On Manufacturing Driven Design
Interview with Rhushik Matroja, CEO + Co-Founder of Cognitive Design Systems
Progress and Innovations
Since you last presented at CDFAM in NYC in 2023, could you share the developments your team has been focusing on at Cognitive Design Systems?
Since CDFAM in NY, CDS has secured €2 million in funding, Developed a new product: Cognitive Design, and grew from 12 to 18 members.
The funding enables CDS to maintain its development pace. To fulfill our vision of connecting design engineering with the factory floor, we have developed multiple technologies to automate and accelerate the design for the manufacturing process.
CDS is on a mission to enhance organizations in the realm of additive manufacturing through software solutions. We assist companies in harnessing the business potential offered by AM through our software, Cognitive Screening.
We empower companies to leverage their AM expertise through Cognitive Additive. Additionally, we expedite the design process for AM by utilizing Cognitive Design.
Our greatest achievement over the past year was successfully implementing CDS technologies in high-value industrial applications.
What specific developments and/or applications will you be highlighting in your presentation at CDFAM Berlin?
During CDFAM Berlin, we will demonstrate how CDS bridges the gap between design and manufacturing through Cognitive Additive and Cognitive Design.
Our first use case will focus on accelerating the design cycle through Manufacturing-Driven Design in the automotive and aerospace industries. By leveraging Cognitive Design and Cognitive Additive, we achieved a remarkable 91% reduction in new product development time.
Our second use case will highlight the automation of factory floor design generation. CDS has developed several software solutions for design automation, consequently automating design generation for most common AM applications.
We will showcase use cases from the industrial manufacturing and dental industries. Some of these applications are also available in GrabCAD Print Pro environment.
Initial Adoption and Impact
Which industries and applications are you seeing early adoption?
CDS serves a diverse range of customers, spanning from sportswear manufacturers to satellite manufacturers, and even dental manufacturers.
The main applications are the identification of parts suitable for AM and the optimization of feasibility, cost, and carbon footprint of those high-performance parts.
Two industries showing early adoption of our technologies are Aerospace and Defense. Located in Toulouse, the European capital of aeronautics, CDS naturally has strong ties to the aerospace sector. Known for its stringent standards and appetite for innovation, the aerospace industry demands innovative solutions while also requiring standardization across all aspects of product development. CDS meets the needs of this industry with innovative software solutions tailored for additive manufacturing applications. We are replicating our success in the automotive and consumer industry with initial success with major European and Japanese brands.
Can you provide examples where the integration of CDS’s software has significantly impacted design or manufacturing processes?
The French armed forces are among the early adopters of our solutions.
Through Cognitive Screening and Cognitive Additive, armed forces and their support organizations can now gather and leverage expertise from their AM specialists across the country.
AM experts from various divisions can pool their knowledge in an AM database, allowing other users to identify parts suitable for AM. Cognitive Additive assesses production risks, costs, and lead times, optimizing production capabilities and enabling agile manufacturing.
In the aerospace industry, we recently demonstrated 15% to 30% weight reduction in highly complex machined metal components while also accelerating the design process. These components were optimized not only for weight but also for feasibility, cost, and overall mechanical performance.
Utilizing Cognitive Design and Cognitive Additive, we conducted a multiscale parametric optimization of components without relying on topology optimization. One significant outcome of this project is the development of a reusable parametric and agile methodology for design.
CDS software enables engineers to encapsulate their expertise for secure sharing among peers.
In the automotive industry, Additive Manufacturing doesn’t always present a viable business case unless it’s for a (VERY) high-end sports car. However, CDS implemented its agile design methodology to convert polymer components from injection molding to additive manufacturing. These injection-molded components were originally designed using conventional CAD, CAE, and Excel-based design review methods. Non-recurring costs (NRC) represented a significant portion of the total cost due to a minimum order quantity (MOQ) of under 200 units. It took nearly 600 engineering hours to conceive the part and mold through iterative design-for-manufacturing processes. With Cognitive Design and Cognitive Additive, the same components were redesigned in under 50 hours.
Identifying the Need for CDS Software
What signs indicate it’s time for a company to consider integrating your solutions into their workflow?
Cognitive Design Systems supports organizations throughout their entire Additive Manufacturing journey. Companies that ask the following questions are best suited to integrate CDS products into their operations:
1. “Where can AM benefit my business?”
Cognitive Screening conducts a comprehensive diagnostic of the organization’s part inventory to identify opportunities for cost reduction, lead time reduction, inventory reduction, and lightweighting. By comparing conventional and additive manufacturing technologies, Cognitive Screening is suitable for both Metal and Polymer applications. Organizations can explore business opportunities through Cognitive Screening.
