In 1996, a snowboarding injury caused Christian to become paralyzed from the waist down. As an athlete, machinist, and creative and determined problem solver, he started designing equipment to help make life better for himself and others facing mobility challenges. One result is Bowhead, which designs and manufactures off-road adaptive e-bikes and has its home base in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

Bowhead Shop Floor

Sanket Patil is a mechanical designer and engineer-in-training at Bowhead. He started in the business as a volunteer, passionate about delivering an adaptive biking experience and ready to contribute his skills. Beginning in 2020, he joined the company as a full-time designer, troubleshooting issues found during field testing and improving designs.

Bowhead e-bikes are engineered to order to suit a person’s level of mobility and specific needs and wants. Sanket explained that the whole purpose is to accommodate each unique user, so the design process must follow suit.

Bowhead RX at Trout Lake

“A customer chooses options depending on variables such as their foot size, or the type of seat they prefer, or whether they have use of their hands or back muscles. This customization means we need to manage hundreds of parts, complex assemblies, and hundreds of thousands of possible combinations.”

Better data management became a priority

Bowhead’s first e-bike model was REACH. When they moved on to the RX model, Sanket said they suddenly had a lot of data that couldn’t be managed in a folder system any longer.

In 2020, Sanket was the only one working on CAD regularly. A folder system worked fine at first, but it soon became difficult and time consuming to implement and control revisions. He also lacked detailed design history, and creating multiple files was causing a storage capacity issue.

He had some experience working with product data management (PDM) solutions, but he was wary of the upfront investment that would be required and knew that Bowhead would also need to outsource customization and implementation.

“We had also added engineers working on our designs remotely,” he said. “We had to quickly implement a PDM solution that was flexible and easily scalable as our company continued to grow.”

The path to choosing 3DEXPERIENCE

Bowhead was already involved with the Dassault Systèmes SOLIDWORKS for Entrepreneurs program, so they approached Dassault to talk about their evolving needs and get advice. Dassault introduced Bowhead to 3DEXPERIENCE (3DX) and offered a chance to try the platform and discover its capabilities.

Sanket was impressed. He said 3DEXPERIENCE, and the ENOVIA data management tool in particular, allows his team to manage CAD efficiently and collaborate.

Managing CAD Data in 3DEXPERIENCE

“We run the platform practically out of the box and since it’s cloud-based, we don’t have to worry about maintaining servers or hiring an IT specialist. These are crucial aspects for a start-up like ours.”

Bowhead has since grown to have four engineers on site in Canada and two contractors who connect to 3DX from India.

“It’s easy to involve all the engineers in product development,” Sanket said. “We all work with the latest revision. I can easily redline a drawing, send a change order, and later approve that change. And as the company matures, we are expanding to managing other parts of our operation.”

Beyond CAD data

Since implementing 3DEXPERIENCE, Bowhead has expanded beyond using the original design-based features into project planning and change management features.

ENOVIA Data Management

They have also started using some product lifestyle management tools the platform offers, such as doing full product BOMs for their e-bike projects, which include non-engineering items like harnesses and labels.

“We were in the R&D phase of the RX when we got 3DEXPERIENCE and it really set us up for success in manufacturing. The careful tracking makes the design process transparent to the end user. Every piece of a product’s history is searchable and traceable.”

Onboarding and support from Javelin

Implementing a new technology platform while developing a new bike might have been daunting but Sanket says the software was user friendly and easy to learn. And Javelin – A TriMech Company, which provides and supports SOLIDWORKS and Dassault Systèmes solutions, made sure he and his team were trained and positioned for success.

“Javelin guided us through the setup and resolved queries as they arose. Their service is impeccable and response times are amazing. With their help, we didn’t have a single day of downtime, which is absolutely essential for us to meet our deadlines.”

Javelin has a detailed process for onboarding clients to get them operational and feeling confident quickly. As the main admin, Sanket did a training session over three half days; others on his team joined him for the last day.

He explained that he knew the system could do certain things, but he didn’t know how, and that these were the kinds of questions he posed to Javelin.

“One thing I struggled with was the part-numbering system. Ours was already in place and I didn’t want to change it. Javelin understood the ins and outs of 3DEXPERIENCE and created a process workaround involving file naming, which made our existing system compatible.”

Sanket also noted that he’s glad Javelin and 3DEXPERIENCE are at the helm of Bowhead’s data management and will take care of the increasing complexity they’ll face as the company grows.

“There is no stopping us now – we will continue to innovate and bring smiles to our customers’ faces.”

