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As a team we are always looking forcool new ways of using DriveWorks technology and a few months ago when Maria moved to her new house, Rob, Glen and Philip embarked on a very different but exciting project…. a Home Automation project.

The new house didn’t have any form of heating installed when Maria bought it and as a person who cares about the environment and loves technology, Maria wanted to explore what options might be available for a solution that combined the two.

The ability to regulate for efficiency and automate what goes on in the house were important priorities. The result? A home automation system that monitors and controls the temperature settings in EVERY room of the house individually. And alldriven by DriveWorks from anywhere in the world.

So how exactly does this home automation system work with DriveWorks?

Solar Panels have been installed on the garage roof, wireless temperature sensors placed in every room (and one outside) providing realtime logging to a databasemonitored byDriveWorks. Through rules-based automation, DriveWorks then reads these values and displays them. Then, depending on what the user has set the ideal temperature to be at for a particular room, an electrical heater will remain off, or turn on to bring the room up to the required temperature.

Groups

Simple.adRooms can be grouped together using the Group Admin button, e.g. placing all reception rooms, or all bedrooms in a group togetherto be set to the same temperature. The optimum temperature can be varied throughout the day, and for different times of the week.

This particular example has simple controls; changing settings for the week and weekend, or advanced controls giving the ability to change settings for each day.

 

 

Of course, if Maria wants it to be warmer or colder than the set temperatures, its really easy to make changes.
Using DriveWorks Live Maria can even access the Home Automation Control Panel from anywhere in the world and onany device, eg iPhone, iPad, Android etc.
Diff places

So she could be at an airport getting ready to fly home from an international Reseller visit, holiday in Greece or just the DriveWorks office and want to be sure that the her house is the right temperature when she gets back. All she needs to do is just logon to the home automation system and adjust to the ideal temperature, what a perfect welcome home!

Her sons are pretty impressed with it too as they can set the heatingin their rooms ahead of time if they decide to come home from university for the weekend!

As DriveWorks is a rules based system, it is easy to see other inventive uses of DriveWorks within the house (e.g. lights, electrical equipment) and beyond.

 

Conveyor 1

 

 

 

 

 

As the BRAND NEW DriveWorks Solo Head Start webinar launches this week,featuringa conveyor project, we thought it would be a great opportunity to showcase the DriveWorks Live Conveyor demo.

This DriveWorks Live demo is a great example to present the speed in which the user can receive all the sales documents. It also provides the user with a 3D preview of their model in the form, and sends an image of this with the sales documents.

Its a really quick and easy form to run through, and is optimised to work on various devices and in any of the most common internet browsers.

Here are the few simple steps I took to configure a conveyor in 3D:

1. Login to the www.driveworkslive.com demo site.

2. Select the ‘fixed width example’ square.

3. Select the conveyor project.

4. Choose the width, height and whether the conveyor you are configuring is heavy, medium or light duty (i.e. transporting heavy, medium or lightweight materials).

Conveyor 1

 

 

 

 

 

5. You can then also choose whether you would like raised sides or not – similar to bumpers in bowling!

6. You can then choose how many sections you would like your conveyor to have (1-5).

Conveyor 2

 

 

 

 

 

7. Then adjust the sections to be as desired – length of the section, whetherit is straight or curved, and the angle of the curve.

8. After configuring theconveyor, it’s a simple case of entering contact details and clicking submit.

9. Check your emails for the sales documents!
Conveyor docs

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Conveyors are incredibly configurable items, heres some great statistics from a company in thematerial handling industry already using DriveWorks:

Canopy

 

 

 

This DriveWorks Live demo begins by detecting whether the user is running on a Desktop or a Mobile device, as this will change the appearance of the form. The user is also able to choose what font style and colour they would like. This is an excellent way of demonstrating DriveWorks Form Technology providing the options to choose from and the rules based technology working behind the scenes that allows these changes to happen seamlessly.

Here are the few short steps taken to configure the perfect canopy, in a form design chosen by the user:

1. Visit the www.driveworkslive.com demo site.

2. Select the Entrance Canopy demo.

3. Choose the font colour and style desired.

4. Select the currency you wouldlike the canopy to be priced in.

5. Then it’s time to configure the dimensions of the canopy.

6. Followed by the foundations and frame colour.

Configure caopy

 

 

 

7. Then view the summary of the choices that have been made and add (or take away) any extras.

8. Simply add in contact details and click submit.

Canopy details

 

 

 

9. You will then receive an email including all relevant Excel/Word documents and models/drawings.

Canopy docs

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Have a go yourself and configure an entrance canopy to your exact specifications!

www.driveworkslive.com

 

This demo is great for showing how DriveWorks projects work embedded in an existing website. Although projects can be made to look how the Administrator wants them to e.g. adding branding, some companies would prefer for the project to not navigate the User away from their website.

The other DriveWorks Live projects I have featured have been products that I see every day and understand the purpose of – a chair, a lorry. This time I have chosen a Hydraulic Cylinder.With noengineering background, I do not know what this particular product is used for. However – with the help of DriveWorks – I can ensure that the selections I make for my product are feasible. This proves that once set up by an engineer that understands the ins-and-outs and the rules of the product, any person can run through a project, freeing up engineers to work on innovation and developing new products.

