Jede keeps business on solid ground with Autodesk solutions for Digital Prototyping.
"By virtually exploring our products before they become real, we are able to order materials at an early stage and easily stay within our budgets. It is quite clear that Digital Prototyping saves us both time and money."
—Marcus Berntson, Development Manager, Jede Automater
Project Summary
It’s no surprise that coffee breaks are a deeply rooted tradition at Jede Automater. For the past 40 years, the Sweden-based subsidiary of Nestle has been designing and manufacturing coffee, beverage, and soup vending equipment for the European workplace with gross sales of approximately $54 million and 200 employees worldwide.
The company serves approximately 2 million cups of liquid a day, and it focuses on offering products and services that range from a single automatic dispensing machine to complete, customized break solutions. Using an all-digital product development workflow with Autodesk® Inventor® Professional software and Autodesk® Vault Manufacturing software, it has been able to:
• Significantly reduce the time to market
• Cut costs and stay within budgets
• Manage design data efficiently
• Collect direct feedback from customers
The Challenge
In a growing marketplace such as this, Jede faces increasingly tough competition. Not to mention that people’s tastes in coffee and other beverages change regularly and can differ across various countries and cultures. Keeping up with these changes and adhering to tight budgets and timelines requires it to stay ahead of the competition when it comes to product design and functionality.
The Solution
To support groundbreaking innovation and a rapid time to market, Jede relies on the Autodesk solution for Digital Prototyping. Using Autodesk Inventor software, the company’s developers can design, visualize, and simulate their products before they produce physical prototypes.
“For example, it was an enormous advantage for us to use Autodesk Inventor to design our newest automatic coffeemaker,” says Marcus Berntson, development manager at Jede. “At a very early stage of the project, we were able to demonstrate the appearance of the automatic dispenser and perform the analysis that was needed before it was time to produce the actual product. Plus, the 3D model was so realistic and detailed that our company representatives were able to bring it to retailer conferences to collect direct feedback from customers.”
To track all the design components for the digital prototype, reuse the design data, and automate the release and change management processes, Jede uses Autodesk Vault Manufacturing software.
“Vault Manufacturing is a potent system, which is crucial when we need to go back and view all of the versions we are working on,” says Berntson. “Since it is tightly integrated with Inventor, it is easy to use, and it protects us from unintentional overwriting of good designs.”
The Result
Berntson points out that Jede’s designers are well ahead of the manufacturing processes with Autodesk software, and that the time savings can be measured in months. “By virtually exploring our products before they become real, we are able to order materials at an early stage and easily stay within our budgets,” he says. “It is quite clear that Digital Prototyping saves us both time and money.”
