communication - dhi · not with a paper user manual, but with a portable computer loaded with the...

DOORS AND HARDWARE • AUGUST 200620

KVAL Inc. Is A fAmILy-owned compAny that has been designing and manufacturing heavy industrial woodworking machinery since 1947. For 60 years, KVAL has been providing high quality machinery, parts and service to the millwork indus-try, which has especially recognized the company as an industry leader in the design and manufacture of precision-engineered, solidly-built door machining equipment. Increased competitive-ness in millwork has forced many smaller companies to become more specialized. KVAL successfully customized the design and configuration of many of its machines to the needs of custom-ers. Today, KVAL creates, ships and installs over 300 unique

machines/year and maintains more than 10,000 in the field. Often a single machine can have

up to 6000 individual parts. Innovation in the creation and

adoption of technology has kept KVAL at the forefront of design and manufac-turing of precision-engi-neered door machining and millwork equipment ever since founder A.A. Kvalheim designed and

built a panel saw that employed an ingenious traveling carriage. In recent years, KVAL adopted SolidWorks, a powerful 3D mod-eling solution to quickly and accurately provide the necessary custom designs. “KVAL also tried to use SolidWorks eDrawings capa-bility to share 2D and 3D designs downstream of engineering,” said Jame, “we still use eDrawings for 2D but the size of the 3D files for KVAL machines and the consequent time to load, view (zoom/pan), and manipulate the models was too slow for 3D model sharing and publishing”.

Then Jame discovered Lattice3D and its XVL compression technology. “We did an evaluation, easily created our 3D files at a fraction of the size of the edrawings and tested high performance view-ing even on low-price PC. We were sold right away and haven’t looked

Opening Manufacturing ‘Doors’ with

CASE STUDY–TEChnologY

“Within just a few months of adopting Lattice3D’s XVL compression technology we have

already seen major benefits to our business,” said Sebastien Jame, Engineering Services

Director at KVAL Inc., “Conservatively speaking we see productivity gains of 20-25% in manufacturing, technician learning curves reduced to minutes instead of days and spare

part service calls often reduced from 15-20 minutes to just seconds.”

CO M M u n i C at i O n

By Rachael Dalton-Taggart

Has your company incorporated� new software or technology into your manufacturing/d�esign/sales/customer service process? We want to hear about it! What problems d�id� it solve? What problems d�id� it create? Was it worth the time and� effort involved� in retraining employees? Let us know! Send� an email to [email protected] or call 703-766-7033.

Editor’s Note:

FREE ADVERTISER INFORMATION AT: www.thru.to/dhi

CO M M u n i C at i O n



back since. The combination of Solid-Works to create 3D models and XVL to share them has decreased assembly and reworking time by as much as 20 per-cent, reduced new technician learning curves to minutes instead of days and reduced spare part service calls often by 15-20 minutes.”

This New 3D Communication Has Opened New Doors in KVAL:

Door One: Between KVAL Design and ManufacturingTo meet a specific customer’s require-ments Engineering would design a variant automatic door milling machine and send it, “over the wall” to the company’s 30,000 square-foot production floor, and then not hear anything back for a while. They

assumed everything was okay. But often personnel would find diffi-culties in the design’s manufactur-ability and send a set of marked-up paper drawings back ‘over the wall ’ to engineering. The two departments communicated in this manner, not just from their physical separation, but because the ‘wall ’ consisted of a mainly a techn ological barrier. Design spoke CAD; Manufacturing talked red ink on paper.

After installing Lattice3D technol-ogy in the Design department, which ultra-compresses the CAD models, KVAL soon reaped the benefits: “for example 3D even helps the weld-ers see more quickly how to arrange and weld the parts in a more efficient sequence.” Overall, the Design-to-Manufacturing workflow was reduced because there are not as many CAD changes. On the other side, Manufac-turing is now giving valuable input into the Design process.

The new 3D XVL technology did not make lobbing projects back and forth over the wall more efficient or faster—instead it opened a door in the wall. Now the process of design and manufacturing has become a team effort between the two groups: advice from the production floor on the easiest way to build an assembly is now immediately accessible by the designers; Manufacturing with no CAD expertise, could use the simple XVL animation tools and free view-ers. The result was increased produc-tivity and reduced rework.

