundaries as well as the driving time between the cities. Another big factor was the ANSYS customization capability. It helps to automate repetitive analyses, a great timesaver when optimizing designs requires running models over and over.
"This combination of capabilities is only available from ANSYS," Chimner said.
