Eliminating Engineering Bottlenecks With an Advanced Workstation and GPU

As designs and models become more complex and compute-intensive, the need for modern engineering workstations is more apparent. At Automated Motion Inc., which designs and builds test equipment and specialized fixtures for aerospace, military, and custom manufacturing applications, computing latency related to managing large models and multi-page drawings were beginning to affect project turnaround times.

In a new case study published by Dell Technologies, you can learn how AMI leveraged a new mobile workstation and NVIDIA RTX GPU technology to reduce the time required to create large models; accelerated manipulations of large assemblies and complex drawings; enabled more advanced simulation; and improved performance for engineering users.

Missouri-based AMI has been in business for more than 30 years, offering full-service design engineering, contract manufacturing, and custom product solutions.

AMI runs SOLIDWORKS on a new Dell Precision 7670 16-in. mobile workstation with NVIDIA RTX A4500 GPU and Intel Core i9-12950HX processor. With the new workstation, the company has improved its ability to manage large, complex projects. According to the case study, thanks to the upgraded hardware and advanced graphics processing, loading and manipulating these demanding files in SOLIDWORKS is at least twice as fast. 

Image courtesy of Dell Technologies.

The Dell Precision 7670 offers a 4K display, support for Wi-Fi and 5G LTE wireless connectivity, is ISV-certified for leading engineering applications, and offers flexible memory options (supporting up to 128GB of RAM). The NVIDIA RTX A4500 features 20GB of GPU memory and offers hardware-accelerated ray tracing. 

The new workstation also removed bottlenecks around converting files and regenerating detailed assemblies, which affected work quality, and the types of projects AMI could accept. According to the case study, the ability to conduct complex simulations has also cut the need for costly physical testing by half.

With the NVIDIA RTX A4500 graphics processing power, AMI can render larger, intricate designs faster and more accurately. The GPU also allows engineering to perform complex simulations that were nearly impossible before, including computational fluid dynamics, thermal analysis, and structural integrity.

“The new Dell/NVIDIA workstation is amazing as it enables us to do simulations not possible before,” said Mike Hutchings, Senior Mechanical Engineer at AMI. “This helps us evaluate design options and improve the final product.”

According to the case study:

“The ability to handle larger data sets and complex calculations means that AMI can now take on projects with higher levels of complexity. This capability not only enhances the quality of the designs but also improves the overall efficiency of the design process. Clients benefit from faster turnaround times and higher-quality outputs, as AMI can now iterate more quickly and make more informed decisions during the design phase. “

You can read the entire case study here.