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ABB Case Study

ABB’s Robotics Division markets RobotStudio simulation and offline programming software, allowing robot programming to be done on a PC without shutting downproduction and increasing overall productivity.

Market: Robotics, CAM

Products:

Summary

ABB’s Robotics Division and their RobotStudio simulation and offline programming software required a new geometry engine. Recognizing that developing their own geometry engine was out of the realm of their core competency of robotics, ABB chose Spatial’s 3D ACIS Modeler. This geometry kernel was chosen because it’s the gold standard in the industry and is very easy to integrate into ABB’s RobotStudio.

In addition Spatial’s InterOp CAD translators make it easy for ABB to provide solutions for customers that want to convert data from their existing CAD systems into an SAT format.

Spatial’s technology is a critical component of the increased engineering productivity ABB’s RobotStudio is realizing. This improvement is seen during the entire lifecycle of a robot system from the planning stages to design, implementation and retooling.

The Company

ABB is a technology-based provider of power and automation products, systems, solutions, and services. Its Robotics Division is a leading supplier of industrial robots, robot software, peripherals and services for manufacturing. Key markets include automotive, plastics, metal fabrication, foundry, electronics, machine tools, pharmaceutical and food and beverage industries. ABB has installed more than 250,000 robots worldwide.

ABB’s RobotStudio software is the primary engineering tool for robot systems in a virtual environment. RobotStudio is a .net application using Microsoft Visual Studio Tools for Applications (VSTA) for the development environment; to develop products to run on VISTA. Approximately 20 developers work to release a new version every six months. RobotStudio is used in a wide range of functions: proposal engineers and sales people at systems integrators use it in the proposal stage to show potential customers proposed robot systems.

The Challenge

Embedding a New Geometry Engine

ABB needed a new geometry engine but to develop its own would have been an extensive undertaking well out of the realm of their core competency of robotics.

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The Solution

Partnering with Experts in 3D Technology

ABB selected Spatial because it is the gold standard in the industry. The current release of RobotStudio is 5.11 and Spatial’s 3D ACIS geometry engine has been integrated since the beginning. Bertil Thorvaldsson, ABB Product Manager, Software Products, and team view RobotStudio’s 3D environment critical to the robotics software’s success.

ABB had considered Parasolid and any number of other solid modeling solutions. The company chose Spatial because SAT is an industry standard that can be certified; the SAT format can be generated by almost any CAD system. “In addition,” says Thorvaldsson, “Spatial’s CAD converters make it easy for us to provide solutions for customers that want to convert data from their existing CAD systems into the SAT format.”

The fact that Spatial is primarily in the business of providing components makes it a natural complement for ABB and the RobotStudio developers. “Solid modeling is very important to us, but designing the geometry engine ourselves would not have made sense,” notes Thorvaldsson.

Spatial InterOp translators enable RobotStudio to easily import data in major CAD formats, including IGES, STEP, VRML, VDAFS, ACIS and CATIA. By working with this very exact data the robot programmer is able to generate more accurate robot programs, giving higher product quality.

This is one of the most timesaving features of RobotStudio. By using a CAD model of the part to be processed it is possible to automatically generate the robot positions needed to follow the curve in just a few minutes, a task that would otherwise take hours or days.

For ABB’s system integrator customers, RobotStudio and integrated Spatial technology enables them to propose a better system and achieve a higher proposal win percentage. RobotStudio provides end user manufacturing customers many cost and time saving benefits during design and implementation through to retooling and implementation of new fixtures. The accuracy of the software eliminates or significantly reduces the need for rework because all programming and changes are done in a virtual environment.

The software also provides the flexibility to experiment with different alternatives to determine the best solution cost-effectively. “With a small effort on our part we can always provide the latest in 3d modeling,” says Thorvaldsson. “We integrate the latest version of ACIS and InterOp in everything we have; Spatial makes it effortless for us to put state of the art technology in our Product.”

Solutions

Implementing Spatial’s industry-proven technology relieves the burden to implement modeling functionality and manage geometry; realizing a large savings of effort to license components as compared to developing it in-house. System integrators and end user customers are able to increase productivity.

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ABB Case Study

Summary

The Company

The Challenge

The Solution

The Results

Key Insights

Solutions

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