The votes are in, and Autodesk customer ITAMCO has been named the Autodesk Inventor of the Year for 2014.
Members from the Autodesk Manufacturing community worldwide selected ITAMCO, one of the most unique gear shops in the world, from among the dozen companies featured as 2014 monthly Autodesk Inventing the Future honorees. For more than eight years, Autodesk has identified the most innovative customers from among hundreds of thousands of designers and engineers that create using Autodesk manufacturing tools and featured their work via this monthly recognition.
Based in Plymouth, Indiana, ITAMCO delivers precision-machined components to original equipment manufacturers that serve a wide array of industries – ranging from oil and gas and renewable energy, to mining and construction and aerospace and defense. Autodesk Inventor 3D design software, as part of Autodesk Product Design Suite and Autodesk Factory Design Suite, are among the many tools ITAMCO leverages to better serve its customers.
"We are thrilled and honored to be recognized by the Autodesk Manufacturing community for this award. It was certainly a team effort!" said Joel Neidig, Technology Manager at ITAMCO.
For ITAMCO, the more precisely a gear is manufactured, the better it will perform, and using Inventor software for design and manufacturing processes makes it possible for the company to manufacture gears to incredibly precise sub-micron tolerances at .00004 inches.
This level of precision satisfies even the most demanding customers – such as NASA, which used ITAMCO’s gears on the mechanical arm that built the international space station. Or the Department of Defense, which uses ITAMCO’s gears on its land-based satellite systems.
Additionally, ITAMCO recently designed, manufactured and built a new gearbox for construction vehicles in record time using Inventor and Autodesk Inventor HSM Pro. The software allowed ITAMCO to virtually verify the assembly for any interference issues prior to manufacturing and to utilize the advanced computer aided manufacturing (CAM) capabilities within Inventor HSM Pro for machining and manufacturing the components.
ITAMCO’s operations have also been significantly enhanced by Factory Design Suite, which allows users to digitally optimize a factory layout before it’s completed. This digital exploration came in handy when the company ordered a colossal piece of machinery that can produce gears up to 13 feet in diameter and that weigh as much as 80,000 pounds.
The gigantic gear grinder arrived in 11 different crates, each weighing more than 20,000 pounds. With Factory Design Suite, the company was able to conduct careful analysis and simulation of the entire machine virtually before physically assembling and installing it on site, preventing costly mistakes and factory layout revisions. More details on this massive machine can be seen in this video on the Autodesk YouTube Channel.
As ITAMCO has continued to expand, the company has used Factory Design Suite to lay out new cells and equipment and make sure it meets industry standards of organization and efficiency across the factory floor. It’s just one more way Autodesk manufacturing software helps ITAMCO – and the diverse range of customers that depend on them – keep things moving, literally and figuratively.
Autodesk seeks Inventing the Future candidates each month from its Manufacturing customer base through a brief Q&A interview on a company or individual addressing their business, products and inventive spirit. Inventing the Future submissions can be sent to inventingthefuture@autodesk.com.
