Design Cycle

The White Horse CAD (WHC) Design Cycle helps our clients get their ideas to market quicker.

The WHC design cycle is flexible enough to work with projects of any size or scale.  We listen to our customers and turn their requirements into designs, bringing their concepts and ideas to life using renders, 3D data, animations and even 3D printed parts.

So, just what is the White horse CAD design cycle?

Create

For White Horse CAD the start of the design process is the most important part of the cycle. This is where we listen to our client’s requirements and find out the main design inputs, the design requirements, and the required deliverables. This is our client’s opportunity to tell us what they would like to achieve when they would like to achieve it and any other information that may be important to the project.

The next part of the process depends on the type of project…

Product Design

For product design projects we create a concept design that outlines our interpretation of the design brief. If required we will create a number of design concepts to give the client a selection of options to choose from. At this point, we will highlight any technical or manufacturing challenges we anticipate. We often supply 3D prints to aid the decision-making process during the early design phase.

Equipment / Tool Design

The process for specialist equipment or tooling is similar to the process for a new product. But as well as presenting early concepts and outline designs we will investigate off-the-shelf solutions that could potentially be modified or integrated into the concepts.

Paper to CAD

We will scrutinise the supplied paper drawings and highlight any geometry that may be difficult to re-create using the supplied data.

Reverse Engineering

If you have an item you need to be reverse-engineered we will start to build a CAD model using a variety of methods. If the component is highly complex we may suggest sub-contracting the first part of the process to a 3D scanning partner.

 

Create

Design is a very iterative process. Once we have presented the first few ideas to our clients we will refine the ideas to include any new requirements or design changes. At this stage of a project, we are really getting to know the clients’ requirements and are learning their likes and dislikes This helps us to refine the early concepts into prototypes. We are also considering manufacturing options and creating CAD data that not only reflects the clients’ requirements but how the items will be made. Considering manufacturing early allows us to create designs for our clients that can be manufactured cost-effectively.

At this stage, we may also suggest a manufactured prototype and will create the first set of fully defined engineering drawings. We are also happy to suggest a local manufacturing partner if required.

 

Deliver

White Horse CAD delivers a full set of CAD data and drawings as follows…

• Native CAD data
  • Models
  • Assemblies
  • Drawings
• Other Data
  • PDF versions of all the drawings
  • STEP or Parasolid Files
  • Any reports generated during the design process

We think it’s important that our clients have access to their own data. That is why we always make the native CAD data available to them. We understand that some competitors do not share native data with clients unless asked, some even charge a premium fee for this service! White Horse CAD ALWAYS offers native data. This is because we think it is important for clients to have access to this data should they need to have changes made in the future.

To find out more about how White Horse CAD can help you with your next project please contact us.