Maximizing Manufacturing Efficiency with Creo 11

Have you ever experienced the frustration of lengthy and inefficient manufacturing processes that bog down productivity and hinder your business’s ability to grow? If so, you’re not alone. Manufacturing businesses across the world are constantly seeking ways to streamline their processes, reduce costs, and boost productivity.

Enter Creo 11 – the innovative technology that’s set to revolutionize the industry. In this blog, we’ll delve into how the new enhancements offered by Creo 11 can empower your business and employees to take advantage of the limitless possibilities of additive and subtractive manufacturing and create more efficient and effective manufacturing processes.

Additive Manufacturing: Complexity and Flexibility

Connection Lattices: Redefining Design Possibilities

Creo 11 introduces a groundbreaking new lattice command that allows the connection of separate lattices. This enhancement opens the doors to creating complex lattice structures with unprecedented flexibility. The straightforward workflow empowers engineers to effortlessly design continuous lattice structures within the familiar Lattice UX environment.

Beam Lattices and Stochastic Lattice: Unleashing Creativity

Adding randomization value and the ability to define pore size equips businesses with the tools to adjust simplified lattices using the Warp feature. This innovative feature expands the horizons for creating stochastic lattices, rendering them more flexible for various applications, particularly in the realm of medical implants.

Empowering Complex Designs with Export Options

Creo 11 offers 3MF/STL export options for parts created in additive manufacturing mode, significantly enhancing the preparatory phase for 3D printing. This feature not only improves the export workflow but also brings a wealth of possibilities for blending formula-based lattices with the shell and adding penetration options, ultimately maximizing design potential.

Subtractive Manufacturing: Precision and Efficiency

High–Speed Machining: Catering to Diverse Applications

With a primary focus on automated roughing and finishing sequences, Creo 11 introduces new 4-axis Rotary roughing and finishing toolpaths for high-speed machining. The support for End Mill, Ball Mill, and Bull Nose Mill ensures applicability in various industries, including automotive and oil field sectors.

Response to Customer Demand: Tailored Solutions

The addition of trajectory milling with enhanced entry/exit movements and trims reflects Creo 11’s commitment to providing solutions tailored to the direct requests of customers. This optimization ensures smoother operations and elevates productivity, addressing the complexities of modern machining requirements.

HSM 4-axis Rotary Machining: Precision Engineering

In response to specific customer needs, Creo 11’s introduction of HSM 4-axis rotary machining, tailored for automotive and oil field applications, reflects a commitment to precision machining. Its flexibility in defining machining areas and supported tools opens the doors to diverse manufacturing possibilities, catering to varying geometrical complexities.

Trajectory Milling & Retract Trimming

The latest enhancement brings a new level of precision and flexibility with options to create lead in/out arcs along the tool-axis and support for 5-axis toolpaths. Retract trimming options for various types of milling such as volume, profile, drill sequences, face milling, and trajectory milling streamlines retract movements with precision and efficiency.

Engraving & Deburring Functionality Expansion

Curve selection enhancement and box selection support for deburring provide more control over which edges to consider for deburring operations. A new “OPTIMIZE_LINKS” parameter makes engraving processes more efficient, considering the shortest distance for connecting all curve segments in the specified order.

Show and Hide Manufacturing Geometry

Now, users can show and hide manufacturing-related geometry directly from the in-graphics toolbar, offering a more fluid and customizable approach to additive manufacturing processes. Separate CUTCOM strategies defined at the work center allow users to define different CUTCOM strategies for milling and turning for greater flexibility and control.

Process Documentation Enhancements

Improvements that add clarity to the automatic shop floor report in Creo have been introduced. Customizable images related to operations in the summary section now include the Program Zero coordinate systems, based on the current view displayed, and stored in a designated folder for later use.

Empowering the Future of Manufacturing

Creo 11’s enhancements in both additive and subtractive manufacturing not only streamline core manufacturing processes but also open up a world of possibilities for engineers, engineering managers, and shop floor workers. The precision, flexibility, and enhanced capabilities brought about by these innovations are set to transform the manufacturing landscape, driving businesses toward unprecedented efficiency and creativity.

The impact of Creo 11’s enhancements on the world of manufacturing is undeniable. With its active voice and focused approach, Creo 11 has reshaped the way businesses approach manufacturing, setting a new standard for efficiency, precision, and innovation in the industry. Want to see these new functionalities in action? Schedule a demo today!

Just like fine wine, Creo keeps getting better with time! Creo 11 by PTC offers numerous enhancements to improve the productivity, usability, and functionality of frequently used tools. In this blog post, we will explore the key updates in Creo 11 that aim to streamline workflows, enhance user experience, and boost efficiency in product design.

Usability Enhancements

Easily Access Creo Options

One of the standout features in Creo 11 is the ability to search and find settings in the options dialog easily. That being said, this enhancement enables you to locate relevant Creo options more quickly, reducing time spent navigating through menus and improving overall efficiency.

