Description
Key Learnings
- Learn how to connect Autodesk Fusion 360 3D models and 2D drawings to Prodsmart to ensure that your production floor always has the latest files.
- Learn how to connect Autodesk Fusion 360 setup sheets and NC files to Prodsmart to ensure that your production floor always has the latest file/s.
- Learn how to use Fusion Team to store work instructions in video form.
- Learn how to export Autodesk Fusion 360 BOMs in a format that makes it easier and faster to create new ready-to-manufacture products in Prodsmart.
Speaker
JASON LICHTMAN: Hello and welcome to today's Autodesk University class. Today's class, Making Prodsmart Smarter by Using Autodesk Fusion 360 and Fusion Team. I'm your host Jason Lichtman, and I'm excited to have you with us today.
I'm going to start with what we call the safe harbor statement. In today's session, I may talk briefly about some plans that are in development that are not yet available commercially. As always, you should take investment advice from the professionals. And more importantly, all investment decisions and purchasing decisions should be based on what is commercially available and not based on any plans that may or may not come to fruition. Also please note that AU content is proprietary. Do not copy, post, or distribute without express permission from Autodesk.
And with that, let's talk a little bit about our agenda. I'm going to tell you a little bit about me as your presenter. I think it's important for us to get to know each other just a little bit before we get into the details. I'll give you an intro to Fusion 360, an intro to Prodsmart, and then we're going to get into the really fun stuff-- ways you can utilize Prodsmart, Fusion 360, and Fusion Team together. We're going to give you a few examples, 5 to be exact.
The first is we're going to talk about connecting Fusion 360 3D models and 2D drawings to Prodsmart to ensure that your production floor always has the latest files. Next, we'll talk about connecting Fusion 360 setup sheets and NC files to Prodsmart to ensure that your production floor also always has the latest files. Then we're going to talk about using Fusion Team to store work instructions in video form. Then, we'll talk about how to import a Fusion 360 3D model directly into Prodsmart. And lastly, we're going to talk about viewing the Prodsmart dashboard from within Fusion 360 itself. Then we'll summarize all of the above.
And I have two favors to ask of you so please stay until the very end. All right. So as I mentioned I'm your host today. My name is Jason Lichtman and I'm a senior technical specialist for Fusion 360 and Prodsmart here at Autodesk. I come from a background in mechanical engineering, both for undergraduate and my master's degree, and I spent well over 10 years in industry taking ideas, turning them into 3D models, models into prototypes, and prototypes into mass production. I love every aspect of it, and you'll see that throughout this presentation. I have some specialties about 3D printing, 3D scanning, and reverse engineering. Really all it comes down to is I've been taking consumer products from concept to fruition for many years, and now we're going to take that and actually apply it to the production floor. So I'm super excited about that, and I hope you are too.
First we're going to talk a little bit about Fusion 360. Many of you already know about Fusion 360, but some of you might come from more of a background in production, maybe more of a background in MES tools or ERP tools. And so I want to tell you just a little bit about Autodesk Fusion 360.
Fusion 360 is the next generation CAD, CAE, and CAM platform. When we say platform, we mean that it's one product that can do everything, everything from initial concept to analysis to manufacturing. CAD is computer aided design by the way. CAE is computer aided engineering, and Cam is computer aided manufacturing. And our goal is for Fusion 360 to be able to be the all encompassing platform solution to help you take that idea, turn it into that prototype, turn that prototype into mass production.
We can do everything from design simple products to incredibly elaborate. And then of course, produce them. We can control milling machines, lathes, lasers, plasma cutters, water jets, and also, of course, 3D printers like you can see on the screen right now. Fusion 360 can do a heck of a lot on the mechanical side, but can also help you design electronics as well. We say the Fusion 360 can do so many things, but it's not about being able to do any one of those things. It's about being able to do all of them under one roof in one platform by Autodesk.
So with that, let's talk a little bit about Prodsmart, Autodesk's latest acquisition. Prodsmart itself was acquired in March of 2022, and since then has been integrated into the Autodesk ecosystem. But Prodsmart is an incredible piece of software. It's all about being a single source of truth for your whole business. And we have two targets that we're really targeting for this.
