Products that move
Razor USA LLC describes its corporate mission broadly. “We offer high quality, innovative youth lifestyle products,” says Bob Hadley, the company’s product development manager. One of those products, an elegantly simple, manually powered, award winning scooter, made the company’s name famous in 2000. That was the year “everyone bought one [a Razor scooter],” says Hadley. The next year, with the market flooded by imitations, was the year “retail buyers wouldn’t touch the category,” he jokes.
Since then, Razor’s primary mission has been to expand the company’s offerings, in part to capitalize on the popularity of the original scooter, but more importantly create a long term, sustainable business model. “It is a business necessity to expand the line so there is less reliance on a single item,” he explains.
The company has introduced a variety of new products in the last five years, including a number of battery powered devices such as go-karts, miniature electric motorcycles and a motorized version of the original scooter. Bringing a new product to market is a process of considering as many as 100 ideas each year, then narrowing that list down to 15 to 20 to develop more fully. Of those, one, two or possibly three might actually make it to market. “In our industry it’s important to be able to vet out design ideas as quickly as possible,” Hadley says.
Intuitive CAD supports product development
Hadley originally used 2D AutoCAD in his work at Razor. He found the software difficult to learn but eventually, “after three or four years,” had figured out which functions he needed to effectively document new product designs. But with manufacturing being done in China (by the Taiwanese company, J.D.), he experienced the limitations of trying to convey design concepts with 2D drawings. “The idea of 3D CAD was intriguing because I knew it would help us communicate better with the people in China, but I had been corrupted by the ‘AutoCAD way,’” Hadley says. “I figured that if it took me so long to get reasonably comfortable with 2D, 3D had to be complicated and hard to learn.”
That impression changed after he attended a demonstration of Solid Edge by the local Solid Edge channel partner, Archway Systems Inc. “Solid Edge was much easier to use than I expected,” he says. That was part of what convinced him to purchase the software. The other factor was UGS’ Evolve to 3D approach. “The emphasis on the migration from 2D to 3D, and how you can still keep you legacy information and import it – that seemed important to me at the time, too,” Hadley adds. “But in reality, once I started using Solid Edge, I didn’t bother importing any of the old documents. I found it faster just to redraw them.”
Faster to market
Today, all products that Razor designs in-house are modeled in 3D using Solid Edge. With solid models, Hadley can now build assemblies on-screen, something he has found to be very useful. “Assembly modeling is something I didn’t have in AutoCAD, and it’s a real benefit to
be able to model individual parts and then actually test them in an assembly on the screen, instead of just presuming that they work and that tolerances are correct.”
He also uses integrated motion analysis (a functionality of Solid Edge) and structural analysis (Femap Express) to predict performance before ordering prototypes. Prototypes are made by the manufacturer in China, which works directly from Razor’s Solid Edge data using its own Solid Edge license. When a design concept is ready for production, Hadley sends a complete assembly model to China as well as a bill of material derived from that model. “Sourcing from the assembly model is very helpful because you don’t miss any components,” Hadley adds. “With this feature, we can now do an item-by-item breakdown with our suppliers.”
Hadley also takes advantage of Solid Edge’s Virtual Studio functionality to create realistic images of new product designs. These are used for marketing presentations and previews for the Sales department. Virtual Studio also helps him clearly explain novel concepts to manufacturing personnel and patent attorneys. He uses Solid Edge’s drafting mode to create the drawing views that attorneys need to submit with the patent applications. “This saves us as much as ten thousand dollars a year because the law firm would charge to create all the patent-view line drawings from scratch,” he explains.
Perhaps the biggest benefit of Solid Edge, however, is how it helps Razor expand its product line. “Because we can do upfront development about 50 percent faster with Solid Edge compared to 2D, we can make decisions about which concepts to bring to market faster,” Hadley says. “With Solid Edge, we’re able to introduce at least two or three times as many as new products each year as we could previously. To compete in our industry, that’s essential.”