Video: How SpinFire Insight Enables Independent CAD Viewing and Access at Flex-N-Gate

Featuring Steve Perucca (Engineering Group Manager), Daniel Kennedy (Director of Sales), Aaron Boyer (Director of Global CAD/CAE), Lincoln Haag (Program Manager), and Austin Kelly (Project Engineer) of Flex-N-Gate.

Steve Perucca: With SpinFire Insight, literally if it wasn't working that day, I'd probably just go home. Everything I do revolves around that, from customer meetings to lining up CAD designers. It really allows me to do my job. My name is Steve Proka. I work in the advanced engineering department, primarily plastics and metals. I use SpinFire Insight every day. My whole basis of being is using it to evaluate designs, tooling, thickness of parts, even into FEA. SpinFire Insight saves me a lot of time, 99% of my day.

Daniel Kennedy: Flex-N-Gate is a Tier 1 automotive supplier, so fundamentally speaking, we make a lot of parts for a lot of people. If we're in trouble from a timing perspective, a tooling perspective, or a commercial perspective, that means something didn't go right two years ago. In the world of CAD and with SpinFire, you're taking all that frustration out here, not out in the plant.

Steve Perucca: Using SpinFire Insight, I can access any data that we have here on our network, all around the world. There really isn't anything I can't look at. I have free access to it. I can analyze a design, make the reports, and I can narrow it down to exactly the view I want to prove my point.

Aaron Boyer: SpinFire Insight allows program managers, engineers, and people in the quality department to be independent. They can go into a file, review the file, and look for the annotations that are stored within the three-dimensional data, all without ever having to bother a designer or interrupt his day.

Lincoln Haag: Some of the challenges we face regarding the complex CAD that's being brought in, going through different CAD, sometimes details, notes, or anything might be lost. That can be very frustrating, also version control as well.

Aaron Boyer: SpinFire Insight is utilized completely throughout the company, over 3,000 users, from program management to engineering to the shop floor, where the quality department is reviewing parts to check their GD&T and PMI. It's completely expanded throughout all of Flex-N-Gate.

Lincoln Haag: SpinFire Insight has definitely helped alleviate a lot of bottlenecks. You're able to pass on the design or the data itself with a little more control over what file is being sent out, and the collaboration process is much easier.

Aaron Boyer: SpinFire is often brought up on the screen to spin the part around and show changes or different design concepts, all done right on the fly. The engineer, the program manager, even salespeople utilize this now, pulling it up, taking a look at a part, and saying, "Hey, I want to quote that data." Tech Soft 3D has been a great partner to work with, both with the convert function and the SpinFire Insight capabilities. They're always very diligent in sending us updates. It empowers everyone to be a complete individual when they're trying to get their job done.

Austin Kelly: Without SpinFire Insight, my day would be spent hounding designers to get me CAD data. It's really easy to use, you're able to interact with CAD data just like you're using any other software.

Steve Perucca: If I didn't have SpinFire Insight, my day would be a bigger challenge. I wouldn't be able to go as fast or do as much as I do.