We have your back office, which may include production directors, managers, purchasing, even scheduling. And we also, of course, have your shop floor, your general workers, your CNC operators, your assemblers, and more. And the key here is that you're going to be able to get inputs from either of these two places and be able to share your data across your entire ecosystem.
If you look at a manufacturing business, what do they look like? Well, they all have distinct processes that are tracked with different methods-- paper, spreadsheets, whiteboards. The problem with this is that the data associated with these processes moves very slowly. So you could really only ever look backwards at what your business did yesterday, last week, last month, instead of being able to get this data when you really need it, which is in real time. And as you can tell from this chart, it can be a pretty complicated process.
We have found that most manufacturers and fabricators are still using paper spreadsheets and whiteboard based systems to track their processes. These systems have high processing costs. They don't give you the mission critical information that enables us to be at the top of the process. And this leads to increased waste and scrap. Deadlines are missed because there's no visibility about scheduling, and there's low productivity overall.
Now of course, many businesses try to solve these challenges with the resources they have available to them. The problem, however, is that these solutions tend to lie in the nature of paper, spreadsheet, and whiteboard based processes. Any potential solution requires digitizing these processes, which up until now has been prohibitively expensive for small and medium sized businesses. As you can tell, as a result of all of this, there are plenty of challenges for your business to try to eliminate to improve its efficiency.
One example of this is that paper system that we talked about-- that paper traveler. Now you might have seen one of these in the past. This is a great example of this. But when it's blank, it looks like it would be a great solution to the problem. When you start to fill it out, the problem with that solution becomes very clear.
First, if you can't read the person's handwriting, you can't actually use it for anything. What's the point of it? And then the second part of this is that the data itself might be collected along the way, but it's only communicated back to that back office at the end of that production, when that sheet is actually completed. As a result of that you have delayed data capture. That delayed data capture results in delayed visibility. And the delayed visibility means delayed problem solving.
And of course, like any business, problems will come up. And the real question is, how quickly can you deal with them? The other thing to keep in mind is that the data itself is difficult, if not impossible, to analyze as a bigger picture. You don't have long term analytics to help you improve your process when you're really looking at the data in paper sheets. So what does Prodsmart do?
Well Prodsmart is going to revolutionize the way that you keep track of everything. And really there are three values to keep in mind. The first one is that Prodsmart is going to automate and digitize your manufacturing process, not change the process, simply automate it and digitize the process you already have. It's also going to give you real time visibility of what's happening on the shop floor so that you don't have that data capture delay that we talked about a few minutes ago. And lastly, you're going to be able to get longer term analytics to help you improve the efficiency of your business.
When you sign up for Prodsmart, you're going to be able to get these first two values right away. However, the third really is going to require data to build up over time. So just keep that in mind. But what kind of data are we talking about? Well, for example what if one of your workers has a scrap rate that's three times higher than any other employee. By being able to analyze all of your data, you can actually see that. And as a result, be able to retrain that worker. So that's one example of many to be able to improve your process, and Prodsmart is a great way to be able to do all of that.
So the next question becomes, why? Why try to connect Prodsmart Fusion 360 and Fusion Team together? Well we talked earlier about how Fusion 360 is meant to be this platform solution to take you from initial concept to prototyping and then into production. Prodsmart focuses on that last part, the production. And it actually makes a lot of sense to connect all of these tools together because if you can control the design and then of course, the production, you have full control over your entire process, and you can make that a whole lot more efficient. So for the next few minutes, we're going to talk about five of those ways you can actually make Prodsmart more powerful, make Fusion 360 more powerful by connecting them together.
So let's start with number one. We're going to connect Fusion 360's 3D models and 2D drawings to Prodsmart. If you are in a 3D model, all you have to do is go to the File menu on the top left, go down to share, and then link. And that is going to be able to create what we call a shared link. It's a shared link that you can paste in any web browser, whether it's on a mobile device, a tablet, or computer, whether it's on a PC or Mac, and it will be able to show that 3D model.
