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RECOMMENDATION REPORT
Using Digital Design Software at RPS Industries

Prepared by: Brian Hillenbrand

Prepared for: Robert Sullivan, CEO ofRPS Industries
March 5, 2016

Memo of Transmittal
To: Robert Sullivan
From: Brian Hillenbrand
Date: March 7, 2016
Subject: Recommendation Report on using digital design software at RPS Industries

Attached you will find the recommendation report for RPS on the topic of using digital design
software. The purpose of the report is to inform you on possible options for updating the
product workflow at RPS to utilize digital design tools.
Recommendations
I will be recommending 3 different options that vary in what software is used and how it is
used. This was based on efficiency and cost of software.

Using purely CAD/CAM Software to design and ready designs for manufacture
Streamline the customer process with CAD software and newer design tools
Streamline the entire process from customer experience to manufacturing using CAD/CAM
as well as additional software or plugins for the CAD software.

Methods
I used multiple sources to investigate these options, as to back up what I would recommend.
My sources include the following.
Interview with Robert Sullivan
The SOLIDWORKS company website
The DriveWorks company website
The Striker Systems company website
Javelin online store
Findings
The information that was gathered is displayed in the reports Results section. The synthesis
of this information into applied recommendations can be found in the Conclusion section.
Final Recommendation
My final recommendation is to utilize DriveWorks Solo to input customer data into
SOLIDWORKS to create detailed product models, which would then be fed into the SS-Punch
Striker Systems CAM software for manufacturing.
If you have any questions or comments, do not hesitate to contact me.

Table of Contents
Table of Figures ............................................................................................................................................. 3
Introduction .................................................................................................................................................. 4
Methods ........................................................................................................................................................ 5
Interview with Robert Sullivan .................................................................................................................. 5
Online Sources .......................................................................................................................................... 5
SOLIDWORKS......................................................................................................................................... 5
DriveWorks ........................................................................................................................................... 5
Stryker Systems ..................................................................................................................................... 5
RADAN ................................................................................................................................................... 5
Results ........................................................................................................................................................... 5
Interview with Robert Sullivan .................................................................................................................. 5
Internet Research...................................................................................................................................... 7
SOLIDWORKS......................................................................................................................................... 7
DriveWorks ........................................................................................................................................... 7
Striker Systems ...................................................................................................................................... 8
RADAN ................................................................................................................................................... 8
Conclusion ..................................................................................................................................................... 9
Recommendation ........................................................................................................................................ 10
Glossary ....................................................................................................................................................... 11
Appendix A: Interview Questions ............................................................................................................... 12
References .................................................................................................................................................. 13
Figures Referenced ..................................................................................................................................... 14

Table of Figures
Figure 1: RPS Industries Product Workflow .................................................................................................. 6
Figure 2: Example of DriveWorks Dialogue .................................................................................................. 7

Introduction
This report explores alternative design and manufacturing processes for the precision sheet metal
fabricator company RPS Industries, particularly the process for the current main product, water pump
sheds for industrial water pumps. These alternative processes will take advantage of new digital design
and organization tools such as CAD and CAM aiming to improve the customer experience and improve
efficiency for design and manufacturing time. I will provide multiple alternatives at different levels of
expense, as to accommodate different levels of financial investment. The goal is that RPS Industries will
be presented with a few viable options for changing its current manufacturing process to a more
efficient and modern process.
RPS Industries most popular products currently are water pump sheds. These sheds are designed for
shielding industrial water pumps from the elements, preventing the pumps from being tampered with,
and isolating the noisy pumps from the public [1]. The entire enclosure begins as stock sheets of metal
and is then formed, punched, and assembled into the final product. Each customer has specific needs
for the placement, size, and features of the enclosures, and while there are standard sizes, it is rare for
two sheds to be exactly alike. The companys ability to create a quality custom fit product is a big selling
point; however, it can be time consuming to have to translate each customers needs to the
manufacturing process. These small modifications make an assembly line less efficient.
I saw this first hand when I worked for RPS last summer. I was hired to do some CAD work as the
company was experimenting with the software, seeing how well designs translated into computer
drawings. I also created mock up drawings for customers and did some acoustic research on how well
the pump enclosures blocked the noise the pumps make. During this time, I observed how each little
specification from a customer required a slightly different way of making and assembling the product.
Those modifications were not necessarily new processes to the company, but these minor tweaks meant
is that the production of each product was almost never the same.
With companies starting to use more automated processes and newer design and manufacturing tools,
updating to a digital design process would allow RPS to stay ahead of competitors. RPS is also limited in
growth currently partly due to the time that it takes to go through customer interactions and design. If
RPS can utilize more efficient design tools, it may allow them to handle more orders and increase
profits.
The information for this report came mainly from websites since the information needed would be have
to be current. Since the topic of this report is so specific, there was virtually no previous specific
research that would apply, so I had to piece together alternative processes myself. I interviewed Robert
Sullivan, CEO and founder of RPS Industries, in order to have a clear picture of what the current process
is and where its inefficiencies are.
This report includes a section for methods, results, conclusion and recommendations.
I will consider three options as recommendations:
1. Using purely CAD/CAM Software to design and ready designs for manufacture.
2. Streamlining the customer process with CAD software and newer design tools.
3. Streamlining the manufacturing process using CAD/CAM as well as additional software or
plugins for the CAD software.

