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Messier-Dowty takes off with GTXImage CAD™ Plus 2000
GTX software Document
Management solutions supplied by Cadspec help Messier-Dowty ensure that
scanned-in drawings and microfilms can be quickly and accurately altered
and edited to reflect new tooling requirements.
If you have ever
flown there is a good chance that at some time or other your life has
depended on the quality and excellence of a Messier-Dowty product. Messier-Dowty
is the world's leading supplier of aircraft landing gear. It provides
these vital assemblies to such civil aircraft manufacturers as Airbus,
Boeing, Dassault, Fairchild Dornier and Bombardier. Customers in the military
sector include Aerospatiale/DASA, Bell/Agusta,British Aerospace,Boeing
and EuroFighter.
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Currently it
is estimated that more than 15,000 aircraft are fitted with landing
gear supplied by Messier-Dowty and that these make 20,000 takeoffs
----- and 20,000 landings ----- per day.
Messier-Dowty,
which is part of the Snecma Group,has an annual turnover in excess
of US $500 Million. It supplies integrated landing systems to more
than 30 airframe manufacturers and also supports more than 600 commercial
and military operators around the world.
Messier-Dowty's
2,900 employees are located in 8 operational sites throughout Europe
(Gloucester in the west of England, Velizy and Bidos in France),
North America (Montreal, Toronto and Peterborough in Canada, and
Seattle in the USA), and Asia (Singapore). |
The
Messier-Dowty products are characterised by the most stringent standards
of design, manufacture and testing to achieve the necessary levels of
usage, reliability and safety. A wide range of specialist machine tools
has been designed and constructed to enable the development and production
of the large range of landing gear assemblies. In the process many thousands
of drawings and microfilms have been created over the years. These record
the various modifications that have been necessary for the fabrication
of each new landing gear assembly.
Ian Makin, who is
one of the most important users of the drawing and microfilm archives
at Messier-Dowty in Gloucester, commented that, "Our main challenge was
to ensure that our scanned-in drawings and microfilms could be quickly
and accurately altered and edited to reflect our new tooling requirements.
We were looking for a technical imaging product that allowed us to do
this, and as we already use Expert CAD ® as our design tool, we did
not want to have to buy a copy of another CAD package in order to access
these imaging facilities and capabilities."
Mr Makin went on
to add, "With this in mind, after evaluation, we chose GTXImage CAD™
PLUS 2000. It provides us with a perfect, 'stand-alone' solution. On the
one hand we are able to import vector design files from our Expert CAD
system into the GTXImage CAD™ PLUS 2000 environment and on the other
we can bring in the raster files from our scanned drawings and microfilms.
We are then able to make use of the comprehensive drafting and editing
facilities within GTXImage CAD™ PLUS 2000 to make the required changes
and updates in either raster and/or vector, before finally converting
the whole file into a simple TIF (raster) format."
Mr Makin explained,
"The TIF output files are exported into our Cimage ® Drawing Retrieval
and Management System from where they can be accessed from anywhere within
the company for viewing and printing, provided that the user has the appropriate
access rights.
These up-to-date
TIF files are also used as the main medium to communicate with our sub-contractors.
They form the basis of specifications and tender documents that enable
the sub-contractors to do accurate costing exercises as they prepare their
proposals for our consideration."
The GTX software
solutions were supplied by CADSpec, who are the CAD and Imaging specialist
company within the Worcester headquartered Stanford Marsh Group.
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Mr Dave Moore,
who is the GTX Product Manager for CADSpec, commented that, "Messier-Dowty
has used a Xerox ® 8825 DDS system for scanning their drawings
and a Wicks & Wilson ® Microfilm scanner for some time now.
We initially supplied them with a copy of GTXImage Edit™ and
this is in daily use to help them de-skew, crop, de-speckle and
clean-up their scanned drawings and microfilm scans. With the recent
introduction of the new GTXImage CAD™ PLUS 2000 software solution
we were able to offer Messier-Dowty the ability to combine their
Expert CAD files and their scanned files together in a way that
gave them the best of both worlds in one product."
Mr Moore went
on to add that, "The GTXImage CAD™ PLUS 2000 software has been
supplied on a floating network licence, and this provides additional
flexibility of usage to the Messier-Dowty engineers. The training
went very smoothly and they were productive during the same day
that the software was installed." |
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In summarising Messier-Dowty's
experiences, Mr Makin commented that, "Before we introduced GTXImage CAD™
PLUS 2000 we used to have to alter the drawings in the traditional way,
editing by hand, `scratching-out` and sometimes redrawing completely,
all of which were very costly and time-consuming. We are very pleased
with GTXImage CAD™ PLUS 2000. It has transformed our drawing office
procedures. We estimate that we are now at least 20 times as productive
in our drawing update and other related tasks".
It is perhaps reassuring
that even in the high-flying world of commercial and military aircraft,
something as down to earth as drawings and the ability that Messier-Dowty
now has to update them easily, efficiently and electronically helps give
this impressive company the edge that it needs to stay ahead of its competition,
while keeping its feet-- or should it be wheels -- firmly on the ground.
If you would like to find out more about the companies involved in this
Case Study please visit:
www.messier-dowty.com
www.gtx.com
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