From the technical drawing board to 3D CAD design

Manufacturing turnkey biscuit-making machinery and equipment lines, packaging machines and special food preparation machines is the mission of Eskort Makina A.S. The company’s vision is to continuously increase production speed and quality.

Twenty-five years ago, the company began its engineering operations using traditional technical drawing boards. With the development of new design technologies, Escort Makina engineers have used several computer-aided design (CAD) programs over the years. The need to design products faster and minimize errors, as well as the desire of the company’s engineers to work with 3D design, led the Eskort Makina to consider 3D-based CAD software. After evaluating several systems from leading product lifecycle management (PLM) specialists, the company chose Solid Edge® software from Siemens Digital Industries Software.

‘’Solid Edge is a revolutionary technology for mechanical engineers,” says Erdogan Turbedar, engineer and founder of Eskort Makina. “Due to its design interface, Solid Edge is superior to other CAD software systems and it is very user-friendly with its Windows-compatible menu. In addition, the command set includes everything that a mechanical engineer needs. This enables our technical team to respond immediately. Those were the reasons behind my decision to choose Solid Edge.

“Solid Edge helps mitigate the turnover of engineering manpower at our company. Finishing an incomplete model with a new engineer or draftsman is difficult enough using conventional 3D software. But, using Solid Edge with synchronous technology, we do not have to worry about the history behind the model creation. We simply assign a replacement engineer or draftsman to edit a particular feature according to customer requirements and to complete the ECN (engineering change notification) on time.”

Using Solid Edge helped cut design cycle time by 45 percent

As in every company, achieving faster design cycles and reducing manufacturing defects are important for Eskort Makina. It takes time to develop a new, high-quality food machine that complies with local standards. Engineers must also analyze each design from a manufacturability standpoint. They can optimize new designs, addressing compliance requirements, and significantly reduce manufacturing time by using Solid Edge. Using the software also enables direct manipulation of objects, which helps decrease design and manufacture time.

“If we look at our estimates, using Solid Edge has enabled us to cut design cycle time by 45 percent and manufacturing costs by 20 percent,” says Turbedar. “The other issue that our company faces is ‘usage.’ Solid Edge is a very effective program that is easy to learn and use, providing great convenience to users for direct construction. New designers that join the team can learn and use Solid Edge easily and can be productive almost immediately.”