Methods
Mainly two methods of research were used in this report: internet sources and an interview. I used the
primary methods of an interview with Robert Sullivan and my own research of possible alternative
workflows.

Interview with Robert Sullivan

To gain a clear and accurate understanding of the design and manufacturing process at RPS Industries, I
interviewed Robert Sullivan, CEO and founder. He directly interfaces with customers to help them find
the best solution for their situation, and he is in charge of how the company is run. In the interview, he
explained how RPS works with customers, how it designs and makes pump sheds, and how long each
part of the process typically takes. A complete list of the interview questions is available in Appendix A:
Interview Questions [1].

Online Sources
SOLIDWORKS
This CAD program is one of the most popular 3D parametric modeling programs in industry.
The companys website showcases the products features and abilities [2].

DriveWorks
A plug-in for SOLIDWORKS that allows the set-up of a dialogue that can create 3D
SOLIDWORKS models and provide useful data in an easy to use fashion. The companys
website shows the different features available in each tier of software packages [3] [4] [9].

Stryker Systems
CAD and CAM systems that are designed for sheet metal manufacturing. Their website
offers useful information on their various sheet metal design tools. The specific product that
I will be looking at is SS-Punch, a piece of software intended for turrets [5].

RADAN
CAM systems for multiple types of manufacturing. Each product is specific to a
manufacturing process. The website offers information on its different CAM systems and
their abilities [6].

Results
Interview with Robert Sullivan
The interview with Robert Sullivan provided clear information on how RPS Industries works with
customers to make a product to suit their needs. You will see in the Figure 1 [8] below the process that
he outlined. He explained that the main source of business comes from trade shows, where he takes a
small shed to a convention and shows it off to potential customers. These potential customers usually
take a long time to contact him, sometimes up to a year. Once the customer explains what they want,
Robert suggests some options. From there RPS will have a third party create a mock-up drawing of what

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it would build for the customer, and then have it sent out to them. The customer may edit the drawing
or request changes be made. This process can continue for a while before they finally give the go ahead.

Figure 1: Flowchart of the RPS product workflow, showing the process from when the customer contacts RPS to when the
product is sent out.

The main manufacturer, Glen, will then take the order and try to match its parts to any previous designs.
As of now, all designs are hand drafted on paper. If he finds a similar part, then it is easier for him to
modify that G-code, if there isnt a similar part, he has to code an entire new part manually. If the shed
is a custom size, this can be a very long process. The sheet metal is then cut, punched, formed and
finished. After the shed is painted, the shed is assembled and shipped out.
When asked what he though was the biggest limiting factor for RPS currently, Robert said that not
designing in SOLIDWORKS, which RPS currently has but does not use, and not having CAM capabilities
was the biggest issues. Not having the ability to make edits quickly and being able to move back and
forth between machine code and CAD models impedes the workflow as it is now. Robert said he has
looked briefly at both and Striker Systems and Radan software, and that he was quoted about $5000
and $15,000, respectively [1].
From this interview I concluded that having a CAM option was vital to speeding up the design process.
Another big time sucker is the back and forth between the customer and RPS. Therefore, the aim of my
research was to find an implementable CAM program and to reduce the time needed for the customer
quoting process.

Internet Research
My internet research led me to conclusions about which software and which features would be useful to
RPS Industries. The different configurations were mainly based off of price and difficulty to incorporate.

SOLIDWORKS
Since RPS Industries already owns SOLIDWORKS, it makes sense to work around this
software as a design tool. SOLIDWORKS has quite a lot of support since it is a widely used
tool, and therefore it is common to find many CAM programs that can easily interface with
it. SOLIDWORKS is very broad, it is meant for designing almost anything, yet the sheet metal
design features are still very well fleshed out. It also has rendering and simulation
capabilities, useful tools for marketing and improvement of products [2].

