Success Story

Gossen Opens Door to New Market with Alibre Design 3D Solid Modeling Software

Cellular PVC has seen only limited use in the building materials industry-mostly in casings, moldings and trim. But recently, Gossen expanded its product line to offer Cellular PVC window and door systems to manufacturers. Because its cellular PVC extrusion process results in superior thermal performance, Brian Emanuel, Gossen's Window and Door Systems Specialist, saw the opportunity to differentiate the company in a marketplace saturated with vinyl, wood, and aluminum component manufacturers.

Choosing the Right 3D Design Software

Emanuel had used Autodesk Inventor and SolidWorks at other engineering departments he'd worked in, so he knew the benefits of a solids-based parametric design application.

In 2002, while Emanuel's workgroup was using Autodesk Inventor, he tried a free trial version of Alibre Design provided on a CD insert in CADENCE magazine. He quickly realized what a sophisticated design tool it was. Before the evaluation period was complete, he bought a license. Now, Alibre Design is the only 3D design tool he uses.

"Alibre Design is to 2D CAD what CAD was to the drafting table," Emanuel says. "It's a quantum leap forward. And the horsepower Alibre Design gives you for your money is amazing."

When it came time to set up the Gossen shop for 3D design, Emanuel's first choice was Alibre Design because of its functionality and low cost. "Alibre Design is much more intuitive than Autodesk Inventor. I was accustomed to Microsoft Windows and I found Alibre Design's menu structures very similar. It's very easy to find your way around the software," Emanuel says.

While cost was an initial factor that made Emanuel try Alibre Design, after using the software he says that if "money were no object, I'd still select Alibre Design."

Gossen currently offers the "NoDraft Window System" and will extend to a completely new family of window & door products with the extensive tool set in Alibre Design Professional.

The ability to create parametrics, change models and automatically update drawings is priceless to Gossen's market strategy. "Alibre Design is light years ahead of the 2D CAD we were using," Emanuel says.

Quality Training Options Seal the Deal

"The online training for Alibre Design is what sealed the deal," Emanuel says. "In just a couple of hours I was producing drawings, models, and assemblies -- things I couldn't do in AutoCAD."

Time and Money Saved

"The models never looked just the way I wanted them to," Emanuel says. "I was never satisfied and, of course, never able to put a rendered solid model view in a drawing. With Alibre Design I'm working faster and doing things I could never achieve in AutoCAD."

Now that he has been using Alibre Design for over three months, Emanuel says that Gossen makes fewer errors and saves money on prototypes because assemblies created in Alibre Design show how components fit together and interact all before a physical model is built.

"With a recent casement window, we saw design issues in the assembly that, without Alibre Design, wouldn't have been found until we put it through our extrusion tool at a cost of $20,000 to $30,000."

Emanuel gets a lot of mileage out of the assembly tools, interference checking, and the Alibre Assistant. Now he knows that when he sends a drawing to a customer it's 100% accurate and the parts will fit perfectly.

Integrating the Old with the New

Generating engineering documentation for all of Gossen's window components is also easy: "In the old days, when we wanted to produce engineering documentation for the manufacturers who use our components, we'd create one set of documentation and then go in and manually make changes for each customer," Emanuel says. "With Alibre Design, we use the parametric features to custom tailor engineering documentation for each. Window and door systems are always symmetrical, so we use the Equation Editor and mirror and copy features to quickly change component specifications."

In addition to creating custom documentation, Emanuel looks forward to using Alibre Design to create a repository for all of its engineering documents. Currently, Gossen provides customers with binders that contain documentation. "Instead, we'd like to provide them with Alibre Design licenses so that they can access our repository as needed," Emanuel says. "When we revise the documentation we can just send them an email notifying them of the changes."

As hoped, Alibre Design is opening doors to new business opportunities. "It's true what they say about a picture being worth a thousand words," Emanuel says. "When we bring a rendered image of a component from Alibre Design to a customer, they get very excited. Much more excited than with a 2D drawing. The vast majority of people can't look at 2D and read it correctly. 3D speaks volumes."

Gossen has two licenses for Alibre Design Professional. Emanuel says, "I hope to have half a dozen by end of the year."