Errors discovered at that point were costly and time-consuming because they required the modification of new molds. With the division averaging four mold revisions for each new product, Matsushita knew that it had to change its development process to improve the completeness of its designs. Process Vision Use a digital product model as the single and complete source of information for all product development applications from design through molding and thus create a concurrent engineering environment. This would eliminate input errors caused by data reentry, increase the completeness of the design, generate more accurate prototypes and reduce the number of days required to create large-scale injection molds. They then proceed to a detailed design on which they conduct strength analysis and plastic flow analysis.
Divisions involved in the development process meet often during the early design stages.
This allows the design team to check fit of the combined parts to see if there are any design errors. Also, because the prototype has almost the same rigidity as the actual cabinet, reviewers can evaluate it for ergonomic considerations in the prototype stage. Once a design has been approved by team leaders from the entire development team, the I-DEAS design data are transferred to the mold designers, significantly reducing the need for them to recreate the original geometry. Related divisions now conduct their design reviews early in the design process using only 3D data. Rapid prototypes are more precise and less costly than handmade models and take just two weeks to generate directly from the 3D CAD data.