Autodesk Inventor OEM Helps Magestic Technologies Push the Boundaries of Manufacturing for Composites and Sheet Metal
"Inventor OEM enabled us to hit the ground running."
Matt Thorn, Senior Product Manager at Magestic
The Challenge
Magestic Technologies specializes in providing advanced manufacturing solutions to improve efficiency and processes across a wide array of industries. Michael Spellman, CEO and CTO, summarized the scope of the company’s specialties well: “Magestic Technologies has a long history in the manufacturing space for the production of composites, composite materials, heavy plate and sheet metal."
Their TruComposites technology offers composite design, analysis, and manufacturing tools for both hand layup and automated workflows. As Michael Spellman explains, “Our solution will typically give the end user an increase in throughput and improve efficiencies from a material and workflow standpoint.” The product supports their customers from design all the way through to the CAM process on the shop floor.
While there are many players in this space, Magestic Technologies aims to provide a more comprehensive solution to the challenges their customers face. “While different companies put point solutions together, we’re bridging the gap, going end-to-end, and providing the entire solution,” explained Matt Thorn, a Senior Product Manager, “Our experience in this market is cutting-edge technology for saving throughput, optimizing things on the shop floor and connecting workflows from design to manufacturing, integrating things like ERP and MRP systems into the workflow to make sure that the data are consistent.”
Working across such a wide array of new, fast-changing, and complex markets, Magestic Technologies looks to constantly develop its products to the needs of their customers. Matt Thorn explained, “We're getting into genetic algorithms and leveraging things like machine learning and artificial intelligence to kind of bring a new era of solutions into the market with this brand new technology.”
Matt Thorn summarized, “Our vision is to push the boundaries of manufacturing and optimization for composites and sheet metal.” One component of this success is the strong foundation that their partnership with Autodesk provides. In addition to their partnership with Autodesk, they also leverage Inventor OEM through Tech Soft 3D to power their TruComposites technology.
Leveraging Inventor OEM to get to Market Faster & Maintain System Quality
Autodesk is a global leader in CAD, supporting a vast array of industries with their powerful, polished products. Inventor OEM is an Autodesk software development platform, resold through Tech Soft 3D. It provides developers with the stability and performance of Autodesk Inventor as a foundation for their product.
Inventor OEM allows developers to customize their tool, adding and removing functionality to create the exact framework to serve their customer's needs. “Inventor OEM was a really nice fit for us because we were able to now leverage the add-ons that we already had on top of Inventor in our platform and brand it and market it as our own solution,” explained Matt Thorn.
While Inventors solid foundation as a great starting point for any product, a good business knows the importance of a fast-to-market time. Time that would be spent developing the same capabilities Inventor OEM provides, is time that isn't being spent working on features that will differentiate you in the marketplace. This was a large factor for Magestic Technologies when they chose OEM. Matt Thorn summarized, “Inventor OEM enabled us to hit the ground running.”
The saved development time, both in creating a product and maintaining it, can be better spent. “We can focus on the things that we do best and we can enjoy the rich set of tools that we get from the platform,” Michael Spellman said.
When working in CAD spaces, flexibility and interoperability are key, and Magestic needs to be able to handle many different formats. Michael explained, “We can't control what packages our customers are using or what data they're generating. We need a tool that has the ability to read stuff and work with it.” Inventor OEM offers Magestic Technologies more frequent updates and a better ability to keep up with faster releases and intermediate fixes.
Issues are inevitable, and the capable support network of Inventor OEM is essential in helping both Magestic and its customers. Michael explained their satisfaction, “Whenever we have an issue arise, place a ticket or an email and we typically get a very fast response, and we appreciate that.”
Overall, Magestic’s decision to leverage Inventor OEM from Tech Soft 3D is built on a shared commitment to constantly improve what is possible for their customers. Michael said, “Tech Soft 3D wants to push the boundaries as well. They want to work with us and bring new features and new functionality, and they really care about what our customers need and how they can make their solutions better.”
Industry:
Composite Materials, Manufacturing Solutions, Manufacturing Optimization
Challenge:
Support customer needs in composite design, analysis, and manufacturing for hand layup and automated workflows.
Needed a strong foundation with capable CAD features in a short time.
Wanted capable support with more regular updates than Inventor OEM competitors provided.
Solution:
Inventor OEM provides the power and polish of Inventor features to their product, with capable, consistent support.
Results:
Deliver a more polished, comprehensive product to market faster than would be possible without Inventor OEM.
Focus on the unique value proposition of Magestic Technologies products rather than diverting company resources to reinventing the wheel.
Service more of the design and CAM lifecycle than their competition can offer.