The AutoCAD Factory Design Utilities provide design tools and an optimized environment for factory floor layout. They also allow you to open legacy DWG facility layouts and add factory intelligence to those drawings. The factory drawings can then be used to populate a 3D layout in Inventor Factory.
2D Factory Layout
A 2D factory layout is a DWG model of a factory, warehouse, or office environment. The size and complexity can range from a work cell to an entire factory. The layout can contain building elements such as walls, columns, and utilities. You can layout individual pieces of equipment and create routing paths for each product.
The AutoCAD Factory Design Utilities allow you to add intelligence to the factory layout. The intelligence can be added to a legacy facility layout or a new file. The additional data provides the needed information for analyzing layouts, generating reports, and automatically populating the factory layout with 3D assets in Inventor Factory.
A typical workflow entails the following:
- Create a simplified layout (e.g. rectangular shapes) and assign the station information.
- Create Products that will be manufactured using the defined stations.
- Create product routings through the stations.
- Save as a 2D DWG factory layout.
- Bring into Navisworks Factory using the Sync Navisworks command, or Inventor Factory using the Sync Inventor or the Inventor Factory New Layout from DWG commands and populate with 3D assets. (If any 2D assets and chainable assets exist in the DWG layout, they are automatically replaced with their 3D asset equivalents when opened in Inventor.)
User Interface
The Factory Design Utilities user interface is located on the Factory tab and laid out with panels named Tools, Asset Builder, Suite Workflows, Material Flow, Planning, Utilities, Learn about Factory, and Community. A blend of Factory and standard AutoCAD panels create the default Factory working environment.
Many of the AutoCAD Factory user interface tools are described below.
Tools panel
There are four palettes associated with the AutoCAD Factory Design Utilities: the Asset Browser, the Block Browser, the Material Flow Browser, and the Properties Browser. The palettes share the browser area and can be adjusted using standard resizing methods. The browsers can be docked in different positions or left floating if pulled away from the application frame.
- Asset Browser - Provides access to the installed assets, user assets, and cloud-based assets. Assets are components that, together, make up the content of a factory. They can include architectural features, equipment for material handling, processing equipment, and so on.
- Block Browser - Lists all blocks in the current drawing with their asset attributes. You can double-click a block name in the Block Browser list and publish an asset in the Asset Builder environment.
- Material Flow Browser - Provides access to defined stations, products, and routings. From the browser you can manage the definitions of these factory objects. Context menus provide access to commonly used commands.
- Properties Browser - Provides access to material flow object properties. The properties display is based upon the selected materials flow object and can be modified.
Asset Builder panel
The Asset Builder panel provides tools that enable you to create an AutoCAD Factory asset of a 2D block, associate a 3D object to it, and define its orientation. The asset can then be published as a local asset or to the Cloud. A 3D representation of the object then appears when the AutoCAD layout is synced to either Inventor Factory or Navisworks Factory.
Suite Workflows panel
The tools in this panel enable you to create a bi-directional associative link between a 2D AutoCAD drawing and a 3D layout in both Inventor Factory and Navisworks Factory. The link, called Layout Sync, can be established between Inventor or Navisworks and AutoCAD Architecture or AutoCAD Mechanical.
Material Flow panel
The Material Flow tools provide the means to define products that are to be manufactured in the facility, the stations where the processes occur, and the routes between the stations. Once you have a layout, you can analyze the transportation costs and machine utilization and power consumption. Reports of the results can be produced so that multiple scenarios can be compared and documented. When the layout meets your requirements, the layout can be sent to Inventor Factory where it becomes a 2D overlay that is populated with 3D assets.
- Import - Allows you to bring in spreadsheet data generating variable related information pertinent to the factory layout.
- Export - Provides a means of storing and sharing layout variable information in spreadsheet format.
Planning panel
This panel contains the Create Process Model command which opens the Autodesk Process Analysis 360 web-based process modeling tool. This tool allows you to quickly build a functional model of your proposed assembly line, factory, or industrial machines. You can then simulate its operation to identify potential bottlenecks and optimize performance.
Utilities panel
The Utilities panel features a collection of familiar AutoCAD commands, like MEASUREGEOM, ID, QUICKCALC, etc. It also features the Connect command which is unique to AutoCAD Factory. This command connects factory assets by picking unconsumed (unused) connectors on the assets.
Learn about Factory panel
This panel contains several commands that help you learn more about AutoCAD Factory.
- Factory Help - Opens the AutoCAD Factory Help documentation that is shipped with the product.
- First Experience Videos - Links to the Autodesk Factory Design Suite channel on YouTube.
- What's New - Displays information about the new functionality in your version of the Autodesk Factory Design Utilities.
Community panel
The Community panel provides easy access to the Autodesk Knowledge Network (AKN), discussion forums, and business-related social media sites where you can view helpful videos, share information, and get assistance with unfamiliar factory issues.
Factory Assets
- Factory Assets - A library that contains models of standard factory components such as conveyors, ductwork, and walls. You can publish your frequently used models to the library. The library also stores any downloaded cloud assets.
- Cloud Factory Assets - Factory asset requirements differ based on the industry type and sophistication of the manufacturing process. To help disk storage requirements, some assets are located on a cloud server and can be easily downloaded on-demand. A local instance of each asset is cached for use.