DriveWorks
Through my research I learned that DriveWorks has the potential to be the most useful tool
in the long run for RPS Industries. It is a plugin for SOLIDWORKS that allows you to take a
basic design and assign different dimensions to each feature of the part based off of an easy
to use dialog. The end product is a dialog that is as simple or in depth as you want to be,
allowing complete control over the dimensions and features of a base design. Instead of
having to take the time to go back and modify an existing design or create a complete new
one, it can create entire models with just a few inputs as you can see in Fig. 2 [9].

Figure 2: An example of a basic DriveWorks dialogue and some examples of models created from the
dialogue.

Since the basic version, DriveWorks Xpress, is included with SOLIDWORKS to begin with, it
requires no extra cost to RPS. This version allows for the creation of basic assemblies,
perfect for customer drawings. These drawings are normally contracted out to a third party,
but with DriveWorks, RPS could take create these drawings in minutes and have these sent
out to customers the same day. Mockups are purely a representation, so they are much
simpler to make than the actual design for manufacturing. Once a basic dialogue is set up,
the process for making these customer drawings is as simple as filling out a form [3].
The second stage could be using a paid upgrade of the software, DriveWorks Solo, for
manufacturing purposes as well as a sales tool. At about $5000, the software is not cheap,
but it is reasonable [7]. This would allow a ready to manufacture model. If set up properly,
every dimension and punch could be configured in a dialogue, allowing a detailed ready-tomanufacture design to be created in a drastically smaller amount of time.
This higher tier of software also has management and organizational tools that can be
extremely useful. DriveWorks Solo can generate quotes and customer drawings based off of
the customer data. This is a fantastic tool for sales inquiries, allowing for a very quick and
standardized quote that takes very little effort.
DriveWorks Solo can be extremely useful in internal management as well. A BOM can be
created based off of the model that is generated form customer specifications. A BOM is
used in the manufacturing process to keep track of which parts need to be made and in
which assembly they should be placed. This feature seems small, yet it is a huge time saver
when handling large amounts of components [4].

Striker Systems
Stryker Systems software would allow the transfer of a 3D model to machine instructions
without having to write G-code, which can be laborious. SS-Punch is a CAM program
designed for use with a punching turret, the machine that does most of the work at RPS.
This product has wide support for most industry machines, such as RPSs Amada turret. The
program directly interfaces with SOLIDWORKS models, making it easy to implement for RPS.
This software would allow for an easier transfer from design to production, as it would not
require having to search through code to change a few lines [5]. Quoted at about $5000, SSPunch is an economical choice as well [1].

RADAN
RADANs software could be a useful alternative as well. It works with many machines as
well, including Amada. It is a very powerful program with lots of features for tooling
optimization and recognizing what to punch out. However, it only handles .dxf or .dwg CAD
files, which are not SOLIDWORKS native file format. This would require a conversion or
export to .dxf or .dwg, or a switch to AutoCAD, a 2D CAD program that uses .dwg and .dxf as
its native file format. Although this is a more powerful program it also is more expensive,

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quoted at around $1500 [1]. Overall this software is a powerful option with useful advanced
features, however there are some drawbacks in price and file compatibility.

Conclusion
As technology advances, manufacturing must advance with it in order to stay relevant. Newer design
tools offer a powerful toolset that allows a business to interact with a customer better, design more
efficiently, and manufacture parts quicker. It is apparent that there are parts of RPSs workflow that
have been surpassed by newer technologies. Thus, the current process at RPS could be more
streamlined with digital design tools.
After some research, it appears that DriveWorks and SS-Punch would be very useful and economical
solution to RPS. At about $15,000, Radpunch, while powerful, ultimately is three times the price of SSPunch, which has all the features that it needs.
A SOLIDWORKS-based ecosystem seems to be the most beneficial to RPS, as the company already owns
a license. The CAM software SS-Punch from Stryker Systems is designed to work directly with
SOLIDWORKS, as well as the turret machine that RPS uses to punch out its components, and is
economical as well. Having this ability alone could save the company a sizeable amount of time.
However, the biggest leap forward in terms of time efficiency is using the software DriveWorks. This
allows for rapid modeling of similar components with slight modifications. Depending on the version of
software, the model can be configured to whatever precision of detail is required, whether it be as
simple as customer drawings or as complex as a manufacture-ready design. With this information, I
synthesized three combinations of software.
My initial recommendations were to
1. Use purely CAD/CAM Software to design and ready designs for manufacture
2. Streamline the customer process with CAD software and newer design tools
3. Streamline the entire process from customer experience to manufacturing using CAD/CAM
as well as additional software or plugins for the CAD software.
The first option is using SOLIDWORKS and SS-Punch as a CAD/CAM that will open RPS to the modern
design world. Parts designed in SOLIDWORKS can be translated with SS-Punch to G-code. SOLIDWORKS
allows for easier modification of parts, as well as the possibility for rendering models for marketing
purposes or for running analysis on air flow and stresses. It will allow RPS to make changes quickly, and
it offers the flexibility for more custom designs and products. It would be a good first step, but it will not
take the company to maximum efficiency.
The second option is using DriveWorksXpress and SOLIDWORKS for customer mock up drawings.
Streamlining the customer process would have a big impact on time savings at RPS. By setting up
dialogues in DriveWorks, RPS can have quicker turnaround times for customer quotes and possibly allow
the company to handle more customers at once. Implementing some sample generated models into a

