Solid Edge has been a part of innovation for different products throughout. Located in Zurich, Switzerland, Limbic Life develops and distributes the Limbic Chair for weightless sitting and freedom of movement. Motion sensors in the chair provide its user with precise control of virtual and augmented reality (AR/VR) and other applications for gaming, medical diagnostics, and engineering.
Dr. Patrik Künzler, the director and founder of Limbic Life, created his company soon after his time at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Laboratory, when he returned to Zurich. “The principle of form follows function originated in the 20th century,” says Künzler. “Today, we develop products that are fun, healthy and useful based on neuroscience and medicine.”
The Limbic Chair is the result of years of work based on experience and insight. Over 200 customers worldwide own one or more of the custom-made models, which are recognized as remedies by select health insurance companies. The chair is currently being redesigned for mass production to offer its benefits to a larger audience.
Solid Edge as beneficiary for limbic life?
Limbic Life has consistently deployed Solid Edge, as well as other solutions from Siemens Digital Industries Software, to advance the Limbic Chair from the individual production stage to series production. Solid Edge has made that goal a reality, allowing the company to develop a shell shape made of carbon fibers suitable for all users. In the near future, the seat shells will simply be injection-molded from plastic.
Limibic Life manages all project-related data in Teamcenter, partly in the background while designing in Solid Edge. The Solid Edge integration with Teamcenter enables hassle-free data management, including approvals, design and production parts lists, change management, and version statuses to be mapped across multiple locations. With this infrastructure, the Limbic Chair is expected to be ready for series production this year. With series production, they’ll give more people the chance to sit in a healthy and relaxed way, where movement is more fun than ever.
Solid edge helps implementing the latest technologies that increase the flexibility and speed of product development can help address multiple concerns.
Designers and manufacturers of plastic components are facing an increasing number of challenges, including uncertainty over global trade agreements and the resulting impact on their supply chains, increasing pressure to control component costs while maintaining or improving component performance, and an increasing focus on environmental issues.
Investing in digital transformation across design, development and manufacturing is key in helping manufacturers of plastic components be more competitive. 3D digital models, or “digital twins,” can be used to analyze product performance and aid design optimization that can reduce product and tooling costs.
According to a recent survey by the IDC global market intelligence firm, many companies are already thinking along these lines. “Small and midsize manufacturing firms are embracing digital transformation to engage with the emerging digital economy,” IDC reports.
Solid Edge & Digitalization Help ?
Digitalization can also help plastic component manufacturers understand the impact of material and manufacturing process selection on product costs and performance. Product and tool costing software enables you to determine the best size, shape, or material for a specific part and analyze its performance based on a digital model. That digital model can easily be shared with tooling suppliers by means of cloud-based file sharing. Even environmental concerns can be addressed with digital technologies. Manufacturers are under pressure from consumers to use less plastic packaging material and move to bioplastics and biodegradable materials to reduce long-term environmental impact.
Extended producer responsibility, which transfers recycling and disposal costs to the producer, is being enforced in many countries. Having a fast, flexible digital product development process allows you to adapt quickly to using new or different materials and more efficient manufacturing techniques. However, many plastics component manufacturers, typically small- and medium-sized organizations, don’t have access to large IT resources to implement and maintain high-end software solutions. They need a portfolio of solutions for product development and manufacturing that is affordable, flexible and easy to implement and maintain.
The Solid Edge Advantage Solid Edge provides you with a suite of next-generation technologies to solve today’s toughest product development challenges. An industry-leading 3D computer-aided design (CAD) software platform, the Solid Edge portfolio provides a high-value, flexible and powerful solution for product development and manufacturing that enables manufacturers of plastic components to accelerate time-to-market for new products and deliver high-quality products on time and on budget.
Solid Edge includes specific capabilities for plastic components design, including complex surface design, draft face placement and analysis, and rapid placement of plastic features including lips, ribs, vents, thin walls and bosses. Solid Edge includes unique convergent modeling capabilities that combine design information stored in mesh-based models, for example, data created during reverse engineering and data used for additive manufacturing, with that stored in the traditional boundary representation format for 3D CAD models.
Convergent modeling speeds up the overall design process by allowing you to use mesh-based data in your b-rep workflows with no data conversion and all the benefits of both technologies. Similarly, Solid Edge Generative Design also allows users to optimize plastic components for strength, weight and material usage.
Additional solutions from the Solid Edge portfolio enable improvements in both traditional and additive manufacturing, stress analysis, fluid flow and heat transfer analysis, technical publications, data and process management, and collaboration with suppliers and customers. Designers and engineers in the plastic component manufacturing industry report significant benefits using Solid Edge. Some examples from published case studies include:
50% faster design changes
50% faster product development time
40% increase in number of new products brought to market
Design time for complex products cut from 12 months to 4 months
Intellectual property fully protected when sharing files
Rapid development of samples
Last-minute changes before manufacturing enabled
Easy path to productivity for new employees
Increased collaboration between departments
Complete definition of products prior to manufacturing
Seamless transfer of design intent to shop floor
Sustained international competitive advantage
Want more information about Solid Edge solutions and capabilities for the plastic component manufacturing industry? Contact us.