Improved Model Tree

Creo 11 introduces improved collapse/expand behavior and renaming capabilities in the model tree. Specifically, these enhancements enhance the user experience by making navigating and managing complex assemblies and parts within the software easier.

Enhanced Drag Handles

Due to popular demand, the software now offers improved drag handles for feature dimensions, simplifying identification and manipulation controls for complex features. This improvement simplifies the editing process and ensures a smoother user experience.

Selection Enhancements

Flexible Selection Options

Creo 11 introduces box, lasso, and trace selection support, providing you with more flexibility in selecting multiple surfaces and entities. You can now toggle between selecting all surfaces or only visible surfaces, improving the precision and speed of selection workflows.

Multi-Body Design for Sheetmetal

With the introduction of multi-body design capabilities for sheet metal parts, Creo 11 simplifies single-part design workflows and enables you to split single sheet metal parts into multiple parts. As a result, this feature allows for greater control over manufacturing and design costs and facilitates the design of multi-thickness sheet metal parts in context.

Simplification Features

Shrinkwrap and Merge Options

A new shrinkwrap option in Creo 11 allows you to collect bodies from referenced assemblies into a single part, streamlining the creation of simplified models. So, merge options for bodies in assemblies offer flexibility to keep separate objects, merge into single bodies, or merge all bodies for efficient design workflows.

Modeling and Design Enhancements

Enhanced Features

Creo 11 enhances modeling capabilities with features such as enclosure volume and new options for point patterns, for increased flexibility, and faster regeneration. These improvements aid in the creation of bounding boxes for optimization purposes and streamline pattern referencing workflows.

Welding and Surfacing Improvements

Welding Capabilities

Creo 11 provides a faster and more flexible definition of spot welds through improvements in spot welding functionality, joint members, and XMCF features. These enhancements increase productivity and eliminate additional steps in the welding process.

Surfacing Enhancements

Surfacing with freestyle and style features, including rotational pattern support, new bevel operations, and improved curve editing controls are new enhancements. These updates offer greater control over curves and surfaces, improved usability, and streamlined workflows for working with multi-level subdivisions.

Design for Electrification

Routed Systems

Creo 11 introduces improvements to routed systems, allowing for easier design and creation of electrical systems within the software. These enhancements include cabling, removal locations capability, dynamic previews in the graphics area, expandable filtering, and undo/redo functionality. These enhancements increase productivity and make designing and managing electrical systems easier within Creo.

ECAD

In addition to the improvements in routed systems, Creo 11 also includes enhancements to ECAD (Electronic Computer-Aided Design) functionality. Users of Solidworks and Inventor might know this as electrical-mechanical integration and compatibility enhancements. Enhanced ECAD visibility simplifies control and understanding of ECAD layer presentation through data visibility. These enhancements improve usability and provide more flexibility in the design of electrical systems.

Design for Composites

In addition, Creo 11 introduces expanded functionality for designing composite materials. This includes the ability to modify transitions in graphics, improved usability for laminate sections, and enhanced draping simulation. These enhancements make it easier to manage and visualize composites, improving usability and productivity. Additional improvements include zone-based design, enabling faster creation of large-scale composite products, and a conceptual top-down approach to composite design.

Model-Based Definition

As for Model-Based Definition (MBD), Creo 11 also includes enhancements to make it easier to organize and manipulate data in a tabular form. MBD enhancements in Creo 11 include creating tables, adding semantic references, and supporting parameter callouts. Also, Creo 11 introduces support for STEP AP242, allowing for the export of PMI (Product and Manufacturing Information) information in a machine-readable format.

Simulation Driven Design

In simulation-driven design, Creo 11 introduces enhancements to improve accuracy and productivity in time-based motion analysis. These include updates to solvers, expanded structural and fluid results, and a new conjugate heat transfer capability. These enhancements allow for faster and more accurate predictions of heat transfer and structural optimization based on simulation results.

Design for Manufacturing

Additive Manufacturing

Connection Lattices

In response to the rise in additive manufacturing demands, Creo 11 introduces a new lattice command to connect two or more separate lattices, giving you more flexibility to create complex lattices. This workflow is straightforward and can be performed inside the same familiar Lattice UX. Additional enhancements include beam lattices, stochastic lattices, randomization value, and defining pore size. Moreover, you can also adjust simplified lattices using warp and export in 3MF/STL format. Finally, Creo 11 has added a penetration option for simplified lattices, providing additional flexibility to prepare parts for 3D printing, particularly in medical implants.

Subtractive Manufacturing

High-Speed Machining

Creo 11 introduces new 4-axis rotary roughing and finishing toolpaths, which can pass 360 degrees and be used for crew-type parts. Also, Creo 11 supports end mill, ball mill, and bull nose mill. These enhancements provide automated roughing and finishing sequences, which will be applicable for automotive and oil field crankshafts, camshafts, and drill heads.

