Riko Ekos using Inventor with automatization to speed up design of waste management solutions

Riko Ekos d.o.o., founded in 1993 and based in Slovenia, specializes in design and manufacture of comprehensive waste management solutions. The company employs about 50 people, who with their knowledge, work and experiences primarily take care of quality production of systems for complete waste management solutions, whether for separately collected fractions, municipal waste or industrial waste. In addition to this, they continue with the production and sale of reliable winter equipment for already 20 years and market it since 2014 under the new brand name Wintec.

Their workflow involves the creation of 3D models and 2D documentation using Autodesk Inventor. Within this process, they encountered two notable challenges: the creation of 2D drawings and the export of DXF flat patterns of sheet metal components intended for CNC cutters. The creation of drawings was extremely time consuming process because they had to manually create drawings for most of the parts used in their designs. Majority of the parts are sheet metal parts. Those parts are fabricated in-house using CNC machines which require DXF files as input. Creating and editing the DXF files also consumed too much of designers' time.

Riko Ekos' main goal was to reduce the time that designers need to complete those time consuming and repetitive tasks.

The project goals were to significantly speed up the creation of 2D documentation and to automate the creation and export of sheet metal flat patterns from Autodesk Inventor 3D models.

The agreed approach for speeding up the drawing creation was to develop a custom Inventor add-in that would allow batch creation of part and sub-assembly drawings directly from the assembly environment. The drawings should also contain overall dimensions, hole/thread notes, bend lines locations and some customer specific information. Also, optimal view scales and sheet sizes should be defined automatically based on their standards. The add-in functionality and user interface were defined in tight cooperation between Riko Ekos and Basic d.o.o. who developed the add-in.

For batch DXF export Basic d.o.o. presented their existing solution - AutoDXF. This Inventor add-in makes it possible to quickly create flat patterns and batch export DXF files for downstream consumption. The AutoDXF add-in was available immidiately as an existing solution from Basic d.o.o.

Following the initial needs assessment, Basic d.o.o. proposed and delivered two solutions to complement their existing Autodesk Inventor workflow:

1. A custom add-in for Autodesk Inventor, designed to streamline the drawing creation process. This add-in operates within the Inventor assembly environment and automates the creation of 2D drawings directly from the 3D assembly. It handles tasks such as generating selected views, optimizing scales and sheet sizes, and creating dimensions, including overall measurements, hole/thread sizes, and bend locations. The add-in was developed by Basic d.o.o. in tight cooperation with Riko Ekos design team in around 30 days.
   
   Automatic creation of 2D drawings directly from the assembly
   
   
2. For DXF export requirements, Basic d.o.o. introduced their existing solution - AutoDXF for Inventor. This tool simplifies workflows involving assemblies containing sheet metal components. It seamlessly generates and previews flat patterns, identifies any issues with flat patterns, and efficiently batch exports them into highly customizable DXF or DWG files. AutoDXF was an already available software developed by Basic d.o.o. and was ready to use immidiately.
   
   AutoDXF - sheet metal DXF exporter for Inventor
   

The implementation of the proposed solutions has yielded substantial enhancements in Riko Ekos' productivity. According to Riko Ekos, drawing creation automation and streamlined DXF export have led to around 70% time saving compared to the previous manual workflows.

These improvements have enabled the company to complete tasks in a significantly reduced timeframe compared to the previous methods. With the automation of the drawing creation process, Riko Ekos can now divert their resources to other critical tasks, ultimately contributing to an overall increase in business outcomes. The automatic generation of DXF files from sheet metal flat patterns has become a streamlined procedure, effectively eliminating the once laborious manual processes.

Riko Ekos, a waste management solutions company, faced time-consuming hurdles with creating 2D documentation and DXF exports. Basic d.o.o. stepped in with two tailored solutions to complement their existing workflow using Autodesk Inventor:

1. A custom Autodesk Inventor add-in that automates 2D drawing creation, saving time and improving efficiency.
2. AutoDXF for Autodesk Inventor that simplifies DXF exports, making the process smoother and more efficient.

Riko Ekos now completes those tasks about 70% faster, thanks to the streamlined processes. They can allocate resources more strategically, contributing to an overall boost in productivity. This partnership shows the power of customized solutions in solving unique challenges.