Factory Design Suite: The Power Is in the Workflow

DEEPAK MAINI: OK, so what we might do is start with some introductions as people are trickling. We'll give them a couple of extra minutes. As I said, party last night. People would have had a few drinks, you know? It's hard to wake up in the morning. All right. So my name is Deepak Maini. I'm the national technical manager for Named Accounts at my company called Cadgroup. And if you haven't still figured it out, I am from Australia, Sydney. And that's why it's 2:57 AM in my clock. So 2:57 AM, followed by party last night, a few drinks. So you guys can understand where I stand, right? If I fall asleep, blame all this for the party. Not me.

All right. I thought I'd just put this slide in for no real reason. I realize that everybody just loves Star Trek. Everybody loves Darth Vader, and the storm troopers, and so on. So I thought to wake everybody up I'll just put this slide in for no real reason. As I said, my name is Deepak Maini. I am a qualified mechanical engineer. I'm also a guest lecturer at two of the main universities in Australia, namely University of New South Wales, and university of Technology Sydney. Both these universities I teach construction management to post-graduate, as well as graduate classes. I've been speaking at Autodesk University for a few years now. In fact, this is my sixth year.

I'm also an author. I've written a few books. So this book here is on a software called Navisworks. How many of you use Navisworks? Fantastic. So at the end of my book on Navisworks I have got a chapter specifically dedicated to Factory Design Suite. Basically, using Navisworks in the factory, and running from scratch all the way to the end. And this work here is on a software called Advance Steel, which is a steel detailing package. A lot of factories require a lot of structural work done, as well. So this book is all about steel detailing and things like that. Was anyone in my Advance Steel class on day one? I don't-- this gentleman here was. No? All right. No worries.

So [INAUDIBLE] I thought I'll probably do some because it's last day, 8:00 AM. You guys obviously had to put in a lot of effort to come to this class. So I'm going to give a few presents to you. I'm going to give away a couple of copies of my Navisworks books, and obviously, to win those books you'll have to answer some questions. So I make sure that I ask the hardest questions, so nobody could answer, and I could take the books back. Nah, I'm just kidding. I make sure that you guys get some goodies. So I'm going to give away a couple of copies of my Navisworks books that I've got in these nice bags here.

Bluebeam, thanks to them they have given me a few t-shirts to give away, and a few Bluebeam mouse pads. Anybody here uses Bluebeam Revu? Good. So you can grab a few mouse pads. The mousepads have got shortcut keys there so you don't have to remember good keys. And Pluralsight, they have given me a few caps, ear plugs, and a couple of power bags to give away, as well. So hopefully a lot of you guys will win things in this class. Especially people who sit at the front row. They get a lot of stuff anyways.

So without answering a question you get those. Sorry, you get [? a 2XL ?] [? tee shirt. ?] See? Anybody who sits at the front row has to be appreciated, right? Everybody wants to sit at the back. Nobody wants to sit at the front row. So we have to appreciate people. All right.

So my aim is to keep it simple, have fun. That's my aim. Have fun in the class. Ask a lot of questions. I like questions. Having said that, anybody who asks more than one question, I will charge you guys. Again, I'm just kidding. OK. First of all. Units and millimeters. Why? Because I'm from Australia. We work with metric units. A lot of you guys work with imperial here. I know you guys won't like it, but unfortunately that's how things work. How many of you work with metric? Oh, decent. Good, good, good. Imperial? Oh, good. Oh, you work with dual units, do you? OK. Brilliant.

This class is being recorded, which means that I have to be politically correct, and not say anything that's politically incorrect. But most importantly, you will be able to watch this class at a later stage or pass it on to your colleagues. It will be available under on-demand classes at the Autodesk University website. I'm happy to receive emails from the attendees any time about Factory Design Suite. I love the product. It is fantastic. And my aim in this class is to show you how easy your life will become once you start using the workflow.

