October 3, 1997
Contact: Leila Belkora (312) 996-347 [email protected]
Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago have incorporated virtual reality technology into a manufacturing design tool that allows the user to visualize and plan a factory while it is still in the design phase. The tool, a computer simulation, is proving its usefulness at Searle, a pharmaceutical company based in Skokie, Ill.
Prashant Banerjee, associate professor of mechanical engineering at UIC, said the software can run on a personal computer as well as on the CAVE (Cave Automated Virtual Environment), a room-sized virtual-reality theater developed at UIC in which graphics are projected onto three walls and the floor.
Searle's first use for the tool was an example of a problem in need of a three-dimensional conceptualization: The ceiling in a factory building that Searle is constructing near Moscow was to be 6.05 meters high. But two cylindrical pipes atop a piece of equipment, called a fluid bed drier, destined for this building reached 6.08 meters. Searle engineers wondered if they would have to redesign the building with a higher ceiling. In fact, the design tool showed James Curtis, executive director of engineering and chemical technology at Searle, that the equipment would fit, because plans called for a gap between steel girders in the ceiling at the very place where the pipes would go.
The problem would not have been easy to address without the three-dimensional computer model, according to Curtis and his colleague Brian Dodds, director of manufacturing engineering.
"Nine times out of 10 in this situation you're looking at structural steel drawings from a different contractor than the one that designed the equipment," said Dodds. "The two sets of drawings are not to the same scale, and the structural steel and vendor equipment drawings are not combined on one piece of paper, so it's difficult to marry up the different elements visually."
Searle has given researchers in UIC's mechanical engineering department $100,000 over three years to develop virtual-reality based technology for a number of applications.
"UIC's leadership role in this field is absolutely critical," said Curtis, "and it's great because they're right here (in the Chicago area)."
Banerjee said visualizing and planning a factory floor is just one of several applications, albeit one that can save a company a lot of money.
"Eighty percent of costs are decided at the early conceptual design phase," he said. "This tool allows top-level managers to try out prototype designs in their minds."
Banerjee said other applications include training operators to use new equipment, optimizing production processes and modeling the factory from the perspective of occupational safety -- for example, allowing a user of the tool to determine whether an emergency exit sign is visible from across a factory floor, before partitions and walls are actually built.
For Searle managers, what ties all the virtual-reality based applications together is their potential to save money and conserve resources. Dodds cites the example of a three-dimensional tour of a Searle plant in Morpeth, England: "It allowed us to show people what the planned renovations looked like before we even put a spade in the ground."
Said Curtis, "We don't want to waste brick and mortar building a new facility, and the same thing applies to pharmaceutical manufacturing. It's all about sustainability -- getting more out of less energy, fewer resources."
-UIC-
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