Background:
For a custom steel fabrication company located in Dallas, Texas, Ayoka developed an automated quote generation system to streamline both their business development and initial engineering processes. As the manufacturing and engineering firm, Quality Ironworks continued to experience significant growth with larger and more complex projects, the workload for sales and initial engineering processes to generate quotes increased beyond current staff size.
As each project required the drawing of technical drafts and blueprints, the manpower required to create these drawings has also increased. Rather than purchase multiple CAD engineering licenses and expand staff training, the manufacturing company centralized their design processes through a web-based application that would trigger their CAD engineering program to dynamically generate the 2D technical drawings and render a 3D model for prospective clients to evaluate and request a follow up phone call.
Solution:
Previously, the company used vector graphic drawing programs as well as CAD (Computer Aided Design) in many of their drafting phases, however, in order to cut administrative costs, and shorten design-phase timelines, they required a custom software solution that would allow sales prospects to simply input measurements and output 2D technical drawings as well as generate 3D models of the proposed designs. Where this was previously a multi-step process, requiring separate drawings for each view, as well as a significant time investment for manually creating 3D models, Ayoka Systems was able to consolidate several aspects of the drawing and modeling process into a single step of entering measurements into a User Interface.
This web application also integrated with the company’s proprietary Visual Basic source code. Instead of completely re-writing their code from scratch, the software was integrated as an API (application programming interface) call within the new Microsoft C# and Vue.js JavaScript framework. This allowed the development a solution which not only integrated with previous projects, but additionally upgraded the functionality of these projects to allow for a greater ease of use (for example, users can now create 3D models for past projects with a single button click, as opposed to rendering them manually each time a change to the project is made).
Additionally, the new system simultaneously provided greater ease of use with more flexibility than other 3rd party or commercial options. This means that projects can be created and drawn within a matter of minutes, while still allowing for fine-tuning and minor adjustments that would otherwise require users to make adjustments to the project as a whole.
Technology:
Starting with HTML5 Canvas elements, the programming team developed functionality that looks at the fabrication project both as a whole and as individual parts, removing the need for users to adjust measurements and set constants for the project. Furthermore, the use of recursive drawing functions made adding, removing and editing a simple matter of clicking through options on the User Interface (UI). HTML Canvas also makes use of the WebGL Javascript API for rendering interactive 3D models. Using a C# and Vue.js framework was selected due to the primary focus of this application on simplicity and ease of use. With most of the drawing features being automated, Vue JavaScript enabled a dynamic, interactive solution, similar to many “Single Page Applications.”
About Quality Ironworks:
Established in 1994, Quality Ironworks Inc. brings over 20 years of experience fabricating and erecting a variety of products, including steel stairs, framing and decking, railings, fences, and custom design parts. Their 110,000 sq ft. facility has over 20 welding stations, overhead cranes, on-site painting area, and a custom forge. Their portfolio includes several award-winning conversions of office buildings into lofts in Downtown Dallas and Fort Worth as well as new multi-use projects, apartments, retail structures and canopies, and railings for shopping centers and office buildings.