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website would also serve as a big marketing tool that could attract other customers. However, the
process could still be more efficient.
The third option is utilizing DriveWorks Solo, SOLIDWORKS, and SS-Punch to accelerate the
manufacturing process. Customer specifications are fed into SOLIDWORKS via DriveWorks Solo to create
a model and calculate a quote of the finished product, ready for manufacturing. SS-Punch translates the
model to G-code and sends it to the turret. This automatic modeling process could save the company
huge chunks of time.
Ultimately this option is my final recommendation on how RPS should upgrade their design and
manufacturing process. It uses the cost effective SS-Punch CAM software, as opposed to Radpunch. It
uses the more advanced version of DriveWorks, which while costing more, is much more capable and
useful to RPS. This option would be the most efficient and feasible option to push RPS into the modern
world of manufacturing.

Recommendation
I recommend that RPS utilize DriveWorks to input customer data into SOLIDWORKS to create detailed
product models as well as basic customer mockup drawings, which would then be fed into the SS-Punch
Striker Systems CAM software for manufacturing. In order to do this, RPS must purchase a licenses of SSPunch and a DriveWorks Pro, then train its employees in order to efficiently use the software.

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Glossary
CAD: An acronym for Computer Aided Design. Generally referring to any drafting software, in 2D or 3D.

CAM: An acronym for Computer Aided Manufacturing. Generally referring to any software that aids
with the manufacturing of a part. This does not necessarily entail that the software works with a
CAD system or that the software has the ability to output G-Code, but it is often the case that
both apply.

Turret: A type of machine used for metal forming by punching.

Dialogue: More specifically, a computer dialogue. A movable window that is displayed on a computer
screen.

BOM: An acronym for Bill of Materials. Generally referring to a list of the materials or parts in an
assembly needed for the manufacture of an end product.

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Appendix A: Interview Questions

1. What is the total process from customer quote to manufacturing?

2. How do customers find you?

3. How many pump sheds do you make in a year?

4. What machines do you use in the manufacturing process?

5. What do you think is your biggest restriction in product output currently?

6. What CAM systems have you looked into and what prices were you quoted?

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References
[1] R. Sullivan Interview with Robert Sullivan, Skype. 25 Feb 2016

[2] Dassault Systemes. 3D CAD Capabilities. Internet: http://www.solidworks.com/sw/products/3dcad/capabilities.htm, n/a [1 Mar 2016].

[3] DriveWorks Ltd. DriveWorksXpress. Internet:

http://www.driveworks.co.uk/products/driveworksxpress/, n/a [1 Mar 2016].

[4] DriveWorks Ltd. DriveWorks Solo. Internet:

http://www.driveworks.co.uk/products/driveworkssolo/, n/a [1 Mar 2016].

[5] Striker Systems. SS-Punch. Internet: http://www.strikersystems.com/Products/CADCAM/SSPunch.aspx, n/a [1 Mar 2016].

[6] RADAN. RADAN Radpunch. Internet: http://www.radan.com/punching/radanradpunch, n/a [1 Mar

2016].

[7] Javelin. DriveWorks Solo. Internet: http://store.javelin-tech.com/Store-Catalog/SolidWorksPartner-Products/DriveWorks-Solo, n/a [1 Mar 2016]

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Figures Referenced
[8] Figure 1. RPS Industries Product Workflow. LucidCharts. 6 Mar 2016.

[9] Figure 2. Example of DriveWorks Dialogue. 2015.