Mobile phones on silent. Please, please make sure that mobile phones are on silent. I'll make sure mine is. Yes. Nothing more embarrassing than my phone ringing in the middle of the class. OK. So you guys, when you signed up for this class, you already know the class summary. I don't have to repeat it to you guys. But basically, we are going to talk about the entire Factory Design Suite workflow. A lot of people have got Factory Design Suite software, but they haven't seen the entire workflow from scratch, to a proper digital factory, where you could do walkthroughs and clutches and so on. That's my aim.

At the end of the class you'll be able to do all these things. Again, when you signed up you would have already seen these things. So you should be OK with this. All right. So in this presentation I'm going to talk about three main scenarios. And at the end, we'll be able to plug-in the Oculus. People who just came in won't know this. But before I started my presentation I had my Oculus plugged in where you could actually immerse yourself in your digital factory, take a walk around, and see if there were some problems and so on. So hopefully, if time permits, we'll put the Oculus back on at the end. And if somebody wants to try it on I'm more than happy for you to do that.

So the first workflow that I'm going to talk about is the entire factory design workflow, as I said from scratch, to your original factory. The second one, which is an actual customer issue, is where we use this factory to resolve a problem where the building was done by an architect, and our customer, they dig pits and so on to service the machinery.

And the problem was when they were creating this machinery, with the pits and so on, sending the files to the architect, they were manually placing it, and the things were not getting placed at the right location. And it was causing a lot of problems for everybody. Especially once you started doing the excavation, and realized that it's not the right spot. It's not easy to fix those. Especially when you're cutting into a concrete slab. So we fixed that issue using Factory Design Suite. And the customer loves us. They are using it probably for the last six years, and they love the workflow.

And the third scenario is, again, Factory Design Suite, outside the factory environment. And so in this case there was a warehouse logistics solution company. The concept was, let's say, a big warehouse. It could be a DHL facility. It could be Targets, and things like that, where they want to put the racking systems in. The sales guy from this racking company goes in and looks at the massive lay out, and the client says, I need this many rows of racks here, and this many rows here, and things like that.

So this guy then, poor guy, draws it on piece of paper, comes back, gives it to the conceptual team. The conceptual team comes up with the concept. Then they send it to the client. Client says, yeah, looks good. But move this, move this, move this. I can't this red thing, blue thing, and so on. So the poor guy goes back and forth. And the turn around to get the basic concept in front of the customer was two weeks. In this case, we use the Factory Design Suite to bring that time down to one day. You would be amazed to see how this could be done. And I'm going to show you all that stuff.

And finally, as I said, if time permits, we'll put the Oculus back on, and we'll look at the virtual reality stuff, all right? OK. So before all this Factory Design Suite came, out which now is called, by the way, Project Design Collection. So as all of you know, there there are no more suites that you can buy. You buy collections. So before Product Design Suite Collection came out, what happened? How did we lay out the factories? We used to AutoCAD LTs. How many of you use AutoCAD LT to layout factories? Some of us have, because that's was the only option available.

And then we used to X-ref all these 2D machine layouts, and other things, structure, services, and so on. And that made a really complicated drawing. And we used to look at those red, green, blue lines, unload, reload, x-ref, and so on, which was a big pain. So there was no real means of looking at the virtual factory to have a proper 3D model to see how the factory looks like. Do we have enough space in here? Where are we going to put this machine? Does it have enough power to service this machine? And so on. That was a big, big problem.

No option to check or resolve clashes. Clash is a big problem. I want to put a machine here but what if there is something protruding out of the wall, and I can't put my machine here? Which means that I need to move my machine, maybe 250, 300, milli-- or in your case, a few feet to the left. But then it's interfering with some other machine. Maybe I need some space cordoned off, which I can't do. So we can't run those clashes, if you're running that in the 2D environment.

So this is how our factories looked like before Factory Design Suite came out. And looking at this first thing I started getting is a headache. What am I looking at? Can't really understand. And imagine people who are not from design environment, who just sign the checks. Showing this to those people makes it really, really hard for them to understand what's going on. So this is where we need a better solution.