So the first thing you're going to want to do is to create one of these shared links. If you're in a 2D drawing, the process is going to be exactly the same. File, share, link. If you happen to be inside your data panel, you can just right click on your file and find share link right there. And lastly, if you're in the web interface of Fusion 360, which we commonly refer to as Fusion Team, you can also create the shared link. Simply right click on any of your files, and go to share.
Now regardless of which of those four options you pick, you're going to get a pop-up that looks something like this, and you can copy that link. And typically you would go and send that to one of your clients or your customers or even share that internally. But the whole idea here is that we want our Prodsmart users to have access to all of this data and to make sure that they always have the latest files. Now keep in mind that this link is a live link. So when someone clicks on it, it's automatically going to take them to the latest version of that particular file.
So if you are able to put that into Prodsmart, it's a great way to ensure that your shop floor always has the latest document. So here we are in Prodsmart. This is the dashboard view, and if you go to the products page on the left, you'll see a list of your products. Then go to the search bar and find the product that you're interested in connecting. Once you do, you'll go into the actual page to edit the product, and you're going to switch over to the notes section. And in the note section you could go and paste a link to that 3D model, and if you'd like to, you can also, of course, paste the link to the 2D drawing.
The other thing I recommend is to go to the advanced fields when you click on that, it's going to open up and you're going to be able to also put in the same information under the observation section. Each of these two sections are going to be visible in different areas of Prodsmart. And remember, it's a live link. So when you update your 3D model or update your 2D drawing, you do not have to replace the link in Prodsmart itself.
So what are the results? Well, remember that Prodsmart is accessible from the web or from a mobile device or a tablet. So if you happen to be using Prodsmart from the web interface, you're going to find these links exactly where someone else put them. You can find it under notes, you could also find it under the advanced fields, under observations. But what if you're using the tablet view? And you can imagine that anyone on the shop floor is going to prefer the tablet view.
Well let's actually show you what that looks like. So here's a quick video showing you the tablet view. When you go to start a production order, you can click and hold on a production order to get more details. You could then, of course, do the same thing on your actual product you're working on. And this is where you're going to see the observations results on your screen. Afterwards, you could of course, choose to work on that product, choose the operation you're going to work on. And here you can see my work instructions for this product, and the notes are available right here. So that's why we put those links in the notes as well as the observation section. Excellent.
So now we have access to the links themselves from our tablet, which is great. But there is a slight problem. As of today, you cannot click on the links from within Prodsmart's tablet view. So just because you can view the link doesn't mean you can actually click on it. Now this is something that is in development, and I hope that we're going to release very soon, to be able to click on those links. But right now be aware that you cannot click on those links. Now that being said, the goal here is to actually be able to use those 3D models. So what we're going to do about it?
Well one way that you can actually get around this challenge is by creating QR codes. So here I am on a free website called QR Code Monkey, that's their name. I didn't choose it. And in QR Code Monkey, you can type in your URL or in my case, copy and paste it of course. And you can also, of course, add your own logo image, and I've chosen the Fusion 360 logo. And it creates a link that I could then insert-- sorry, creates a QR code that I could then insert into Prodsmart.
So before we pasted the link itself in the note section. Now we're going to switch over to the file section of Prodsmart. We're going to insert our QR code by clicking on that link, choosing the file from your computer, and of course saving the product, which now loads that image into the file section. Now don't forget that there is a little icon on the right hand side to be able to make this available from the tablet itself. You are going to want to click that button, which will turn that icon green, and that means it is now available to be seen and used from the actual iPad or any other tablet device.
So what does this look like once you've done that? Well here we are again in the Prodsmart app. You can click on view files from the app itself. You can see here you have a variety of different options, but we're going to click on products. Then we're going to go in search for the product that we're interested in seeing the files for. I'm searching by the word assembly, of course. We'll find the product itself. And in the top left, you can see, that's the image that we just placed in there.
