High QA Leverages HOOPS Native Platform to Help Transform Quality Assurance Processes
Streamlined and improved quality processes ensure products are made in less time with fewer mistakes
July 20, 2021 – Bend, OR USA – Tech Soft 3D, the leading provider of engineering software development toolkits, today announces that High QA, a leading provider of integrated quality management software solutions for industrial manufacturing companies around the world, utilized the advanced toolkits in the HOOPS Native Platform to streamline and improve quality processes. By improving CAD data access and 3D data publishing, High QA empowers their customers to accelerate development of powerful engineering applications with fewer mistakes.
While manufacturing quality engineers have traditionally used 2D drawings throughout the planning and inspection process to make sure parts meet specifications and standards, the rise of Industry 4.0 – and related initiatives like Quality 4.0 – has meant that many companies now expect their suppliers to use a 3D Model Based Definition (MBD) workflow.
“Supply chains are becoming more global at the same time that parts are becoming more complex, smaller, and requiring tighter tolerances,” said Sam Golan, Founder & CEO of High QA. “Quality assurance is more important than ever. A 3D model is excellent at describing a part, but quality assurance is a process – and quality groups still rely heavily on 2D drawings to inspect, validate, and report on parts. Customers often receive a 3D model and then are forced to manually extract the dimensions in order to create a 2D inspection plan for the part, which is considerable extra work for the end user. Additionally, preparing 2D drawings from MBD datasets during the quality and inspection phase often involves assumptions and interpretations. This can introduce errors and increase risk for the on-time delivery of quality parts that OEMs expect.”
High QA provides integrated quality management software solutions for industrial manufacturing companies around the world. The company serves customers in key industries like aerospace, automotive, defense, heavy machinery, and oil & energy, with an eye towards solving the quality challenges they face. Viewing these challenges, High QA saw an opportunity to bridge the gap between the promise of MBD and the reality of quality processes, and to create a better way for customers to integrate 3D MBD into their manufacturing quality workflows.
Given the importance of working with 3D data to develop an effective solution, High QA turned to the HOOPS Native Platform, a collection of SDKs for desktop and mobile application development, for foundational aspects of its Inspection Manager product.
“We evaluated three different technology providers over a period of several months, and we felt Tech Soft 3D was the best fit,” said Golan. “It’s not just about the quality of the technology components – it’s also about the quality of the people who support the components, which is very important to us as well.”
One of the key development kits in the HOOPS Native Platform is HOOPS Exchange, which provides support for 30+ engineering and visualization formats. In addition to faithfully reproducing Product Manufacturing Information (PMI) for all the major CAD formats, HOOPS Exchange fully supports all predefined views and model configurations stored in the original CAD model. With the single click of a button, Inspection Manager automatically extracts PMI from the native 3D model and creates an auto-ballooned 2D drawing and a bill of characteristics, with no manual effort or interpretation required.
“Quality engineers don’t necessarily need to see every single view or every annotation – a lot of it isn’t relevant to them,” said Golan. “Inspection Manager makes it easy to ‘clean up’ and prepare the model so that it’s easy for the quality team to work with.”
Leveraging HOOPS Publish – an SDK that enables applications to publish 3D data in several ways, including as native 3D PDF, HTML, and in a variety of standard CAD formats like STEP – allows the model to easily be shared downstream as needed, in conjunction with the 2D drawings. Ultimately, the ability to automatically extract accurate 3D model data and deliver it in an easily consumable fashion helps ensure products are delivered within tolerance, comply with all applicable standards, and are made in less time with fewer mistakes.
Golan concluded, “When it comes to quality processes, it’s simply not practical to hand someone a 3D model and tell them ‘Okay, go work with this.’ By combining Tech Soft 3D’s technology with our own innovations around efficiency and automation, we’re allowing companies to make 3D MBD useful for quality processes – and, in the process, to streamline their quality processes and efficiently work in partnership with their entire supply chain.”
About Tech Soft 3D
Tech Soft 3D is the leading global provider of development tools that help software teams deliver successful applications. Established in 1996 and headquartered in Bend, Oregon, Tech Soft 3D also has offices in California, France, England and Japan. The company’s toolkit products power nearly 500 unique applications running on hundreds of millions of computers worldwide. For more information, visit www.techsoft3d.com.
Media Contact Angela Simoes 415-302-2934 angela@techsoft3d.com