These are the few short steps I ran through:

1. Visit www.driveworkslive.com demo site.

2. Click on the ‘Multiple projects embedded in an existing web site’ square.

3. Choose an item to configure – in this case a Hydraulic Cylinder.

4. Make selections of how you would like the product to be – technical requirements.

 

5. Click on ‘preview’ to see a 3D Preview of the actual cylinder you have configured.

6. If you want to go back and make changes you can – then click preview again.

7. You can turn the 3D preview roundand zoom in and out to ensure that you (or your client) get a true picture of what the overall product will look like when manufactured.

 

8. Then it is important to enter the correct contact details – you will see the ‘warning’ triangles disappear when all information has been entered – you can then proceed to click ‘submit’.

 

9. Then the sales and manufacturing documents will be emailed to you.

So, in about 5 minutes, I managed to design a hydraulic cylinder and view it in 3D, make some changes and view it again to ensure it is configured exactly to the required specification. Then, by entering a couple of details and clicking submit, I received all the documents needed to complete the sale and start the manufacturing process – what a time saver!

Feedback from a Hydraulic Cylinder Manufacturer using DriveWorks:

Without DriveWorks, the design time would be doubled, if not tripled

 

 

This sample project shows DriveWorks being used to configure an electrical enclosure.

As there are many different options that can be configured (e.g. who the order is for, the size of the enclosure, what components are included in the enclosure, where the components are to be placed inside the enclosure etc…) we decided to present different options on separate forms. This makes it easier for people with little or no knowledge of the enclosure products to clearly see the options available and to step through the project so that they can configure an enclosure that meets their needs.

The forms have been laid out in a clear and logical way and thought has also gone in to the navigation. We wanted to show how easy it is to move around the project making selections and how changes to options selected can be made at any time. And although the interface is clean and uncomplicated, ALL the rules that dictate what options are available and ALL the rules that drive the manufacturing outputs so that the CAD files and quote can be created are securely locked in behind the forms UI.

The project is a great way of seeing how flexible and customizable DriveWorks can be.

1. Visit the www.driveworkslive.com demo site.

2. Click on the ‘Fixed width example’ square.

3. The password and username – Guest and Guest.

4. Choose the Electrical Cabinet project.

5. The first form is information about the customer – you can choose a company and a company from the drop down list – the address will then be pre-populated, or you can add new details and these will automatically be added to the database.

 

6. Click Next to take you through to the next form.

7. The next page is an identification page, to help the User work out which element on the Electrical Cabinet is which. When this has been ascertained, you can click next.

8. This page is all about customising the product – you can change: the material, amount and location of components, size of overall product, the lock and add extras. This is easy to navigate by selecting the titles at the top of the form.

 

9. You can then preview in 3D the configured item. If this item is not completely to your satisfaction, it is then easy to return to previous pages by clicking ‘previous’ or going directly to the desired page by clicking the title.

10. When the item is exactly how desired, the final action is to view a summary of the order and enter your email address.

 

11. You will then receive all essential sales and marketing documents to complete the order.

 

This project demonstrates how a good design and clear direction on forms can make the configuration and order process quick and easy, even when presented with a complicated, multi-element product.

 

 

What an eventful day! Weset off at 12pm on 19th March, giving us plenty of time (or so we thought) to make it down to the Warwick Arts Centre and have the booth nicely set up by 6pm. However at 2pm,a serious accidentstruck ahead of us and we were completely stationary for 3hours. Wehope that there were no serious injuries to those involved.

Eventually, the central reservation of the motorway was taken down (by The Highways Agency, not frustrated travellers), we were instructed by the police to make a u-turn and began to move again.

By the time we made it to Warwick Arts Centre it was 6pm, however luckily for us, the Develop3D Live organisers kept the exhibition space open for us to set up!

In true Develop3D style the team put on a great evening event, where we had some wonderful food, followed by (lots of) beer and pool.

A very enjoyable night had by all.

The next day it was time to get down to business. Develop3D Live wassuperbly attended; by hundreds of industry professionals, students and educators alike, and with our ideal spot in theexhibition spacewe had plenty of people stopping by the booth to discuss their DriveWorks needs!

Plenty of people stopped by to pick up their FREE copy of the Little Book of Rules and to see all the exciting enhancements in DriveWorks 9, especially the 3D on the web and Sales Configuratordevelopments. DriveWorks Live

We also got to see some brilliant presentations and met lots of interesting and enthusiastic people, not just about DriveWorks, but about the manufacturing industry (and the UK too) – a very refreshing outlook!

Thank you to Develop3D for organising such a wonderful, professional and entertainingevent! We look forward to Develop3D Live 2013!

Go to our DriveWorks Live sample project site and see the great new example that has been added.

With the new Conveyor Line project you can design:

Just design your product, enter your details (including your email address) and coming your way shortly after, will be quote details and PDF drawings of your individually designed custom conveyor!