Is there a better solution? It's funny. My boss says I look like her when I'm grumpy. Which I'm most of the times when I'm working on this stuff. So is there a better solution? The answer is yes. And that better solution is Factory Design Suite, or as I said, what we call as Product Design Collection, now. So what we'll do is we'll look at this scenario one, where I'm going to show you the power of Factory Design Suite. So we are going to start with creating a 2D layout of factory. And now, please note that I'm using AutoCAD Architecture. Not AutoCAD.

Now, this guy doesn't get the t-shirt because he's a colleague of mine. He can get the t-shirt back in Australia, as well. We are talking about how people in the front row get goodies. You know what? You can get this. Make sure you Return it back to me after the class.

So please note that I'm using AutoCAD Architecture, not AutoCAD here. And I will show you why am I using AutoCAD Architecture. You would be amazed what this program is capable of. Then we're going to use one to one sync between AutoCAD Architecture and Inventor. And this is where the magic will begin. This is where in one button click your 2D stuff would suddenly become 3D.

And then you can take that into Navisworks, and then have a walk through, and run your clashes. So we're going to create a virtual factory in Navisworks. And we'll perform our clashes between various items. Make sure that everything is fixed. And then we can send that model off to the client to have a look at, whether in the virtual environment, or on their tablet devices, or whatever it is. As I said, resolve clashes, and update the virtual factory.

So what I'll do here now is I'll sit down, and I'll show you this stuff on my computer. The problem is once I sit down I can't look at you guys in your eyes, which means that you might fall asleep. Make sure you don't do that. But that means that I might fall asleep as well. Make sure you don't let me do that, all right? OK. As I said, I'm happy to answer questions, but because we've got so much stuff to cover, if you hold on to your questions till the end, when we're talking about the Oculus, and so on, then I can answer all those questions, deal? You Unless it is an urgent question, without which you can't proceed further, than I'm more than happy to answer the question right away. All right.

So first of all, when you install Factory Design Suite on your machine it installs this, what we call as a dashboard. That dashboard has got these three tabs. On the applications tab it shows you all the different applications that are installed as part of your program. You also have got the Workflows tab where you can deploy a particular workflow. Like, I want to start with a 2D layout. I want to do a material flow analysis. I want to do a process analysis. And things like that.

There have been a few other classes in which they've discussed these things in detail. In my class I'm not going to talk about these things in detail, because I'm going to talk about the proper workflow between three main programs, which are AutoCAD Architecture, Inventor, and Navisworks. So what I'm going to do is fire up AutoCAD Architecture from here. So it loads AutoCAD Architecture on my machine. If I go in and start a new file now. So this is my AutoCAD Architecture environment. Looks like your proper normal AutoCAD, or AutoCAD LT environment.

If I go to the Home tab here-- now, in the past you would have used these commands like lines, arcs, circles, and so on. Why do you keep doing that? So we have used commands like line [INAUDIBLE] circles, and so on, to draw your 2D layouts of the factory. Whereas, in my case, I'm actually going to use these smart commands like walls, doors, windows, stairs, and so on. Now you would notice that the concept is very similar to what you have been using in AutoCAD. And it looks like as if you are just drawing lines. But when I activate this wall command it displays this properties panel. But it's showing me all these properties of the walls.

Now, the process of creating this, you would notice, is exactly the same as if I'm drawing lines. But then instead of drawing lines I'm actually doing proper walls. So this is the exteriors walls. Also, that's 12 meters high. I'm going to start some over here, go down, punch in some values. Let's say, 16 meters going down, then I want to go left. So it looks like I'm drawing lines, because I'm using all these objects, snap trackings, and things like that. But the fact is, I'm actually not drawing lines. So let me just go in here, punch in, let's say, 80 meters. And then I'll right click, and say Close.