So now we have the QR code. And then, using another device, you can actually scan the QR code. So what does it look like using the camera function? You scan the QR code. Link pops up. And then the device itself is going to go to the web browser. It'll ask you if you want to download the Fusion 360 app or just continue in browser. If you're going to be doing this on a regular basis, of course I recommend using the native app. But if not, that's OK too. You could just continue in browser. But the key here is that I can actually see the 3D model from my tablet. And that to me, I think, is really valuable. And remember, that link, whether you accessed it from the link itself or from the QR code is a live link. So if the 3D model gets updated, what you see when you click on it or scan it, that will update as well. All right. So that's section one of these five different sections.
Section two is about now taking this to the next level for your production documentation. If you're CNC machining, you're used to creating NC files, and I'm sure you're also used to making setup sheets. And so we're going to go and access those from Prodsmart as well. Same idea as before. In Fusion 360, we're going to go and create our actual files. I'm using NC programs, which is one of the ways you can post process. But what I love about NC files, or rather NC programs-- that's the word I meant to use. When you output from NC programs, you can actually save directly to Fusion Teams. So you right click on your NC program, choose post process. It now is going to go in post process that. You can see in the upper left hand corner that this actually saved directly to Fusion Team. Now I can right click on that file, choose Share link just like I did earlier, and I have my link to go and copy.
For the setup sheet, it's going to be a similar method. You're going to right click on your NC program. You're going to choose Setup sheet this time. Choose where you want to save your Setup sheet and what your name is going to be. When you save it, of course, it's saving to Fusion Teams, just like it did for the NC file. And now you're going to go and right click on that, choose Share link, and copy that link. Great. So now that we have those two links, what do we do with them?
Well, we could do exactly what we did earlier with their 3D models and 2D drawings. So under my notes page you can see now I have not only the 3D model, I also have the 2D drawing, of course, the NC file, and the Setup sheet itself. If you would like, you can also update the advanced fields, observations, and include those additional links as well. You can, of course, also go to your file section and you can also import your QR code for those same items. And now you have the QR code for example, the Setup sheet as you see on the screen, also part of this too. Excellent. All right.
Now that you've done that, what does it look like from the tablet? Well here we are scanning a QR code, just like before. And this time, I'm going to show you what it looks like to open the setup sheet on your tablet device. The setup sheet is most commonly used to actually go and set up your CNC machine. So it's going to tell you things like what are you actually machining, what are the tools you're going to be using, what are the operations you're going to be using, what are the coordinate systems you're using, and a whole lot of other information.
From this you can choose whatever view you'd like. I'm showing right now the compact view. And you can scroll through all of the tools being used, see the different offsets, and everything else that you're going to care about for your tools. The key here, just like before, is that your Setup sheet is now a live link. And if you choose to update your Setup sheet from Fusion 360, your shop floor that has access to those links via Prodsmart is going to have access to the latest files at all times. All right, great.
So now we're on to section number three. Section number three is about using Fusion Team to store work instructions in video form. They say that a picture is worth thousand words, but a video is worth a heck of a lot more. So how do we actually take video work instructions and put them into Prodsmart? Well today you can't upload videos into Prodsmart, but you can, of course, create links to those videos. So the first step is going to be to upload a video to Fusion Team.
I'm showing right now Fusion Team the web interface. You could, of course, upload it through the desktop application. But here we have a video for a heat press blank that's going to show me how to actually press a blank. We take that video, we create the shared link, and just like before, we're going to end up putting that link into Prodsmart. If you would like, you can turn this into a QR code just like we did before and be able to put that in, not just as an actual link, but also the image as well.
Here you can see Prodsmart's work instructions. I'm editing a particular work instruction. And down here at the bottom, that's where I'm going to put the link to the actual URL. And then just above, that's where I'm going to put the image so that later on I have both. Now keep in mind earlier when you saw that I had the notes in my work instructions that came with the 3D model and the 2D drawing, that's a setting that you would choose to turn on in the work instructions, and that setting is right here on the right. So just be aware of that as well. It's an option that you can turn on or not.