2. “How can my organization leverage AM experts?”
Cognitive Additive is uniquely positioned as software that catalyzes AM adoption by managing know-how assets. It can capture and secure AM expertise within the organization and provides access to larger. AM experts can establish virtual production lines to standardize AM analysis across departments. Non-AM engineers can use these pre-configured production lines to analyze the feasibility, cost, and carbon footprint of the part while conceiving new products.
3. “How can engineers design for manufacturing?”
To fully leverage AM, CDS offers a robust geometry engine with design automation capabilities. Cognitive Design provides a dual value proposition: enabling designers with design automation through manufacturing-driven design workflows and automating design generation for manufacturing departments. Cognitive Design makes sure that all generated designs are manufacturable. When used together with Cognitive Additive, engineers can make informed decisions while conceiving the product.
Productized Workflows Based on User Needs
You’ve mentioned developing productized workflows in response to specific user needs. Could you outline these workflows and the particular challenges they address?
Design engineers can leverage Cognitive Design to encapsulate and safeguard their expertise through a productized workflow. This includes applications such as
- Additive Manufacturing Morpher: Automates the adaptation of designs for additive manufacturing processes, enhancing manufacturability.
- Simulation-driven design: Integrates simulation data into the design process, enabling iterative refinement based on performance criteria.
- Topology Optimization reconstruction: Simplifies the translation of optimized designs into manufacturable CAD models.
- Molding Morpher, and Mold Generator: Facilitates the generation of molds and molding components directly from CAD models, streamlining the design process for manufacturing.
One of the significant advantages of this approach is the standardization it brings to the quality of generated designs. With the AM Morpher, all designs produced by Cognitive Design are inherently suitable for various AM processes.
Cognitive Design Services (CDS) further automates common industrial and medical applications for additive manufacturing using a similar methodology. Some of the productized workflows for end users are:
- Jigs & Fixtures Generator: Software for automatically creating jigs and fixtures used in manufacturing processes.
- Mold Generator: Application for generating molds used in paper pulp and injection molding processes.
- Dental Aligners: Software for designing dental aligners used in orthodontic treatment.
- Aligner Molds: Application for generating molds for dental aligners directly from scanned dental data.
These productized workflows are also integrated into GrabCAD print pro and efforts are underway to make them accessible through standalone software solutions.
Transitioning from Excel to Cognitive Additive
Many companies rely on cumbersome Excel sheets for managing AM data, which can become complex and unwieldy. How does transitioning to Cognitive Additive streamline this process, and what steps should a company take to migrate their data successfully?
Managing data in Excel can be a challenge, especially when dealing with complex manufacturing rules, costs, and guidelines. This becomes even more daunting in the rapidly evolving landscape of additive manufacturing (AM). Excel lacks the capability for detailed part-specific analysis, making it difficult to keep up with AM advancements and updates.
Cognitive Additive offers a unique solution with its know-how asset management software tailored for AM technologies. This platform allows AM experts to enrich the database and seamlessly share insights with engineers throughout the organization. It streamlines tasks such as part orientation, nesting, and provides valuable insights into feasibility, costs, and environmental impact.
For companies currently reliant on Excel for part quotation or design rules, transitioning to Cognitive Additive’s database system is a straightforward process.CDS can provide support in automating the management of large datasets, ensuring efficiency and accuracy in AM operations.
Incorporating Machine Learning
Could you elaborate on how ML is integrated into your software? What capabilities does ML enable, and how does it enhance the design and manufacturing processes for your users?
To enlarge our scope of part screening, CDS is currently developing a 2D drawing to CAD technology, using Graph Convolutional Networks. In the context of part identification to collect AM business cases, it is crucial to be able to read 2D drawings, especially for spare parts. Industries such as defense, oil and gas, and railways still maintain and use 2D drawings.
CDS aims not only to reconstruct dead CAD bodies but fully parametric objects with a construction tree, thus the need for machine learning to predict efficiently the sequence of operations. It is a big milestone for the reverse engineering sector.
Key Takeaways for Engineers at CDFAM
Apart from a hands-on demo of your software, what key message or insight do you hope engineers and designers will carry with them after CDFAM?
Currently, Cognitive Additive is available for a 3-month free trial. We would love to encourage AM engineers to download it free from the Cognitive Design Systems website.
It’s an incredible opportunity to try out our unique approach to additive manufacturing know-how asset management.
Exciting news for CDFAM attendees: Cognitive Design will be available for Earlybird discount to all CDFAM attendees before the official launch at FormNext 2024. Stay tuned.
Register to attend CDFAM Berlin to learn more about CDS capabilities and to connect with leading experts in computational design, DfAM and additive manufacturing from around the world.