Milling

Another enhancement is trajectory milling or CAM Programming, which allows you to define entry and exit movement along the direction of the cut, reducing the possibility of breaking small tools. This method is also more efficient, saving time spent on retracts. Additionally, Creo 11 supports curves not on the surface and trim retract motion to a plane. You can now easily manage the display of manufacturing geometry in the graphics toolbar.

Turning

Creo 11 has modernized 4-axis area-turning user interfaces, providing a streamlined and consistent user interface across all toolpaths. Improved material removal cut functionality for profile turning and additional area turning capabilities have also been added to the 4-axis. Creo 11 now supports user_output_point, CUTCOM support at each slice, clear distance, and turn profile start and end driving the cut direction.

These enhancements in Creo 11 provide you with greater flexibility, productivity, and efficiency in all areas of your product design. By incorporating these new features, Creo 11 continues to lead the industry in product design and manufacturing. You can watch the Creo 11 Webinar to learn more at your convenience or reach out to one of our experts to see which enhancements would benefit you the most!

The majority of businesses aspire to achieve sustainability but often lack clarity on where to begin. Many perceive adopting sustainable practices as a daunting task, believing it necessitates a complete overhaul of their production processes to make a significant impact. However, let me assure you that this is not the case.

So, where should you start your journey towards creating more sustainable product design and manufacturing processes?

To genuinely embrace sustainability, focus on making design decisions at the outset. Designing for repair, reducing material usage, refurbishment, remanufacturing, recovery, reuse, and recycling is crucial. It requires a holistic approach that considers a product’s environmental impact throughout its lifecycle.

Over 80% of a product’s environmental impact stems from design decisions made early on.

Here are three ways design changes can drive sustainability:

Sustainability in Design for Dematerialization

Dematerialization, or material usage reduction, emerges as a crucial strategy for sustainability, aiming to reduce material consumption and weight without sacrificing strength and durability. Leveraging cutting-edge technologies like Generative Design, engineers can optimize designs to use only the necessary amount of material, tailored to specific loads and constraints of each application.

Creo Simulation Live offers a seamless platform for quickly assessing how different materials or reduced material usage affect design performance, enabling adjustments earlier in the design process.

Moreover, with solutions like Creo AMX, designers leverage additive manufacturing capabilities to build structures in the most efficient direction, generating automated supports, and showcasing the potential of lattice structures.

These innovations not only allow for a material reduction but pave the way for lighter, more sustainable products that maintain the required level of performance. As we continue to prioritize dematerialization in manufacturing, we edge closer to a future where sustainability and efficiency are seamlessly integrated into every aspect of product development.

Sustainability in Design for Waste Reduction

Designing for manufacturability and minimizing material waste, such as through minimal stock allowance, ensures efficient use of resources from the outset. By leveraging die casting for near-net shape production throughout the manufacturing process, material waste is significantly reduced to maximize material utilization and minimize scrap generation.

Additionally, utilizing numerically controlled (NC) strategies optimized for fast machining and lower energy consumption, such as high-speed machining (HSM) roughing and finishing, contributes to waste reduction and energy efficiency.

Moreover, designing for ease of service and assembly extends product lifespan and reduces the demand for new products. While some parts of a product may wear faster than others, creating products for easy disassembly eliminates waste because you do not have to throw away the entire product to extend the lifespan.

Accurate documentation of assembly and disassembly instructions empowers users to maintain and repair products, minimizing waste and promoting a more sustainable approach to product lifecycle management.

Sustainability in Design for Energy Efficiency

Engineers globally actively address questions such as, “Can we reduce noise and unneeded energy consumption in design?” and “Can we make our design more thermally efficient?” to pave the way for eco-friendly innovation.

Their goal is to pinpoint areas where energy is wasted, but don’t have the most efficient tools to accomplish that task. Modal analysis and thermal analysis enable more streamlined and environmentally conscious designs. Additionally, tools like Creo Flow Analysis optimizes flow efficiency to ensure that products operate with maximum efficiency, minimizing energy requirements without sacrificing performance.

Furthermore, selecting materials that demand less energy to manufacture and recycle adds another layer of sustainability to the design process and reduces the overall environmental impact from production to end-of-life disposal. Through these proactive measures, energy-efficient product design becomes a tangible pathway towards a more sustainable future.

Sustainable Design Solutions

Our suite of Creo design tools supports sustainable practices:

Designing for sustainability benefits both the environment and businesses. Companies can significantly reduce their environmental footprint by considering dematerialization, disassembly, and behavioral modeling.

By partnering with EAC for solution identification and utilizing PTC’s comprehensive Creo design tools, companies can pave the way for a sustainable future while improving their bottom line. Let’s talk about how EAC can help you identify solutions to help your company embrace sustainable design practices today!