A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains material that is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent document or the patent disclosure, as it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office patent file or records, but otherwise reserves all copyright rights whatsoever. Copyright 2018, Onshape Inc.
This relates to software for computer aided design, and more particularly to computer aided design solutions for component traceability.
Most CAD designers use content in designs that is supplied via a third party supplier. These components vary widely, for example, a company that designs, manufactures, and sells wood cutting table saws might use an electric motor from a third party supplier in the design of the table saw. The supplier provides a catalog or library of their available motors, the designer uses it in their table saw design and eventually purchases the motor to complete the manufacturing and sale of the table saw.
Typical supplier components include components used in mechanical and machine design, for example, but not limited to:
The supplier produces and makes available a library (or libraries) of components to end users (designers), where these components are typically in the form of a CAD model. End users then use these components in their designs. Currently, there is no way for the supplier to know which designers have inquired about or actually used the supplier's CAD components in designs.
United States Patent Application Publication 2015/0001762 (“METHOD FOR DEPLOYABLE RAPID ON-SITE MANUFACTURING USING 3-D PRINTING IN COMBINATION WITH VACUUM METALLIZATION”, Lacaze et al., Jan. 1, 2015) discloses, in the Abstract, “Deployable On-Site Manufacturing Using 3D Printing is a low cost approach to manufacturing any of thousands of designs at any location. Crowd-sourcing populates a large library of models that can be produced using a small set of standard parts and 3D printed components, as well as highly specialized products. A vacuum metallization process is used in combination with the 3D printer allows printing of antennas designed for a particular frequency, beam form, amplification, size, and weight. These highly specialize products are printed and assembled on-site, as needed. Uses include disaster sites, emergency situations, remote operations, military operations, and homeland security.” This solution addresses third party vendor libraries and the ability to update these libraries as it pertains to on-site 3D printing.
United States Patent Application Publication 2011/0047140 (“COMPUTER SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR PROVIDING REAL-WORLD MARKET-BASED INFORMATION CORRESPONDING WITH A THEORETICAL CAD MODEL AND/OR RFQ/RFP DATA”, Free, Feb. 2, 2011) discloses, in the Abstract, “A market-based search system uses a digital geometric CAD model as a filter against other digital geometric CAD models that have been used or that may be used to produce actual products and that have real-world cost and other transactional data. Specifically, a digital CAD model is used as an index into market-based data. A geometry based search engine can perform a first pass of comparing indexed parameters derived from the CAD model provided in a search query against index data of an indexed CAD assets database. A transaction search engine can then be used to perform a second pass on the results from the geometric based search in order to match any transactional data, process data, or technical attribute data of the CAD model with real-world transactional data and/or process data associated with CAD models discovered by the indexed data search.” This solution assesses geometry of CAD models to determine, amongst other things, cost estimates for manufacturing.
One implementation for multi-user cloud-based 3-D parametric CAD is the Onshape CAD system described in patent application 2016/0246899 (“MULTI-USER CLOUD PARAMETRIC FEATURE-BASED 3D CAD SYSTEM”, Hirsctick et al., Aug. 15, 2016), which is hereby fully incorporated by reference. The Onshape CAD system includes an internet ‘cloud’ based storage mechanism which allows collaboration, sharing and usage access amongst users anywhere in the world.
None of the above provides a multi-user cloud-based CAD system with (1) third-party component libraries, (2) tracking of component use in end designs, and (3) a notification to update designers using components of needed updates, technical issues, or changes in previously used components. What is needed, therefore, is a system that overcomes the above-mentioned limitations and that includes the features enumerated above.
A system may be implemented within an online, multi-user CAD environment to allow suppliers of CAD components (also referred to as content) to be able to quickly and efficiently determine who has used these components within CAD designs. Via this system, these used third party components can be easily traced by the original supplier.
This system may be implemented within the online, multi-user CAD environment, such as the preferred Onshape CAD solution. All information, including the supplier models and the pertinent information of the end users who have used any supplier content may be stored in a cloud based database. This database is setup to allow fast and efficient retrieval of this information to give suppliers the necessary information to track who is using their content.
The information the supplier has access to includes:
Suppliers may use this information for the following purposes:
In the drawings, closely related figures and items have the same number but different alphabetic suffixes. Processes, states, statuses, and databases are named for their respective functions.
In the following detailed description, reference is made to the accompanying drawings which form a part hereof, and in which are shown, by way of illustration, specific embodiments in which may be practiced. It is to be understood that other embodiments may be used, and structural changes may be made without departing from the scope of the present disclosure.
Operation
Referring to
Referring also to
Once a CAD design is complete, the CAD system may convert the CAD design into manufacturing directives and the design produced as a physical item by a CNC (computer numerical control) machine. Tracking components provided by one supplier and used in other designs provides improved operations for suppliers. Tracked usage patterns and frequencies may allow a supplier to appropriately stock specifically designed parts. Changes, recalls, and discontinuations of specific parts may be pushed to end-use designers to account for changes in advance of real-world impact.
Third parties may supply specific components, and provide libraries of those components for designers to use within designs in the CAD system. Referring also to
Referring also to
Referring also to
Referring also to
Referring also to
Since all data for supplier model content is aggregated and stored in the CAD cloud infrastructure, the data can be retrieved and used in many ways for different purposes. This includes:
Using this information, suppliers may adjust stock levels of specific part models, and ship appropriately to different geographically located distribution centers.
The CAD system may provide a messaging system for the supplier design engineer to contact all end designers using a specific component. This may be done through an automated email, or notification signaled within each end designer CAD account. This tracking and notification allows messaging 870 such as product recalls, discontinuations, or model changes, to reach 880 all end designers using a specific component.
It is to be understood that the above description is intended to be illustrative, and not restrictive. Many other embodiments will be apparent to those of skill in the art upon reviewing the above description. The scope of the invention should, therefore, be determined with reference to the appended claims, along with the full scope of equivalents to which such claims are entitled.
This utility patent application claims priority from U.S. provisional patent application Ser. No. 62/556,659, filed Sep. 11, 2017, titled “Traceable Content Used within Computer Aided Design” and naming inventors Gary Amadon, Parapura Rajkumar, and Malay Kumar.
Number | Date | Country | |
---|---|---|---|
62556659 | Sep 2017 | US |