Create a factory design utilities asset

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Let's dive a bit deeper into assets.

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I call them 3D building blocks of the factory layout previously and that is exactly what they are.

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You use these assets to populate your layouts,

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building a library of commonly used equipment, helps catalyze a transformation for asset reuse and interoperability.

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In inventor language, they are simplified version of Part/Assembly.

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They can either be native inventor files or models coming from other tools,

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suppliers, vendors, machine catalogs via AnyCAD.

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By defining certain parameters as key parameters, you can set an asset up for being configurable.

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We can also pre-create different varieties of an asset that might be used frequently.

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For example, a conveyor with different lengths and widths, cranes with different heights, etc.

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On top of that, You can unlock further automation by using a ilogic rules,

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which allows for user friendly scripting in the design context.

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Throughout the preparation process of any asset, you have the chance to define one or multiple connectors,

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the point or points at which one asset will be attached to another one.

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This takes away the need to manually create constraints as you populate the layout.

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And lastly, there is another layer of automation you can tap into which is called asset chaining.

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Imagine you have a certain route within your factory where a conveyor system would run through.

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By configuring an asset chain,

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you can simply create a poly line in AutoCAD for the route or a sketch within inventor

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and have it be populated with assets automatically.

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Sounds good. Let's look at the creation of an asset in more detail.

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We are looking at a packing machine assembly model within Inventor here.

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You can see that it is a fully detailed representation containing all necessary parts including nuts and bolts.

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We don't necessarily need that level of detail in the factory planning process.

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So the first step is to create a simplified representation of this assembly.

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For that, we start to simplify command from within the assemble tab in the ribbon.

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In earlier versions, called Shrink wrap.

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Within the dialogue,

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we can quickly remove large chunks of detail by excluding certain components based on their size,

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use presets for simplification, accessing the design views and more.

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Apart from that,

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we also have the possibility to take out actual geometric complexity by removing features such as Fillets,

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Holes or Pockets as we see fit.

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After choosing the type of the derived instance,

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in this case, is going to be a part file and giving it a meaningful name to it.

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We can finish up the simplification process by selecting any advanced options and confirming everything with okay.

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This is as much as we are going into detail in terms of simplification today.

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These capabilities can also be used on any third party models coming from other CAD tools.

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Now that our simplified instance of the packing machine is generated,

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we can give it an initial save and start the asset builder from the factory tab in the ribbon,

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which will take us into its dedicated space.

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You will notice that the asset builder space promotes a left to right

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workflow somewhat guiding you through the setup and publishing of the asset.

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The first step is to define a landing surface,

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the plane on which the asset will be placed later on relative to the factory floor.

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Optionally click the Insertion Point button to specify a vertex,

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work point or sketch point as the insertion point or points for the model.

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This insertion point represented by a gold sphere measure can be used to help you accurately locate the model on the floor.

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Multiple insertion points may be defined.

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Next. It is time to create one or multiple connectors.

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As mentioned before, this help assemble components on the factory floor reducing manual user input.

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Connectors allow snapping between specific points on each component and aligning them based on the axis of the connector points.

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In our case,

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there's some preparation needed to be done to identify the exact location where we want this machine to connect to other assets.

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We therefore create the necessary work geometry and user parameters.

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We also use some of these user parameters,

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exposing them as key parameters for demonstration purpose.

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These will show up in the panel on the bottom left

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and allow us to control different instances of this asset in the factory space easily.

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Once the connector is correctly defined,

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by selecting the Work Point from the model browser,

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we can correct position and orientation

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the asset will have by connecting it to another one.

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In this case it's already correctly predefined and we can also optionally select a Connector Class for this asset.

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We won't go too much into detail for that today as it's already a bit more advanced functionality.

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Within the asset properties, we can enrich the model with factory specific metadata,

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process analysis relevant information and predefined a layer for our asset.

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These would be the main steps to prepare a model for publishing it as a factory asset.

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So we can go ahead and initiate the publishing from the ribbon command.

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Within the publish dialogue,

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we can choose where we want to store our asset,

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in a local asset library, in the cloud or test drive, or in a Vault library.

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We also give the asset a meaningful name

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and on the next tab we can choose which other representation should be generated automatically.

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On the third tab,

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you can define how any instance of this asset will be appearing within the Bill of Materials by default

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we now start the publishing process and with that conclude the basic asset creation workflow.

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All the information will be stored within .faf file.

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Within the chosen library and any user with access to it can place instances of this asset within their layouts.

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But you may say now we have thousands of models going through this process

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for each to build up this library will cost too much time.

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Yes.

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Building up an asset library is the line share of effort that needs to happen initially.

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So here are a few tips.

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You can go through the out of the box library of system assets that comes with the factory design utilities installation.

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There are many pre-existing models that might already be useful for you or niches slight modifications.

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Also, there are models of different vendors already included. For example, for industrial robots.

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Also, it is always helpful to perform a brief assessment of which models will be most needed as an asset to get started with

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and which ones might be okay to be published at a later time.