Interviewees

• Nobuhiro Nishino: President, Nisino Seiki Seisakusho Co., Ltd.‍
• Masahiro Owada: Head of CADCAM Promotion Office, Laser Processing Section, Sheet Metal Department

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Tasks That Took 2-3 Days to Program from Scratch Now Take 2-3 Hours Thanks to Finding Past Drawings

Nisino Seiki Seisakusho Co., Ltd. has earned high praise from numerous clients as a comprehensive prototype manufacturer capable of handling everything from sheet metal and machining to surface treatment. Equipped with state-of-the-art facilities and backed by extensive manufacturing experience with over 200,000 production cases, the company delivers high-precision products with short lead times.

They pride themselves on their ability to handle difficult processing tasks that other companies decline, using their comprehensive capabilities to meet any prototyping or parts processing needs. However, Nisino Seiki Seisakusho faced challenges in utilizing past drawings. Prototyping often involves small-lot, high-variety processing, resulting in a high volume of quote requests.

A small team of employees handled these quotes, but with as many as 2,000 drawings to process each month, each person sometimes had to create up to 200 quotes per week. Many quote requests involved similar parts, and to avoid discrepancies in pricing, the team referred to past drawings when creating quotes. However, finding these drawings relied on experienced employees and was done manually by sifting through paper drawings, making the process extremely time-consuming.

The manufacturing floor also faced challenges in utilizing past drawings. When a new drawing was received, a new processing program had to be created. While simple shapes could be programmed from scratch, complex shapes could take 2-3 days to program. Even for such complex shapes, utilizing past programs for similar shapes could reduce the time to 2-3 hours. Processing programs, manufacturing processes, required molds, inspection results, and other necessary information were managed by linking them to drawing numbers, so if similar drawings could be identified, all relevant information could be accessed.

With about 70% of orders involving new, similar products, finding similar drawings was crucial for time-saving, but the only way to search was by relying on memory and searching by customer name, product name, or material. This process was time-consuming and often failed to find the needed drawings.

Dramatically Reduced Drawing Search Time: From Being Bound to Search Tasks to Improving Work Efficiency

Nisino Seiki Seisakusho was looking for a system that would allow anyone to quickly find similar drawings. President Nishino learned about CADDi Drawer, a cloud-based drawing data utilization service, at an exhibition. Although he had concerns due to past experiences with systems that did not meet expectations, he decided to implement CADDi Drawer after confirming its functionality firsthand.

"I immediately thought this would be useful. After actually using it, I was convinced it was effective."

- Nobuhiro Nisino, President

With the introduction of CADDi Drawer, the time and effort required for drawing searches were drastically reduced, leading to numerous benefits.

For instance, employees can now quickly find drawings using CADDi Drawer, eliminating the need to ask experienced colleagues for help. This has freed up those employees who previously spent time searching for drawings, allowing them to focus on other tasks. Additionally, when an estimator was unsure about pricing for a new shape, they used to consult the manufacturing floor. However, with CADDi Drawer, estimators can now easily find similar drawings and use past prices as a reference, reducing the number of consultations with the manufacturing floor and lightening their workload. By accumulating price information, including the actual work hours required for production, it is now possible to determine whether a project was profitable.

The manufacturing floor has also seen significant benefits. Masahiro Owada, Head of the Laser Processing Section, discusses the impact:

"If you don’t remember doing something from the start, you wouldn’t even think to search for it. But if it lingers in your mind, you can’t help but try to find it. About 70% of our orders are new, with many drawings having slight variations. If we can identify similar past drawings, we can access related information such as programs, which could reduce the time needed from days to hours. We couldn't run the company if we had to start everything from scratch. We really needed a way to find those drawings. Previously, without any method other than memory, it could take up to two hours to find a similar drawing among tens of thousands. With CADDi Drawer, similar drawings now appear almost immediately, reducing search time to about one-tenth. It has also made it easy to find past programs."

"Previously, it could take up to two hours to find a similar drawing among tens of thousands. With CADDi Drawer, similar drawings now appear almost immediately, reducing search time to about one-tenth."
- Masahiro Owada, Head of the Laser Processing Section

Expanding CADDi Drawer Usage and Aiming to Integrate with the Production Management System

Nisino Seiki Seisakusho has actively promoted the use of CADDi Drawer within the company and is considering new ways to utilize it. A renewal of the production management system is also planned, and they are considering integrating it with CADDi Drawer.

Nobuhiro Nisino
"We plan to expand the number of users further. In addition, on the shop floor, we sometimes need to check the prices of purchased items like nuts, so we want to link the data of purchased item prices as well. We plan to link purchase sources and photo data to make it easier to check. We are also looking to advance the integration with the production management system."

By dramatically reducing the time spent searching for drawings, Nisino Seiki Seisakusho has enhanced its productivity and is poised to further develop as a comprehensive prototype manufacturer capable of meeting short lead times.