Bowhead is online at bowheadcorp.com.

Bowhead REACH – adaptive mountain bike

Why is 3DEXPERIENCE proving successful for Bowhead?

• 3DEXPERIENCE Works supplements their existing desktop SOLIDWORKS tools with powerful cloud-based data and product lifecycle management.
• They now have one cohesive system accessible from any device.
• 3DEXPERIENCE Works is ready to handle more (and new types of) users and complexity as the company grows.
• No major upfront capital investment was required, well suited to a start-up like theirs.
• Bowhead has a trusted relationship with their technology partner Javelin.

Doran Avivi is a Staff R&D Engineer at Baylis. He said his team contributes to creating new, innovative technologies for cardiologists.

“Our devices give surgeons minimally-invasive access to the left side of the heart. When the surgeon can work more efficiently, we’re enabling them to provide better care for their patients.”

Doran and his colleagues continually improve the design and manufacturing processes for their devices, and efficiency and productivity must remain at a high level. One key way they do this is through ongoing training.

Every 3D model for every product designed by Doran’s team is created using SOLIDWORKS 3D CAD software. To build skills and knowledge in the full suite of SOLIDWORKS tools, Baylis turns to TriMech; in particular, Doran appreciates the flexibility of TriMech’s corporate training program.

Baylis Medical VersaCross® Steerable Sheath – SOLIDWORKS model

Flexible SOLIDWORKS training

TriMech’s corporate training is easy for clients because it’s one order, one purchase, yet includes 20 or more flex training days that can be used by any employee, in any location, to attend publicly offered in-person or live online courses.

Some Baylis designers take advantage of SOLIDWORKS Essentials training, to get better acquainted with the software. Others, like Doran, take advanced courses in SOLIDWORKS Simulation, SOLIDWORKS Drawings, and SOLIDWORKS Advanced Part Modeling.

“TriMech has a huge list of public courses to choose from. It just depends on who is looking for training at the time and how much experience they have.”

Doran adds that the flexibility in scheduling is helpful because they can send just one or two people, instead of managing the downtime that comes with having 40 people training at one time. He also likes the half-day online options because trainees can keep up with their regular work.

Growing in popularity

Baylis is on its third year of investing in TriMech’s corporate training days. In 2020, they chose 20 days; in 2021, they increased to 35.

As the engineers started taking courses, first discovering how easy it was for them to choose a course and get approval quickly, then experiencing the quality of instructors and course content, demand began to increase. Plus, the overall team continues to grow, with new talent arriving.

“There are many ways training makes us better,” Doran said. “Mainly it’s learning best practices to do CAD properly and getting comfortable with any new features. We always want to create 3D models quickly, iterate quickly, make a better product, and get to market faster.”

Even for an experienced user like Doran, there’s always more to learn.

“CAD is time consuming by nature. I make a note of all the shortcuts so I get more efficient. I also like practising on a real case. I’m a visual learner who learns by doing.”

Baylis came to TriMech from another provider several years ago and Doran said he enjoys SOLIDWORKS flexible training and working with the people at TriMech. “TriMech has great customer service. The instructors are friendly and knowledgeable, and they answer your questions live. They send training manuals beforehand so you can prepare or look up content afterward, and the courses are thorough and in depth.”

3D printing aids medical product development

Baylis also has four Stratasys Polyjet 3D printers, which the team uses during product development to make prototypes and test designs. It’s another reason why knowing the ins and outs of SOLIDWORKS is so important – designing properly for additive manufacturing.

Doran Avivi with their Stratasys 3D Printer – an Objet30 Pro

Baylis Medical Investing in people

Baylis is serious about investing in its people through professional development, and managers all have development plans for their team members.

“Baylis recognizes that the growth of the company depends on the growth of the employees,” Doran said.

Baylis is online at baylismedical.com.

TriMech’s public training schedule includes courses in design, simulation, data management, CAM, electrical, and communication. Learn more about our training and consulting solutions.

Global Interconnect (GII) is a worldwide provider of custom engineered cable assemblies, connectors and components. Used for medical applications, such as electrosurgical tools and critical patient monitoring devices, their products have zero failure requirements.

Under pressure to deliver fail safe products while managing a complex global supply chain, their antiquated MRP system had finally reached its limits.

Complex Global Supply Chain Demands a Modern ERP Solution

While outsourcing lowers their manufacturing costs, it adds complexity and presents the need for tight oversight and controls in their day to day operations. Due to the limitations of their old MRP system, much of their work still had to be done manually which became increasingly more difficult to manage as business continued to grow and their supplier base expanded.