The second way that you could do this that I think is even more powerful is by creating animations from within Fusion 360 itself because when it comes to actually assembling a product, there really isn't a better way to communicate how to assemble the product than an animation from the actual 3D models. So here you can see a screenshot of Fusion 360 where I created an animation of assembling or disassembling the product. One quick tip for you is that it's easier to create an animation of disassembling the product. After all, your 3D model is of the product when it's assembled. So you can take that 3D model of the assembled product and disassemble it in the animation workspace, and then of course just reverse that animation. And now you have an animation of assembling the product, which I think is really handy.
Here's an example of that. So here we have a skateboard truck assembly. And the first step was to insert that first bolt, then flip the part over, insert a couple of additional parts, and then of course the hanger, this rubber bushing, this cone, and then of course, this nut. This entire animation was created in Fusion 360 just using the animation workspace that comes available in Fusion 360. And so we created this animation, saved this out as a video, and guess what we're going to do with it? We're going to, of course, put this in Prodsmart.
So here it is uploaded to Fusion Team. Then of course, you make that shared link, and you put it into Prodsmart itself. Once you've done that, it might look like the following. So here we are back in Prodsmart, and we're taking a look at our production orders that we have available. We're taking a look at production order number one. That looks pretty good so we'll actually start with that. And then here we have the skateboard truck assembly. This is where you can see the observations again, where you have those 3D models. But once we start to actually assemble this, this is where the work instructions come in. So you can see all of the different products, and here you can see the QR code and of course link to video instructions.
You can separate this out by individual steps if you'd like as well. So here you can see a QR code for step number one, for example. And then I have step number two separated out as well. And of course, there's room for you to put in a description. So you can put in text of exactly what you expect the worker to do as well. For this particular assembly I have something like six different steps, and I have QR codes and descriptions for every single one of them. The images you see as well, those are all coming from Fusion 360 too. Perfect. All right.
Well the next thing is about, let's try to take this to the next level. Well I showed you how to put in links into Prodsmart, I did describe that we have a challenge of not being able to actually click on them yet. And then we made QR codes. And between you and me, realistically, the QR codes are really a workaround to get us around the fact that we can't click on those links, at least not today. But wouldn't it be really nice if you could actually import the 3D model directly into Prodsmart itself? I sure think so. As of very recently, you can now do exactly that. And this is available commercially to anyone that would like.
So let's actually go and take a look at this. So here we are in Prodsmart itself. We go to the production orders page. And we're going to start a brand new production order. We don't actually have to complete the order, but the button we're going to want is right here in the production order. You saw that there was an import from Fusion 360 button. When you click on that, it's going to connect to your Fusion 360 account. So here I am, finding the specific file that I'm interested in. And once I find it, it's going to allow me to pick a code and a name for Prodsmart itself. So I could choose to leave it exactly the way it was or change it, whatever I prefer.
And once you click the Import button, it's actually already imported the product and the 3D model into Prodsmart. I don't even need to finish the production order. I could switch right back over to my products area, I can find the product that I'm looking for, in this case, my 8684 clamping jig. And when I click on the product I can scroll down and go to my file section and lo and behold, I now have a 3D model of the product inside Prodsmart itself. What a great way to connect Fusion 360 3D models to Prodsmart.
You can also, by the way, take measurements. So here I am taking a side to side measurement of 100 millimeters and a front of back measurement, which I believe is going to be-- yeah it's 150. So this is a great way to be able to see what's actually going on in your 3D model. And you could do all of that from within Prodsmart itself. But what does it look like from a tablet? Because what I showed you, of course, was from the web interface. So here we are in the tablet view. And we're going to go and start a production order. We're going to go and take a look at production order two this time. This time it's going to be for that clamping jig. We can select the product, select operation, and of course, my work instructions pop up.
Through the power of Autodesk Forge, you have the ability to see that same 3D model from within the Prodsmart tablet. You can rotate it, be able to see everything that you're interested in, right here on the tablet. And that to me is even more powerful. So great way to be able to connect Fusion 360 and Prodsmart.