So it looks like I have simply gone and used line command to draw lines. So what it's done is used-- or create double line, which is what we've got in AutoCAD LT, at command called DLINE. In AutoCAD we've got a command called MLINE. So you would think that that's what I have done. But the fact is, that's not true. It's not just parallel lines. If I spin the model around, you will notice that it is actually proper walls that it's drawn of the height that I defined. If I change my display to, let's say, conceptual display, you can see that these are proper walls that I have drawn. Not just parallel lines. And if I double click on this wall, it gives me all the properties of that wall as well, just in case I want to modify any of these properties. Let me close out of that. I might just change the display back to 2D wire frame. And then let's go to the top view again.

Now, I want to draw some interior walls, so I'll go back to the wall command. Because it's an interior wall I might change it to, let's say, 4200, and then I'll use my object snap tracking, just like you would do in normal AutoCAD. So as you could see, all I'm doing is using my objects tracking, exactly the way you would do it in AutoCAD. Nothing fancy. But when I punch in these values-- so I want to go 12 meters here and come down. Snap onto this. So it not only draws the wall, it actually cleans it up, as well. And it's not just, again, parallel lines. It is proper wall of 4200 height that I defined.

So again, without changing my current workflow, instead of just using the line command. I'm using the wall command to draw these objects. Again, let's have some other walls over here going down 15 meters, snapping onto this one here, draws this one. And although these are wall objects I can use commands like copy, and move, and so on, that we've been using in normal AutoCAD to copy j things. So I'll save copy, click some over here. And I need three of these. I'm going to use the array option.

How many of you knew that there's an array option inside copy command? Did you guys know that? You know, all these extra AutoCAD tips, I'll be charging you extra for this. I shouldn't be showing you these extra AutoCAD tips, all right? All right. Just kidding. So I'm going to click some over here. I need to create three of these. So go down, type in, let's say, I need 12, 500 spacing, enter. And it creates those additional walls here. Spin the model around, and you can see that these are proper walls. Cleans up everything, and does exactly the way that I want it to look like.

So it creates all these internal walls. Let me go and change this to 2D wireframe. Look at the top few. The next thing I want to do is I want to place some doors here. So I'll go to the door command. And now it comes with a massive library of doors that I could select from. Let's say, this is the default door that I want. I'll go and pick the wall where I want to place the door. So just pick the wall here and it goes and shows me the preview of the door it's placing.

In the plan view, it looks like it is just a normal 2D door that we place as a block. The only problem is, if it was AutoCAD, or AutoCAD LT, you had to first trim the lines, and then put the door in, right? Whereas in this case, let's say I want this value to be 250 from the left, but it's showing me the value from the right, how do I-- and this is a question for the cap-- how do I change it to the value from the left? So I want 250 from left, not 10405 from right. You're not allowed to answer the question.

Now, I want to see how it's showing me 345 value here. I want this value to be 250. Quickly.

AUDIENCE: Tab?

DEEPAK MAINI: Tab. Yeah. Who answered first? You did? Somebody else at the back did as well. So we'll probably give away two caps. So one to this gentleman here. One there. And one to this gentleman here. All right, so all I'll do is I'll press the Tab key here. So by pressing the Tab key it switches over to this. And then I type in 250, Enter. So it places this door. The only problem is the door is swinging in the wrong direction. You know how we have dynamic blocks in AutoCAD? You can flip sides, and so on? That's exactly what I'm going to do here. Click on this, and now it's the flip side, and it flips on to the other side.

I want to place the same door here. Again, because it's an AutoCAD based program, I could press Space bar, or Enter, to invoke that command again. And then I'm going to pick this wall. I'll press tab. Let's say 250 from here, as well. But again, I want it to open in the other direction. But instead of opening it in this room, I want it to open in the other room. So I'll go ahead and simply flip it, and now it opens in the other room.

