Lay the Groundwork for Remote Product Development Teams

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A few years ago, the team at the  Advanced Center for Design were approached with a novel product idea: a touchless cup lid dispenser for restaurants and grocery stores, which eventually was named “LID Boss.” Before the pandemic, only real germaphobes cared about what other people touched in public spaces, especially food-related businesses.

However, “dirty” hands became a global concern after the pandemic began. The Wall Street Journal reported that hand sanitizer sales jumped 600% in 2020. What was once a solution for a problem that some didn’t even believe existed became a game-changing innovation. Restaurants and stores now have an innovative and effective way to keep their customers safe.

But how do you launch a global product in the middle of a pandemic when everyone is working remotely?

Forging Ahead with Online Product Development Tools

The LID Boss team at the Center for Advanced Design knew that keeping the almost 100% remote team on the same page was a top priority. Being connected was a good start but more was required. Digital tools were needed to collaborate as if everyone were in the same room with a whiteboard, secure access to all the product data, revision control, and more. The system had to work seamlessly with SOLIDWORKS® and prevent the team from stepping on each other’s toes by either overwriting data by accident or working on the wrong files.

These requirements were not nice to have; they were mission-critical must-haves to launch its innovative product as fast as possible.

The LID Boss team latched onto 3DEXPERIENCE® SOLIDWORKS, which provides a cloud-based environment to keep the product development ball rolling to create and launch the new product. Data management on the 3DEXPERIENCE Works platform is built-in along with apps to manage communications, tasks, and complex CAD files. Plus, non-technical stakeholders—and even suppliers or customers—can participate every step of the way, even without requisite CAD knowledge for design review meetings.

Pedal to the Metal: Design, Validate, and Optimize

The key engineer and designer worked remotely while on the road and maintained productivity using 3DEXPERIENCE SOLIDWORKS, which automatically connects to the 3DEXPERIENCE platform, enabling a host of product development functions:

  •         Collaborate with different users on various aspects of the design to prepare for mold tooling
  •         Perform motion studies and robust finite element analysis studies
  •         Explore detailed results from mechanical analysis for kinematics, stiffness, and part strength
  •         Quickly move SOLIDWORKS files to the 3DEXPERIENCE platform and work on designs from any internet-connected device using:

3D Creator (xDesign)

3D Sculptor (xShape)

  •         Connect to a network of on-demand fabricators in 3D Marketplace Make to create new 3D-printed prototypes
  •         And much more…

Being connected to the cloud-based 3DEXPERIENCE Works environment means that all stakeholders can continue productively working together with the product development and collaboration tools needed at their fingertips.

Witness the LID Boss Workflow in Action

Bringing LID Boss from prototype to production, the Center for Advanced Design team faced the thrill of breakthroughs and the agony of obstacles but overcame the hurdles and brought LID Boss to market. Whether finishing up final tasks before going live with the LID Boss or reacting to customer feedback, the team knows the cloud-based 3DEXPERIENCE Works portfolio has all the product development tools to get it done right.

Check out the video series illustrating the Center for Advanced Design’s LID Boss workflow story—both learn more about the power of the the 3DEXPERIENCE Works platform in the process.

SOLIDWORKS

SOLIDWORKS

Dassault Systèmes SolidWorks Corp. offers complete 3D software tools that let you create, simulate, publish, and manage your data. SolidWorks products are easy to learn and use, and work together to help you design products better, faster, and more cost-effectively. The SolidWorks focus on ease-of-use allows more engineers, designers and other technology professionals than ever before to take advantage of 3D in bringing their designs to life.
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