Door Two: Between KVAL Manufacturing and SupportIn just a few months, the compres-sion innovation similarly affected KVAL Technical Support and Service, in which handles support ca l ls. Often the customer is looking at

Manufacturing is now giving valuable input into the Design process.


their installed KVAL machine while calling from a cell phone and trying to order a spare part. The KVAL technical Support and Service staff used to have to locate the right paper drawing, including the variants for that customer’s particular machine. Now support staff simply view auto-matic HTML pages showing the model, assembly structure, and animated configuration on their desktop PCs via a web browser. As the customer describes the problem,

the technicians zoom and pan to ‘vir-tually’ see what the customer sees. Delays are avoided, conversations are much shorter, and correct parts are identified by part number, according to Jame: “What often used to take us 15-20 minutes is done in seconds, and with no mistakes shipping the wrong part. The result is at least 10% higher productivity, savings by selling and shipping the right parts and more satisfied customers.”

Door Three: Between KVAL and Customers in the FieldThis door is next for KVAL: “Our goal is 100% 3D. We want to give our cus-tomers, via the KVAL website or an online webex session, the ability to directly view and access a 3D model of their unique machine in order to identify problems and directly ordering spare parts. The customers we’ve already shown this to are very excited about it,” Jame explained. “We plan to deliver KVAL machines, not with a paper user manual, but with a portable computer loaded with the Lattice3D viewer, the 3D XVL files (including disassembly and assembly animations) of the cus-tomers machine and webex so that customers and KVAL Field Service staff can readily understand and work on problems together.”

With Lattice3D applications, a series of components can be shown being put together or taken apart in the correct order of assembly. Just as Lattice3D’s technology is revolutionizing cata-log publication by using illustrations directly from engineering CAD parts, XVL animations provide a powerful tool for technical and maintenance training manuals. What’s more, unlike movie or AVI animations, XVL ani-mations can be viewed not just from the original camera position but from anywhere in virtual 3D space. If one wants to see how it come apart from underneath, one can move the mouse to rotate the model around while the animation is playing.

The company plans to link the lightweight XVL models of KVAL machines to other information in the ERP system such as price informa-tion and animated assembly models. This simple HTML programming will incorporate the tribal knowledge of KVAL assembly specialists so that it

As the customer describes the problem, the technicians zoom and pan to ‘virtually’ see what the customer sees.


can be equally useful for field repairs. “We have really only just started with what Lattice3D’s applications and XVL format can do for KVAL,” said Jame. “Yet what it has already done for us in just five months has really exceeded my expectations. XVL has been extremely helpful throughout our entire operation.”

About Lattice Technology

Lattice Technology’s software enables customers to extend their existing 2D & 3D data beyond engineering and into the all aspects of their enterprise—‘3D Everywhere.’ Lattice3D’s applications publish interactive 3D documents; printed, digital or web documents directly from CAD drawings and its unmatched compression ensures the documents are easy to transfer or

share for communication and collabo-ration. These award-winning solutions increase productivity, improve process-es and lower costs by enabling rapid re-use of 3D CAD data for design review, parts lists, procurement, tech docu-ments, training materials, communi-cations, assembly process definition, quality assurance, packaging design, web sites and more. The company is part of a privately-held group founded in 1997, with offices in San Francisco and Tokyo. For more information, visit www.lattice3d.com.

Lattice3D, XVL and 3D Everywhere are registered trademarks of Lattice Technology. Other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

About KVAL

KVAL Inc. is a small family-owned

company that has been designing and manufacturing heavy industrial woodworking machinery for the door and window industry since 1947. KVAL carries millwork machinery parts, tooling, supplies, and accesso-ries. Fast, same-day shipping service, enables customers to confidently take emergencies in stride knowing that KVAL is just an e-mail or phone call away. Products presented on the KVAL website have been thoroughly tested and enjoy the full support of KVAL technical professionals.

For more information, visit www.kvalinc.com. Lat t ice3D Contact: (415) 274 -1670 or [email protected]

communication - dhi · not with a paper user manual, but with a portable computer loaded with the...

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