The last item on the list is being able to view the Prodsmart dashboard from within Fusion 360 itself. So the Prodsmart dashboard is a great way to be able to see what's happening on your shop floor in real time. As production orders come in, the dashboard is going to update telling you who's working on what, machines are in use, what products have just been completed, what production orders are ongoing, and which ones are, of course, finished. And if you're bouncing around between Fusion 360 and your web browser, you might at some point wish to yourself that you could be able to access this from within Fusion 360 itself. Well, believe it or not, you can actually do exactly that.
So here's a quick screenshot of Fusion 360. And you can see the actual dashboard for Fusion 360 on the lower right corner of the screen. This is going to allow you in Fusion 360 to get real time visibility of that Prodsmart dashboard from within Fusion 360 itself. Special things go out to Matt Nichols from Autodesk for creating this dashboard. This is not yet available online, but I am going to show you a QR code so you could go and download this if you would like to. I want to show you what this actually looks like. So here we're going to start a quick video and now you're actually going to be able to see what this looks like.
You switch from design over to manufacturer. You go to utilities, manage, and at the bottom, you're going to see production management. That's going to queue up the Prodsmart dashboard for Fusion 360 on the right hand side. And now you can start to see changes are happening to the feed, and of course, the measures of productivity. I have a worker that just produced 10 parts of the skateboard truck assembly. Now I have a worker that just started the clamping jig that we uploaded earlier. And look at that, my rock-star just finished that particular product. Now of course I just sped that up so you could actually see what's happening, but the point here is simply that you're able to see what's happening in real time from Fusion 360 from the web, from a mobile device, or a tablet whenever you would like.
If you would like to download this Prodsmart dashboard for Fusion 360, please feel free to use the link that's on the screen or the QR code. It is a zip file for the add-in. And you're going to install this add-in just like you would install any other add-in for Fusion 360. That's simple.
So let's summarize for a few minutes here. We talked a little bit about-- we gave an intro of Fusion 360, and explained what Fusion 360 is and why it is so awesome. We then, of course, gave an intro to Prodsmart and talked a little bit about what smart actually accomplishes and how it does that. And then we talked about why connecting the two together could be beneficial. And by the way, just as a reminder, when we talk about Fusion Team, Fusion Team is really just the back end of Fusion 360. So we're just talking about the web interface there, but we can utilize Prodsmart, the desktop app for Fusion 360, and the web interface or Fusion Team together to be able to get the most value out of what you're actually doing.
You can connect Fusion 360 3D models and 2D drawings to Prodsmart and that ensures that your production floor always has the latest 3D models and 2D drawings. You can also connect your Autodesk Fusion 360 setup sheets and NC files to Prodsmart to ensure that your production floor always has the latest NC files and setup sheets. You can also use Fusion Team to store work instructions in video form. Whether they are standard videos that you shoot with the camera, or screen grabs from your computer, or, of course, animations from Fusion 360.
Any of the above can be put into Fusion Team and then links put into Prodsmart so you can access them from the work instructions. And then we talked about how to import a Fusion 360 3D model directly into Prodsmart itself so you can access it from the web or from the tablet. Lastly, we talked about how you can install the Prodsmart dashboard for Fusion 360 into Fusion 360 so you can actually see that dashboard as you're doing your CAD, CAE, or CAM work.
Last on the list is two favors I'm going to ask of you. If you enjoyed today's session, please help me with these two items. But first, I would love for you to please click the recommend button on this class page. I really mean it. My goal is to be the number one rated class on the Autodesk University site, and that means I need a lot of those recommend button pushes. So please, please, please, press that button form. And the second, perhaps more fun of the two, is I would love for you to send an email to my boss. That's right. I want you to send an email to my boss and tell him what you think of today's class. In order to help you, I made yet another QR code. This will pre-populate an email from you to my boss and allow you to be able to send it as is or of course, modify it. Feel free to modify it to whatever you would like.
I just want to say thank you so much for attending today's session. It was a true pleasure to be able to show you how Fusion 360 and Prodsmart can connect together in ways that are beyond what we could do today and to be able to make your production floor always have the latest files. I hope you have a wonderful day. Enjoy other Autodesk University classes. And don't forget with Fusion 360 and with Prodsmart, you can make anything. Thank you so much, and have a great day.
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