Fast-spinning merry-go-rounds will soon be a thing of the past as parks and schools replace them with playground equipment that meets tougher safety standards. By designing playgrounds that are safe, fun, and durable, Nitto Sangyo has become one of Japan's most innovative business successes. Founded in 1939, the company garnered high praise for its fantasy rocking rides and an award-winning bow-shaped seesaw. It is also noted for park benches and clock towers, for which it uses Autodesk® Inventor® and Autodesk® Alias® Design software to significantly reduce overall design time and costs, maintain design integrity throughout the development process, and create high-quality imagery for persuasive proposals.

To keep pace with increasing sales of its modular playground equipment, Nitto Sangyo needed to respond with custom designs as quickly as possible―as well as create an enjoyable planning experience for its customers.

"Our approach is to work closely with our customers to design an entire playground site―enabling them to freely combine rockers, ladders, climbers, and other components to fit their budgets and space requirements," says Taro Ogura, design manager.

A popular component of Nitto Sangyo's playground equipment is the Link Mini, a collection of rocking cartoon characters, airplanes, animals, and other fun objects for children. To induce the rocking motion, most rocking equipment relies on a large metal spring—which can suffer structural fatigue and create a playground hazard. With the Link Mini, the rideable portion is supported by an interior cylindrical pole that sways back and forth within a carefully calculated range of motion.

Because it relies on this solid inner structure rather than a metal spring, the riding portion of the Link Mini will never fall to the ground, even if fatigue breakdown occurs, making the toy safer than spring-based rides. Also, since only a few parts need to be replaced when fatigue occurs—rather than the entire product—the Link Mini is superior not just in safety, but also in terms of cost and ease of maintenance.

Nitto Sangyo's design team uses Autodesk Alias software to create the free-form curves of the Link Mini's rideable surfaces, which range from dinosaurs to bunny rabbits. Importing this conceptual design data into Inventor software enables the team to easily carry out the next step of the process and perform structural analysis on the interior support structure. The team also performs simulations on the Inventor digital model that calculate the impact of children's body types and sizes, so that the overall design of the ride can be modified until it meets operational requirements.

"The Autodesk solution for Digital Prototyping has been very beneficial to our product development processes," says Ogura. "We have successfully created the Link Mini rocking ride faster and at a lower cost largely because of the smooth integration of Inventor and Alias software."

In short, Digital Prototyping helped Nitto Sangyo make smarter choices at every step. Eliminating reliance on physical prototyping shaved about two months off the development time of the Link Mini, while significantly reducing overall costs.