Ingersoll-Rand saves time and money with new Engineer-to-Order system

Through the years, RAND Worldwide ® has partnered with Ingersoll-Rand on a number of projects aimed at enhancing the ability of this global manufacturer of security and safety, climate control, industrial solutions and infrastructure products, to increase its engineering productivity and profitability.

Challenge
In 2002, the Air Solutions division of Ingersoll-Rand turned to RAND Worldwide ® to help solve a growing problem that was costing them time and money: they needed to auto­mate several complex engineering design tasks. The Air Solutions division spe­cializes in the engineering of industrial compressor equipment, which compresses and controls airflow. A key but multifaceted component in centrifugal compressors is the impeller. The challenge with the design of this part is that it requires an aerodynamics engineer, using a specialized software package, to develop an aerodynamically opti­mized blade design that suits a particular application. Once the aerodynamics engineer has completed the blade design, the project is passed to a mechanical engineer who will design the remaining impeller features. The process of transferring the blade design requirements from the aerodynamics software package to the Pro/ENGINEER CAD system was a severe source of pain for Ingersoll-Rand. Traditionally, this data was transferred as a series of points that define the blade structure, but importing these points into Pro/ENGINEER was tedious, time-consuming and, being a manual process, increased the incidence of errors being introduced.

Once the blade design is completed, the remaining design for the impeller is based on a pre-defined set of rules and variables. The size and structural features need to be analyzed and mounting attachments must be defined and added to the impeller design. Unfortunately, the Ingersoll-Rand engineers had to repeat this same process each time they designed a new impeller, a process that could take up to a week, depending on the complexity of each impeller.

After a design is completed, a series of manufacturing drawings needs to be produced for different stages of the manufacturing process. Casting drawings, finished machining drawings, flow-cut drawings and 5-axis machining drawings are all necessary for the engineering process. Again, someone would have to produce a new set of drawings for each new impeller design.

Solution
A newly enhanced automated process based on an engineer-to-order system was the only way to dramatically increase efficiency, without sacrificing quality.

In order to improve the productivity of their engineers and operations, Ingersoll-Rand wanted to automate this process. Specifically, they needed a tool that would allow them to create custom impellers quickly, for different industrial needs, working in Pro/ENGINEER.

The Air Solutions group came to RAND Worldwide for assistance in developing an interface that could be used by the aerodynamics engineers responsible for the blade definition. The objective was to enable them to process the manufacturing deliverables by simply completing a list of defined choices to complete the impeller design. RAND Worldwide worked with Inger­soll-Rand to create a customized application that met these goals by transferring the point data from the aerodynamics software package to the Pro/ENGINEER CAD system to generate solid geometry for the impeller blades. Using a customized graphical user interface (GUI), the Ingersoll-Rand aerodynamic engineers can now easily design a complete impeller by choosing from a series of drop down menus, entering values in text boxes and selecting from a series of graphical images. Then, at the end of the process, the same engineer selects the desired manufacturing drawings and completes the de­sign, eliminating the need of the mechanical engineer for this specific task.

Using automation techniques based on best practices and custom software developed by RAND Worldwide, the Ingersoll-Rand engineering team now has an engineer-to-order system that allows them to build a 3D model in Pro/ENGINEER, generate all associated drawing deliverables remotely on a server, and publish the drawings for manufacturing. The aerodynamics engineer does not even have to know how to use Pro/ENGINEER!

Results
This automation project has saved Ingersoll-Rand significant time and money, delivering a solid return on their investment. It reduced the design cycle of the impeller from a week to a matter of minutes, reduced the number of manual errors introduced from the old process, and freed the highly skilled mechanical engineers from a number of tedious tasks, such as creating new impeller drawings, allowing them to become more produc­tive and work on more important engineering tasks.

About Ingersoll-Rand
Ingersoll-Rand (NYSE:IR) is a global innovation and solutions provider with leading positions within turbo-machinery, stationary refrigeration, micro-turbines, industrial and construction equipment markets, to name a few.

Ingersoll-Rand employs about 45,000 employees around the world, and operates more than 100 manufacturing facilities, half of which are located outside the United States.