Reducing Design Time from Six Weeks to Minutes with Tacton Design Automation
The Challenge
While water treatment systems are made up of fairly standard elements, each unit is custom-designed and fabricated to each individual customer’s needs. Changing the diameter of a sedimentation tank by half a foot, for example, has a knock-on effect on many other components – and their interdependencies. Keeping on top of this complexity was a challenge. And quoting for, designing and engineering the systems was tedious, time-consuming and error-prone. Producing a design specification for a sedimentation unit, for example, would involve 100 plus drawings, and typically take four to six weeks.
Today, ClearStream can complete the same process in as little as two days. In an industry where margins are extremely small, these efficiencies make a big difference to the bottom line.
The Solution
One area where ClearStream has seen great benefits is in the bidding process. Previously, designers would work from an existing proposal, changing the details for the new specification. To give even a crude approximation of what the customer wanted would take up to two days.
With Tacton Design Automation, ClearStream is now producing accurate, high-quality quotes with detailed drawings in a fraction of the time it takes the competition. And the company’s hit rate has gone up dramatically.
“This type of automation has been a key factor in our business growth.”
Brian Bartholomew, Senior Project Engineer
About ClearStream Environmental
ClearStream Environmental was incorporated in 2002 to provide superior process equipment to the water and wastewater treatment industries. ClearStream has experienced tremendous success over the past few years, and has grown by approximately 100% per year for the past seven years.