Laundry Trolley.

This was an interesting project, and quite recent, and the first we have done for this manufacturer, Dex Australia Pty. Limited, a prominent rotational moulding company.

The design brief was descriptive and in some ways restrictive due to the environments this item was to be deployed in.  From hospitals to laundries and back again via road transport!

It has a number of unique features, folding shelves, zippered flexible cover, recessed handles to name a few.  The initial request was for ‘images’ that could be used to show off the concept in a manner that was relatively realistic giving sufficient detail to ensure prospective customers could be confident the new product would meet with their expectation.

Again we were faced with choosing the software; Inventor, Mechanical Desktop or AutoCAD.  Inventor was eliminated very quickly as none of the contractors had access, interest or intentions for this software and again Inventor's inflexibility is an issue when conceptualizing with several ideas at once.

Mechanical Desktop, because of the parametric nature of the changes that may have been asked for in the promotional stages of the project, height, length and width etc., looked like the choice.  However after a little more research AutoCAD was chosen, FLEXIBILITY, and an ability to share data quickly and seamlessly kicked in as the final arbiters.

This choice of modeller presented only one problem and that was when, after I had ‘shelled’ the initial model a change in the handles was approved.  This meant we went from using a recessed folding handle to a handle integrated with a self feature.  Had I not shelled the model this would not have been more than a glitch but what we had and what we wanted were totally different.  In reality we made the change in about one hour and quite frankly had this change have been required in an MDT or an Inventor model the time to change would not have been minutes faster, if at all.  Sure we can easily go back prior to the shell etc., that’s not in question it’s the shape description that take the time in a job like this and AutoCAD never gets in your way here.

This entire project from the time modelling commenced to completion of the model with changes and some eleven 3D and 2D drawings, detailed orthographic and sectional views, was completed in less than forty chargeable hours.  Mechanical Desktop does not have a lot to subtract here and again for this exercise I have revisited some of the issues out of ‘fairness’ and even now knowing how to solve the problems, using Inventor would  have increased the time taken for this project and the complexity of the documents required!
 

R. Paul Waddington
cadWest.