Key capabilities provided by AAX:
- Top Down Design Tools
- Large Assembly Management
- Design to Order or Design Automation Tools
- Advanced Reference Control and Reporting
- Assembly Process Documentation
- Assembly Management
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Top Down Design Tools
Top Down Design is a methodology that is fully supported and enabled by the rich technology embedded within Creo. Skeleton modelling captures design intent and enables the designer to easily plan the framework of an assembly. Incorporate some advanced publish and copy geometry features to disseminate your design layout to various design teams and the sub systems they will be developing. Bring all of these tools together and you will see how using AAX truly enables you to predictably and dependably change high level referenced layout information, and have those changes filter down through your assembly structure, changing the appropriate geometry accordingly.
Large Assembly Management
Our engineers here at LEAP Australia are often asked; what constitutes a large assembly, and the answer is not in a number. The answer is that when you are working with an assembly dataset in CAD, and you perceive degradation in performance, you are working with a large assembly. This number might vary depending on your hardware. Your first reaction is to upgrade hardware, throw technology at the problem, get a faster workstation, but the reality is that our customers work with very complicated, highly detailed, 3D CAD assemblies consisting of up to a million components, and the best hardware your budget will allow might still struggle opening your dataset.
PTC have developed a host of large assembly management tools which allow a designer to work with the minimum information in session while still being able to access the relevant references for effective top down design. Features like the ability to create on demand simplified representations of your assembly which is available in our standard license, are complimented and expanded to include the ability to automatically substitute a group of components with an envelope part, improving assembly performance, while still being able to generate an accurate Bill of Materials (BOM).
- Automating Designs
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Design to Order or Design Automation Tools
Design automation is a widely used term which involves automating various stages in the design process producing a design to order model that reconfigures an assembly depending on the input values of a number of variables. Creo Advanced Assembly Extension (AAX) provides the ability to access assembly program functions ideal for automation.
- Documenting Designs
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Advanced Reference Control and Reporting
Creo AAX provides the ability enforce standard practise within your organization by setting reference control limitations which will not allow designers to create external references outside of the allowed scope you have set. The global reference viewer provides a graphical representation of interdependencies between components and features in your design assemblies and parts for a clear understanding of how changes will be propagated through the model. This graphical report also helps designers to quickly identify bad practises like circular reference paths in the model.
Assembly Process Documentation
Manufacturing process documentation and assembly and maintenance instructions can be easily generated from a specialized process assembly, which references the design assembly, and allows the designer to visualize manufacturing assembly steps independently from the sequence of in which he assembled the design assembly. Creo Process for assemblies also provides tool to detail step by step drawings with views and associative manufacturing BOMs for each step to detail the process. Visualise assembly steps by colour-coding the models to distinguish parts being assembled in this step from parts already in place on the assembly.
- Resources
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Download the Creo AAX Data Sheet
