What’s new in manufacturing plant applications (June 2023)

With the release of NX 2306, you will find new capabilities and enhancements for manufacturing plant applications, enabling you and your company to improve manufacturing productivity.

Continue reading to learn about the latest features and product updates for Assembly Line Planner, Line Designer and Fixture Planner.

Assembly Line Planner

Assembly Line Planner is used to conduct guided planning and detailing for complex assembly tasks and production lines with a focus on the different technologies and manufacturing features used to create an assembly.

In the latest release of Assembly Line Planner, the library of operations provides a repository of knowledge for reuse and optimization when planning station content. The operations and operation groups can be added to any process plan during station detailing and then can be adapted to the exact use case. The libraries contain valuable knowledge, including common best practices, regional standards and plant-specific processes.

Assembly Line Planner has been enhanced for the handling of images for the variants within the PERT view. You can capture an image for each variant in every station, providing an exact representation of the product build-up for each configuration to aid in analysis and decision-making.

Another enhancement is to support multi-product assembly, providing increased functionality and visibility into the product build-up. You now can review the actual calculated cycle time of each station directly in the PERT view to quickly identify problematic stations as well as those with available capacity.

Line Designer

Line Designer is used to design assembly lines, equipment and tool requirements in a 3D environment and to optimize factory space and maximize capital resource utilization by digitally configuring factory layouts.

In the latest release of Line Designer, the Attribute Viewer provides a convenient and efficient way to view and edit the attributes of a resource in a plant structure within the Plant Navigator. You can easily access and modify attributes defined by the administrator, which ensures consistency and accuracy when working with attribute data.

Administrators have the flexibility to group and structure attributes that share similar content. For example, attributes related to the cost of a resource can be grouped together, streamlining data management. The Attribute Viewer option is currently available in NX-managed mode only.

The Resource Library has undergone expansions with the addition of new content, soon to be released on the Support Center. These additions primarily focus on various types of conveyors and related equipment, including flattop conveyors, pedestal conveyors, electrified monorails including junction and turntable, three rail power and free conveyors and structure track conveyors.

Fixture Planner

Fixture Planner is used to define detailed fixture geometry and kinematics from single units to complete fixtures in a 3D environment and to streamline the fixture design process by developing fixtures and tooling within the context of the entire assembly station.

In the latest release of Fixture Planner, the new Set as End Item command allows fixture designers to define any unit design as an end item. This simplifies the data to maintain detailed designs and kinematics definitions for fixture units. This approach improves load speeds and provides a better integration between design and simulation applications.

These are the highlights of the advancements delivered with the latest release. For complete details on the new features of manufacturing plant applications, please refer to the release notes and online help offered with the software download.

And, as always, hop on over to the public community and website for all things digital manufacturing.

Yours in digital manufacturing,

(on behalf of the entire manufacturing plant applications product team)