So what it's done is it's placed all these doors here. Now, to further place things like roof slabs, and roofs, and so on, we've got all these smart tools, where you can place roof slabs, et cetera. You can go to the stair option to create stairs, railings, stair towers. You can even go and place columns, and column grids. So all these commands in built inside the program. Now, to save some time, what I've done is I've already created a factory that I'll open here.

Again, as you can appreciate, it's going to take a bit of time to create this from scratch. So to save some time I've already done this. If I go and turn on the visibility of the slab layer for ground slab. So this is the factory, and you would notice that when I change this to conceptual display now the door that looked like 2D doors in the 2D environment, or plan view, they're actually proper 3D doors here. So they are not just blocks that look like door swings. They're proper 2D doors here when I change this to a 3D view. So when I spin the model around, you can see that this is a multi-level factory. And the reason I'm creating a multi-level factory is to show you a specific workflow where we are going to create a spiral conveyor, and connect it to the next level.

I'm going to change this back to 2D wireframe. And also turn off, or freeze this layer, to make it a bit easier. Now, this is where, let's say we want to start placing some machines, and some conveyors, and so on. Again, in your normal environment you would go to your tool palette, where you have all your blocks for your machines, and so on, same, and you would drag and drop the blocks. Is that right? Or you would use the Insert command, and insert your blocks. Is that right? That's how we work? Yes? No? Maybe? Yep.

So what we're going to do is, instead of using the tool palette, this is where we are going to now start using a really, really smart tool that comes as part of Factory Design Suite called Factory Asset Browser. Now, Factory Asset Browser is similar to tool palette, but the difference is it comes with a massive library of assets out of box. Now, you can also go and create your own assets, which is what I'm going to show you.

So in this tool palette, you would notice that there's a folder called, System Assets. Now, System Assets is the folder that comes out of box, where you've got this massive amount of folders, where you've got conveyors. You've got [? mechular ?] handling items. You've got process equipment, and so on. So if I go under conveyors, we've got belt conveyors, we have got chain conveyors. We've got shoe conveyors, and so on. All these conveyors out of box. You don't have to do it. The Factory Design Suite team has done a lot of hard work in the background to make it easier for you guys.

Now if I just go up one level, in my case, I also have my own folder here called Factory Library. Now what the concept of this is, what I did was I had all these machines done in Inventor. You know, how many of you use Inventor? All of you use Inventor. So obviously, we create our machines, or our assets in Inventor. Is that right? The problem is they're only available in the Inventor environment. Now, this is where in Factory Design Suite you can convert those machines into your factory assets. And in the process of doing that it'll let you create the 2D representations of that as well. And the best part is the 2D representation is linked to your 3D to representation. So you can place the same machine in the 2D environment, click a button, and that's where the magic is. Everything, when you go to the Inventor environment, converts into 3D machine. Alternatively, you can place the treaty environment in Inventor as a 3D machine, and you sync back to AutoCAD, and it shows you the 2D representation.

So that's my assets that we have. I use some of the artist assets out of the box to do this. And that's what you see here. Now, the reason I'm able to see this library here is because I went into my Factory Asset tab here. And now there are two options here. I've got a default project file, and I've got a project file for this particular drawing. Now this is red, so I'll just go and quickly pick up the project for this particular class, which was imper-- Yep. So because of this Inventor project that I've linked to this file here, whatever libraries I define inside Inventor, I can see the same libraries here in the AutoCAD 2D environment, as well.

So this is the product that I just added here. So, as I said, there's a default project file, and there's a current file project file that we can override the default with. Now, you would notice that there's also this little tick box here used to set Inventors active project. Now, a question for a power bank, any idea? What does this do? Quickly.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

DEEPAK MAINI: Exactly. So let's say in my Inventor environment I had a different IPJ file current. You know how in Inventor we have got projects, so I had a different project file current. By selecting this tick box it makes sure that when I sync back to Inventor, irrespective of what my project file was current in there, it makes this project file current. Otherwise, you know how we have this problem that is says, "missing library" and "missing files" and so on? This makes sure that does not happen for you. It automatically fixes the project file for you.

