Autodesk Names RND Automation & Engineering as Inventor of the Year for 2010

Members of the Autodesk manufacturing community from around the world chose the Sarasota, FL–based company by voting on the community website. RND Automation designs customized automation solutions for a range of customers, including manufacturers of hydraulic valves, contact lenses and insulated beverage containers. The company was originally named Inventor of the Month in March 2010 for its digital prototyping work with clients to help manufacture and assemble products more efficiently and with less waste.

“Autodesk’s products give us an advantage over our competition in terms of time to market, ability to illustrate concepts to our customers and the flexibility to quickly change design parameters,” says Sean Dotson, president of RND. “My relationship with Autodesk goes back more than 13 years to the first days of Inventor Release 1. It’s quite an honor to receive this award and to be recognized for our work.”

With the assistance of Tampa-based Autodesk reseller Tata Technologies, RND has successfully used Autodesk Inventor software since its first release on a range of projects, tapping almost every area of the software’s functionality in the process:

• For a hydraulic valve manufacturer, RND created an automated assembly machine that was 22 ft. long and 8 ft. wide, with 16 assembly stations and four articulated robot arms. RND designed, visualized and simulated the entire machine using Inventor, enabling them to fully analyze operation of each assembly station, all before any materials were purchased.
• To create a machine that manufactures disposable contact lenses, RND needed a design mechanism capable of rapidly raising and lowering heavy weights. RND used the finite element analysis (FEA) functionality in Inventor to analyze the forces placed on the linkages to help ensure the overall design was strong enough to withstand the pressures of daily operation.
• RND is also using digital prototyping to help Tervis Tumbler, a manufacturer of insulated beverage containers for hot and cold drinks. RND used Inventor software’s animation capabilities early in the design phase to show Tervis how each assembly station would function and at what precise location the fully assembled product would exit the machine.

Sources: Press materials received from the company and additional information gleaned from the company's website.