For example, to prevent counterfeit items from entering the supply chain, GII bought a significant number of parts domestically and consigned them to their factories in China. Such a practice required the need to perform a manual calculation of needed components based on finished assembly usage and inventory levels at the factory. In addition, GII team members had to calculate the necessary excess to purchase based on historic scrap levels.

Furthermore, communicating with their Hong Kong and China operations required them to share and access data around the clock which proved challenging given the time differences. About their numerous challenges, COO, Todd Squire said “Once we received in the finished good, we literally had people performing intensive manual calculations that were not only time consuming, but prone to errors.

In addition, we were operating in two completely separate software systems to run our business – one for accounting and one to manage our inventory, purchase orders and sales orders. Individuals were forced to navigate in and out of both systems to be able to see the complete picture of our operations and business.” In addition, GII had to account for inventory with a manual backflush process. Not only did this take someone upwards of three hours at the end of each month, it had to be crosschecked by several other people. To further complicate matters, their accounting application didn’t interface with purchasing, so invoices ready to be paid would require manual approval as well.

Incoming receipt of materials with their old system also proved to be burdensome. First, they’d bring in the packing slip, match it with the purchase order, approve it and give it to accounting. But such a practice required someone to manually enter the invoice into their accounting system, run it, and then perform their check run.

Troy Mauk, Director of Global Procurement for GII was one of the users of their old system. As their business continued to grow, he recalled the moment he realized they needed a better system.

“There was one day that I put my pencil down and went into my boss and said – We can’t continue to operate this way if we want to continue to grow.”

Solutions to Manage Global Supply Chain

Accounting, Purchasing, Sales Orders and Inventory Now Under One Roof with Multi-Currency Capability

When they first decided to replace their outdated system, the GII management team set out to find their best three options. DELMIAWorks (formerly IQMS) came out the clear winner. Among the reasons he was first attracted to DELMIAWorks, Squire said, “It was the intuitive nature of it, and the user-friendliness of the system overall.” Further, from a training perspective, Todd felt the simple navigation would make it easier to get the whole organization on board during the transition. And another attraction was the standard reporting capabilities, which gave them powerful new reports.

“The biggest benefit was bringing everything together under one roof, the accounting, purchasing, and sales orders in conjunction with inventory. And rolling this all up into a set of financials while managing multi-currency.”

Having everything in one system and under one roof not only introduced tremendous efficiencies to their operations, but it ultimately benefited their expansive and growing customer base as well.

Now that there is complete integration and critical data being shared across functional areas of their business, users can now get a complete and comprehensive financial picture of the company. Inventory interfaces with accounting, bill of materials can be created that drive demand of consigned material that is based on inventory levels across their four factories in China. In addition, their new Quality Module is helping them through DHR compliance, with capabilities like traceability and lot coding features.

Results

Return-on-investment within Year One and 50% Sales Growth by Year Four

While Squire believes a 3 to 4-year return-on investment is typical for ERP purchases, he says “We achieved tremendous returns within the first quarter of implementation and to this day, we are still continuing to add further efficiencies and return on investment with the roll out of new features, reports and other modules.”

Outsourcing is now a seamless operation for GII with DELMIAWorks. They can effortlessly consign material, send it out, have something of value added to it, and then bring it back into their system at a standard rolled up cost that shows them their true cost.

Having real-time information lets GII run a much leaner global operation too. For example, their carrying costs are lower because they can now bring inventory in on a just-in-time basis. At any point in time they know exactly what’s “in WIP” (industry term indicating there’s a part that in the process of being formed) and completed in the way of finished assemblies at their four factories in China.

Return on Investment

• Grew sales grew by 50% within 4 years
• Increased total productivity by 25%
• Reduced time spent on Accounting and Receiving by 50%
• Achieved anywhere, anytime visibility
• Able to grow without adding headcount
• Improved employee morale
• Better handling of medical compliance
• Reduced inventory carrying costs
• Automatic generation of shipping docs
• Manage global supply chain for their operations

Automate Process

GII’s automated back flushing process now takes seconds instead of hours. This frees up a quarter of a day for the people who once did it manually, adding a half-day of capacity to the resources they already had in place. And with far more capacity for those individuals, they’ve been able grow while maintaining the same headcount. This has resulted in a 25% increase in productivity. Mauk, says “I used to spend 80% of my time buying. Now, this is down to 25%. And time spent on accounting and receiving has been reduced by at least 50%.” And for Mauk, there are personal benefits too.

