Manufacturing Assistance Program

MIPS Case Study: Cardinal Scientific, Inc. (Charles County)

Company Profile
Cardinal Scientific, Inc. (CSI) is an engineering and systems research, development and manufacturing resource for government and industry. Since 1987 CSI has delivered services ranging from feasibility studies through production manufacturing. CSI engineers leverage advanced computer technologies in the form of 3D Solids Modeling, Kinematic Modeling, advanced Finite Element Analysis (FEA), Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) Modeling and Computer Aided Design (CAD). The latest Computer Aided Manufacturing (CAM) software improves production efficiency in CSI in-house Computer Numerically Controlled (CNC) machining, Dynamic Water-jet and manufacturing facility.

Situation
Company was seeking assistance in developing a web- based service for their Water-Jet Machining service, where clients could forward drawings and receive price and delivery information in a timely manner.

Solution
The Maryland MEP (UMMAP) was contacted and visited the company to better understand the requirements. UMMAP made arrangement for the company to meet with Dr. S. K. Gupta, Department of Mechanical Engineering and it was agreed that a Maryland Industrial Partnerships (MIPS) grant would be pursued to fund the development of the web-based service. The company forwarded the first draft of the economic development section to UMMAP for review. UMMAP provide comments and recommendations. Subsequently, the company was awarded both a Phase 1 and Phase 2 MIPS grant. The joint MIPS project between Cardinal Scientific, Inc (CSI) and the University of Maryland is a collaborative effort to design a software system that automatically processes customer CAD parts files and extract critical geometric information necessary for driving a water-jet cutting machine. Using this information a web-based service will be developed that will support generation of (1) on-line quotes and (2) instructions for driving the water-jet machine. This service will serve as the central logistics hub for niche manufacturing services that support industry_s needs for rapid procurement of machined parts.

Results
With full implementation of the results from the MIPS project, CSI stated that they can realistically anticipate inversion of the current usage rate from approximately 30% to 70% per shift. Since the data extraction from CAD file and program preparation will be run off-line, the machine controller will be free to address cutting and maintenance procedures only. The remaining 30% is projected to be: 10% maintenance, 10% setup time, and 10% reserve cutting time. CSI projects an average hourly rate per water-jet head at $200 per hour. This rate is conservative and is derived from historical rates for similar water-jet services. Annualizing this rate on a 2000 hr per shift year, the gross revenue per shift is estimated at $280,000. Projecting full machine utilization on a 3-shift day, total estimate revenue is $840,000. The estimates do not include material, special handling or shipping charges. CSI projected that for every new system brought on-line that 3 new jobs will be created. CSI plans to add the first three positions approximately 3 months prior to the conclusion of the MIPS effort. Based on current estimates CSI anticipate bringing at least two additional machines on-line within the first year of full-scale operations. CSI projected that in coming years 1-3: new jobs, sales $840,000; years 2-6: new jobs, sales $1,680,000; years 3 - 12: new jobs, sales $3,360,000. CSI stated in the MEP survey that they were very satisfied with the quality of service (UMMAP/ MIPS) and that $100K in equipment investment was made.

Testimonial
"MIPS has provided an invaluable link between academia and industry. Cardinal Scientific implemented a cutting-edge manufacturing process but quickly realized that the overall machine productivity was hampered by repetitive manual geometry standardization and pre-processing steps yielding only about a 30% utilization rate. Improving the machine's productivity hinged upon the obscure requirement to develop an electronic geometric feature recognition engine coupled with and expert manufacturing system process. Fortunately, contacts within MIPS program introduced us to Dr. S.K. Gupta. Dr. Gupta is perhaps one of the world's leading researchers on geometric feature recognition technology and how it can be leveraged in manufacturing environments. Dr. Gupta's team developed a highly robust, parametric system to eliminate the manual interaction with the geometry prior to the manufacturing process. This reduces the time to prepare the data from 10-30 minutes on average to mere seconds. This system serves as the foundation to a web-based manufacturing system that will be capable of manufacturing and delivering a finished part to customers within the same day. Cardinal Scientific expects to roll out the service in beta form late 3rd quarter 2008 with full-scale deployment in 4th quarter 2008. We have nothing but praises for Dr. Gupta's team and the entire MIPS program. This collaboration has allowed Cardinal Scientific the opportunity to fully the exploit the capabilities of this manufacturing technology and bring it to a global customer base that would have otherwise remained inaccessible by traditional practices."
—Andrew Brosky, President, Cardinal Scientific, Inc.

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