So because of having these files listed here, I can see my factory library folder. So this is what I'm going to do. I want to place some 2D assets from my factory folder. The problem is, let's say if I do not remember which exactly is the machine I want to place, I can go to any of these assets. I can right click on any of these assets. So for example, I'm going to go in here, right click on this, and say, Preview. It now shows me this little preview window that I can spin this around, as if it was a 3D object, to see how it looks like in the 3D environment. It also gives me some properties related to it. And as you can see, the property's telling me that it was an Autodesk asset created by Autodesk.

So this is the point I'm trying to make. Autodesk team has done a lot of hard work in the background, and created lot of assets for you that you can start using from day one. Let's say I want to preview this one. I'll right click on this. And it shows me the preview of this particular file. Again, I can spin it around. That's the asset I want. So all I'm going to do is drag and drop. So just like you do that from your tool palette, you're just dragging and dropping these assets.

Now, my problem is it's holding it from this particular base point, which means that it's-- let's say, if I need to place it at a particular location, I can't really do it. So this is where I can simply right click and change the base point of this, and say, I want to use this as the base point for this insert. And then in my case, I'll click over here. ' But if you wanted to use the from option, and say, I want to place it at a certain distance from a particular corner, or slab, or a column, you could do that.

Also for the next placement, it now uses that particular point that I changed as my placement point for the asset. And I can use my object snap tracking to make sure that I'm lining these things up together. So I'll place the one here. And then I'll place maybe a third one somewhere here, using my object snap tracking. So in this case, it looks like as if I'm just placing these 2D blocks. And again, this is something that we've been doing in the past. The only difference is instead of placing the assets from our factory asset browser, we are just using our tool palette, or we are using the insert command. But in here we are using the smart assets available, our default factory asset browser.

And because these are like your normal 2D objects you can use commands like move or copy. Let's say I want to move this one here a bit. So I can simply use the move command, and move it. So the point I'm trying to make here is that there's nothing fancy. There is no change in your workflow that you've been using right now. It's not changing your workflow. So you're not changing your workflow. So instead of using your tool palette for your blocks, you're just using the factory asset browser.

Now, again, to save some time I've already got a file created, in which I've placed some more assets. So I've got these machines that I just place, and I've got some machines placed on this side, as well. And again, the whole idea is to save some time without affecting too much. Now, you can see that all these assets are currently placed on the ground level. There's nothing placed on level one of the factory yet. Everything is placed on this ground level here. Everything is 2D, except for my factory that I created in AutoCAD Architecture.

Now, the next thing I want to do is I want to place a conveyor line that goes between these machines. Now, normally if you've got, let's say the blocks for conveyor, you'll have to place each block at a time. Use the endpoints to snap onto those. Is that right? Whereas, what we are going to do, in this case, is I'll go to my system assets. And I'm going to go into the conveyor option. Belt conveyor is what I want to place. So we've got an option of placing these individual conveyors.

But there's a really smart tool available called Belt Conveyor Chain. Now, what this is going to do is it lets me create a chain of conveyors, as if I'm creating a thick 2D polyline. So I'll pick the point there, and I'll go and move the cursor, and I'll say, I want 80 meters of conveyor going in this. So it looks like as if I'm just creating a thick polyline. You know how we've got polylines that have got a thickness option, as well? So it looks like that's all I'm doing here. Just punching in a few values, creating thick polylines.

Most importantly, you will notice that my conveyors have got straight corners. So I've got 90 degree corners here, instead of they being curved. You know, the conveyors can't be straight 90 degrees. They have to be curved, right? Now, this is the best part, and this is what you're going to see once I convert this into 3D. What I might also do is probably just go in and place another line of conveyors over here. So I'll start some over here, and go to the right. That's the line of conveyor. Let's say I want it to be 50 meters. Enter.