When selecting their new ERP system “my personal goal was to sit on a beach in Greece and do my job,” said Mauk. And now this dream has come true. For the past six years he’s able to take a month off for his annual vacation to Greece where he manages DELMIAWorks from his vacation spot on the beach. Meanwhile it’s business as usual 4,600 miles away at GII’s head office.

Summarizing what they’ve gained with DELMIAWorks, Squire says, “through the power of IQ we’re able to maintain and keep a smooth and seamless running operation between all of our global locations. It has allowed us to dramatically improve our operations and efficiencies and give our Team powerful and accurate data under one roof that ultimately benefits our customers.”

When asked about bottom line results, Squire says “in the past five years we’ve been able to grow close to 50% from a sales perspective.”

“We wanted a CAD system that would help us take a product from concept to manufacturing and tooling design more efficiently,” explains Engineering Manager Maurice Lavimodiere. “We needed a design system that would be more reliable and robust.”

Lavimodiere adds that Southmedic wanted to improve the efficiency of its product development and expand its existing markets. The company believed it could develop new products and tap new, emerging markets with the productivity gains made possible by a proven 3D modeler.

After evaluating several 3D packages, including Pro/ENGINEER® and Solid Edge®, Southmedic selected SOLIDWORKS® 3D CAD software because of Dassault Systèmes SolidWorks Corp.’s complete focus on product design, proven parametric features, bidirectional associativity, advanced visualization capabilities, and integration with leading engineering applications. “We needed a tool that would be flexible, easy to use, and would allow us to design intuitively. We chose SOLIDWORKS software because we believed it would help us design products faster, and we perceived DS SolidWorks as a company focused on developing CAD tools that are powerful but easy to use,” Lavimodiere says.

“While reviewing the product,” Lavimodiere continues, “it became obvious to us that DS SolidWorks listens to their users’ enhancement requests. The interaction between DS SolidWorks developers and users explains why SOLIDWORKS software is such a tremendous tool.”

A breakthrough in oxygen delivery systems

Southmedic leveraged SOLIDWORKS software to investigate new market opportunities. “Existing oxygen delivery systems produced a level of patient dissatisfaction and discomfort,” Lavimodiere notes. “Oxygen masks can feel claustrophobic and create unpleasant odors. Nasal cannulas can produce nasal burns, chafing, and sinus sensitivity. We set out to develop a product that would allow oxygen to be delivered through a headset and address these areas of patient dissatisfaction.”

OxyArm Predictable Oxygen Delivery System

Using SOLIDWORKS software, Southmedic developed the OxyArm™ oxygen delivery system, the first “open” oxygen delivery system on the market. The OxyArm system uses an innovative diffuser mushroom assembly that is positioned over the mouth and nose to deliver oxygen to patients at adjustable levels.

“With SOLIDWORKS software, the design cycle for the OxyArm was about three months, I estimate that product development was 30 to 40 percent faster with SOLIDWORKS software.”

Streamlining plastics design

The development of the OxyArm required a great deal of testing, rapid prototyping, and design changes and refinements. The challenge was to eliminate the need to clamp the apparatus to the patient’s ears while still providing uninterrupted oxygen flow. The apparatus was designed so that movement of the patient’s head would not disturb it. This way, the boom that delivers oxygen to the diffuser remains stable.

“Plastics design is a highly iterative process, requiring numerous design changes,” explains Lavimodiere. “For example, you may need to add draft to a part, which affects the assembly, the mold, and all associated drawings. With CADKEY, you would need to begin again for every change. SOLIDWORKS software makes handling these design changes much easier. All you need to do is open the FeatureManager and make a change, and all of the associated parts, assemblies, molds, and drawings update themselves automatically.”

Enhancing design communication

Communicating product concepts is another requirement, because, in addition to developing its own line of products, Southmedic, Inc., develops and communicates design concepts to OEM customers on a regular basis.

The OxyArm Predictable Oxygen Delivery System uses directional diffuser technology
to provide superior oxygen therapy to patients

“Because SOLIDWORKS software is so easy to use and has such realistic rendering features, I can develop a product concept on site during the first meeting and either animate it on screen or print it,” states Lavimodiere. “This truly impresses our prospects.”

Using SOLIDWORKS software, Southmedic is able to communicate with partners, such as Western University in Ontario, which conducted wind-tunnel flow analysis on the OxyArm. “Since SOLIDWORKS software has become so standard we can export files as either SLAs or CAD models for use by our vendors and partners,” Lavimodiere says.