Success Story

Tigé Boats Speeds Positive Return on Investment with Switch to Alibre Design 3D Mechanical CAD Software

But a problem arose when Caleb Fulks, one of the company's engineers with 3D CAD experience, accepted a new position outside the company and was taking his 3D design software with him. Curt Conway, manufacturing engineer at Tigé, needed to replace the solid modeling software quickly. The software owned by Fulks cost over $5,000 and the remaining engineers at Tigé didn't have a lot of experience with it, so Conway saw an opportunity to switch to another 3D CAD software. But with so many competing products on the market, how would he choose one over another?

Conway turned to Fulks to help him make the decision. Conway assumed Fulks would recommend Tigé purchase a license of the solid modeling software he owns. But when Fulks took advantage of the free trial of Alibre Design and tested the software, he was impressed at how quickly he learned and the speed at which he generated designs.

Fulks recommended Alibre Design as the best 3D modeling investment for the company. "I was surprised," Conway says. "Here's an engineer trained on one solid modeling application recommending a different product, Alibre Design. Engineers are usually very loyal to the software they use."

A major consideration was that Tigé could purchase two seats of Alibre Design for less than the price of one seat of the competitor's software.

Tigé purchased one seat of Alibre Design and one seat of Alibre Design Professional. "Alibre Design is more than adequate for our company," Conway says. "We don't have many moving parts in our designs. For the most part, everything is fixed when it goes into the boat, so Alibre Design Expert was beyond our needs. The moving parts Tigé does have, such as a hinge with four pivots, are handled easily with Alibre Design Professional. We're able to draw the pivot in 3D, see how it works, and easily perform stress analysis."

Conway's engineers quickly became proficient at creating 3D models, turning them into 2D drawings and creating models out of wood. With Alibre Design, Tigé designers have the ability to conceptualize objects, rotate them to see all sides, and see how the parts and assemblies fit into the boats-invaluable information that really saves time. "What it really comes down to is doing things virtually with Alibre Design so we don't make mistakes in the real world," Conway says.

Within two weeks, the engineering team had designed two new fuel tanks, new instrument gauges, and a new wiring harness. They also made sure that a new control handle that had initially been designed in their former software could be duplicated and tested with Alibre Design.

"We achieved a positive ROI on the first fuel tank we designed," Conway says. "Alibre Design made Tigé's full transition to 3D modeling a painless one."

Tigé fuel tanks sit in the bottom of the boat. Designers of a tank must make sure it fits all of the contours of the V-shaped hull. With Alibre Design, Tigé engineers easily built a 3D model that proved the new design would fit. Then they created a wood model of the fuel tank that Conway could hold in his hands. "If I had this tank fabricated in aluminum in someone else's shop," Conway says, "it would have been very expensive. With Alibre Design, we can prove things virtually, create inexpensive stereo graphic files, and avoid mistakes that can cost thousands of dollars."

"The cost of one Alibre Design seat was the same price we would have paid to have someone else manufacture a model of our fuel tank," Conway says.

Alibre Design will save Tigé money and reduce labor hours. They'll also get a real boost in time-to-market. "I'm already sharing what I've learned with vendors who need this kind of software," Conway says. "I've been recommending Alibre Design wholeheartedly."

With Alibre Design, Conway will also be able to work on a long term project that Tigé hasn't had the tools to tackle yet: The creation of full configuration documents for every boat and part that the company creates. "Our boats are built by artisans who know what they're doing because they've done it so many times," Conway says. "But having precise schematics will help us in many ways and improve our ability to make design changes on the fly."

While Tigé will miss Fulk's expertise, Conway knows that by using Alibre Design his team will be fully operational by the time he leaves. And if they do have problems, Tigé has one year of technical support to fall back on. "We haven't needed to contact Alibre support yet, but it's good to know they are there."