And then, finally, I want to place a robot. Now, I don't know that the robot is available. And this is where we've got this search option available here, where you can just go and type in the asset that you're looking for. In my case, I'm looking for robot, Enter. It goes and finds all the robots that are available in my factory asset browser. Now, you would notice that I've got some of these assets here, and I've got some of these assets here, which are these white circles.

So this is a question for a Bluebeam mouse pad. Any idea? What does this white circle mean? Yes, please.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

DEEPAK MAINI: Sorry?

AUDIENCE: Cloud assets.

DEEPAK MAINI: Absolutely. What it means is these are cloud assets. So what cloud assets means is Factory Design Suite doesn't want a massive deployment to be created on your machine, which is like 100 gigs, or something. So what they do is they provide you a big library of assets out of box, but there's a huge amount of assets also available on the cloud, that you can download, on need by need basis. You don't have to download all of them in one go. You can download them on need by need basis, by simply right clicking on them, and saying, "download assets." The best part is there's a little option here where you can move the cursor, and you can also look at all your recently downloaded assets, which is what I'm going to show you in a sec.

But in this case, I'm just going to place this existing asset, place it somewhere here, and then I'll rotate this. Yep. That looks good. The only thing is I might just move it closer to the conveyor. So I'll just use the move command. Select this, move it a bit closer. Yep. Looks good. Now, what I might do is just go in and place a palette here, as well. I know where a palette is. So I can directly go to that folder. Material handling, palette. Yep. There it is. And then I'm going to go and place one of the palette's that's already downloaded. Just place it somewhere here.

So this is how I want my 2D layout of the factory to look like at this stage. So all I've done is I've used some of the assets from my custom library. Again, the ones that were created an Inventor that had 2D versions, I've used use some chain conveyors out of the box, and I've also used some more assets that were delivered to me as part of my Factory Design Suite. I'll go ahead and save this. And the next thing I want to do is I want to now look at the 3D version of this factory, because, again, as I mentioned, if everything is in 2D, it kind of defeats the whole purpose. So what I want to do is convert everything into 3D. And this is where I'm going to click on Sync Inventor, and that's where the magic will begin. And you'll see that in a sec.

There's also an option here called Sync Navisworks. I prefer Sync Inventor, because I can have a look at the inventor side of it first. So all I'm going to do is click on Sync Inventor. Here it says, in order to do this, it has to close its files. I'll say, yep. Go ahead and close the file, because I had Inventor already opened, it now loads this new file in this. Call it the same name as the name of my 2D file in AutoCAD Architecture environment, and starts to convert all those 2D assets into these 3D assets. And the reason it's done that is because the 2D version that I placed came from these 3D Inventor models. So as you could see, within no time, in a button click, it has now converted the entire 2D layout of the factory into this 3D environment, or 3D model.

If I just zoom into this area you can see all the machines converted to 3D, all the conveyors. Let's have a look at this now, and see how all the 90 degree conveyors have now been changed to curved conveyors. So this is what I was trying to tell you earlier. Although I'm placing them as 90 degrees by just typing in the values, when I convert them into 3D environment it automatically replaces the 90 degree corners by these curved belt conveyors.

Now, any idea why are some of these items red in color? So this is a question for the cap?

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

DEEPAK MAINI: No.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

DEEPAK MAINI: Sorry, not-- who answered nonstandard? You already won something. You can't-- that's all right. I'll give you a cap, as well. All right. Give it to somebody else who answered. All right. That gentleman there. Thank you. Yes. So these are nonstandard conveyors. So when we create, or when the artist, he created the conveyors out of default, there was a default size. And anything that doesn't match the default size automatically changes it to red. So the whole idea is to tell you that these are nonstandard items. Are you sure you want these nonstandard items there?

