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INCAT Slashes Lead Time 80% on Engineering Changes For Auto Supplier

19 May 1999

INCAT Slashes Lead Time 80 Percent on Engineering Changes For Local Automotive Supplier

    TROY, Mich., May 18 -- Majestic Industries, a supplier of
dies to DaimlerChrysler AG and to DaimlerChrysler suppliers, was able to cut
product design cycle time by 30 percent and lead time on engineering changes
by 80 percent using INCAT.
    "The kind of fundamental improvement Majestic was able to achieve is a
pioneering example of the way small companies can embrace technology to
survive and flourish," said Warren Harris, CEO, INCAT.
    "Automotive suppliers like Majestic face major challenges to improve
efficiencies, reduce design and development lead times and control costs.
They focus on these major challenges because that's what their customers, the
automotive OEMs, are doing.  And they simply must be in step, or lose the
game," Harris said.
    When Majestic's founding partners Alan Janiszewski and Jim Butler first
confronted the new competitive environment, they thought the solution lay with
simply acquiring new 3-D software to replace the 2-D system they were using.
    Learning of their search, an INCAT executive persuaded them to consider a
total restructuring of their entire design and production methodology.  It was
not enough, he said, to buy a seat of CATIA and keep doing what they had been
doing.
    Moreover, INCAT was not interested in simply licensing some CATIA software
to Majestic and then walking out of the picture -- because INCAT understood
that software alone would not solve Majestic's issues.  What the die maker
needed was a company that understood the business issues and could engage with
them in a restructuring process that would extend and optimize their uses of
CATIA far beyond anything they had considered.
    In their search for improving their process, Janieszewski and Butler
presented a benchmark to several software companies.  None met their demands
for a program that could grow beyond their initial expectations except INCAT,
with their plan to implement CATIA.
    In August 1998, INCAT began a preliminary study of Majestic's operations
and found a cycle time of about 12 weeks from starting a die design all the
way through to the numerical control cutter path.  INCAT's design engineers
said they could reduce that by 30 percent and cut lead time on engineering
changes by 80 percent.
    In the first place, INCAT trained a team of four Majestic people with no
experience with 3-D design programs.  The trainees not only produced a die for
a customer but learned to develop any progressive die.  In this first phase,
the detailing of the die design fell from 75 man-days to around 35, just by
implementing the CATIA program effectively.  The next phases produced even
greater time saving -- all the way down to 3 man-days.
    Convinced of the ability of INCAT to go far beyond Majestic's original
expectations, the company eventually made an investment of about $1 million, a
major commitment for a relatively small enterprise.  Majestic's dies are now
all digitally represented 3-D solids rather than 2-D.
    The company now operates a seamless process-driven system with
DaimlerChrylser.  The automaker's people can review a new die on a screen.
They can rotate it, cut sections through it and sign off based on what they
see without ever looking at a piece of paper.
    "The only reason for drawings these days is because some shop floor work
is still manual," said Harris.
    Majestic's design and engineering of DaimlerChrysler dies -- using INCAT
implementation of CATIA -- has had a profound effect on its ranking with the
automaker.  Majestic has boosted its DaimlerChrysler supplier rating from 41
percent to 85 percent, while no other supplier has rated higher than 74
percent.  Since then, Majestic has received five die orders.
    Janieszewski said, "We are the first company ever to deliver to
DaimlerChrysler a progressive die design in CATIA solids.  To be the
forerunners in giving DaimlerChrysler a direction on progressive die design
within CATIA has opened a lot of new doors for us."
    INCAT provides software, infrastructure, training, consulting and
professional services to the global CATIA user community of some 13,000
companies.  By building long-term partnerships with its customers, INCAT's aim
is to facilitate competitive advantage through intelligently applied process
improvements and technologies.  The business employs over 365 professionals
working from locations in North America, Europe and Japan.