So for example, in my case, I don't want this end bit here. So I can simply select this, press the Delete key on my keyboard, and it deletes that bit. However, you would notice that the underlying yellow object is still displayed. That's because I haven't synced AutoCAD yet. So yep, I'm happy with this. I'll go ahead and save this. So it looks good. Now, just one more thing. See how in the lower left corner it's showing me these two values? Any idea? What are these two values on the lower right corner? The first value, 61, and the other value 15.

So the value 15 means-- sorry. OK. You answer the question and I'll give you the power bank.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

DEEPAK MAINI: No, that gentleman there. Yeah.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

DEEPAK MAINI: Yeah, Search you're--

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

DEEPAK MAINI: Unique parts, yes. So 61 are the total number of objects, and 15 are the total number of unique objects. So see I've got conveyors. So a unique conveyor is counted one in number 15, but it is counted multiple times and number 61. So 61 is the total number of items, and 15 are the total number of unique items. So I'm happy with this. I'm going to click on the Save button, and then I'll go and say, Sync AutoCAD. What it now does is fixes my AutoCAD file. And if I look at the AutoCAD file, you can notice that all the curved belt conveyors are placed here. So no more straight lines. And also the last bit has been deleted, because I fixed that in the Inventor environment.

So this is the ground level of this. Now, what I might do is-- let's have a quick spin around of this. I want to start placing some assets on the first level of this factory. So I'll simply use the ID command. Click on this, and-- what happened here? Press F2. Yep. So that's the z value of this height. I'm just quickly going to copy this, because I know you guys won't remember it. I'm going to go back to my top view. So I might just close this file without saving changes.

So going back into my Inventor environment. What I want to do is now start placing some assets on the level two of the factory. What I should do is probably turn off the grids so it's easier for you to see what I'm doing. Brilliant. So I want to start placing some assets on level two of the factory. To create level two I'll simply go in here, and go and use this tool called Create Sub-Layout. What this does is it now lets me create a subassembly here.

So this subassembly, when I sync back to AutoCAD, will automatically be placed as an x-ref drawing into my master drawing. It automatically does that for you. So level two, it creates a new drawing with whatever name I specify here, and x-refs into my master base level, as well. So what I might do is change this to level two factory. I'll go and say, OK, define the location of my floor, right click, done. So what it does is takes me to this level to factory. As you could see, the same name that I defined in my ballot box takes me there. The only thing I'm going to do here is move this floor up, because at this stage the current level is sitting at ground level, level zero, as well. So I need to move it up.

For this I'm going to go into reposition floor, pick this here. It's showing me in inches. OK. So I might have to just highlight this. Now, any idea what the value was? See, I knew you guys wouldn't remember. So I did the copy there so I could just do a paste. Make sure that I type in millimeters. Otherwise, it's going to move it to 100 inches. Done. That's all I'm going to do here. Save the file, close it.

So if I go into the browser tree, you would straightaway notice if I could move it down, that I've got a subassembly here called level two factory. If I double click on this, I can go to the level two factory environment. But what I want to do is to first place a spiral conveyor that's going to take my raw material from ground level to the top level. We need to change the view to this view here, so it's easier for us to see what we are doing. So that's where I want the spiral conveyor to be placed. I can go back into my system assets, and I'm going to go to conveyor. Yep. And then belt conveyor is what I placed earlier. So I've got two of these left and right hand. I'm going to place a right hand one.

So as sort of like-- yeah, I'm going to just change to 3D view, so it's easier. You will notice that as soon as I come close to my existing conveyor, the spiral conveyor snaps onto it. And the reason it snaps onto it is that we've got what we call connectors. So connectors will make sure that you are snapping to the right place. We don't have to worry about constraining, and so on. You know, people who are coming from Inventor environment, you know how we have to worry about constraints, and so on, everywhere? You will notice that in the entire factory, as of now, I haven't talked about constraints at all, because we don't have to worry about constraints. It automatically constraints on the ground plane for you, the assets, and the ones that are on the second level, you'll notice that it will place it on the ground plane of that. And when you are placing these assets we have got these connectors to connect them with each other.