Case Studies

Razorleaf Helps AMF Bowling Score a Strike with SmarTeam

Generations of children have stood in wonder on their first trip to a bowling alley, mesmerized by the smooth motion of the automatic pinsetters and the sight of brightly colored balls spinning up the ball return. The technology that makes a bowling alley operate isn’t magic – it just seems that way.

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Behind the scenes AMF Bowling, a division of QubicaAMF , engineers a complex and carefully timed dance of moving parts to be both rugged and precise. AMF designs and fabricates most of the parts it uses and assembles everything from the ball returns to the laminates for the flooring. The pinspotter, for example, includes more than 3,800 different parts, all of which must be engineered to work smoothly without clashing.

Managing such complexity isn’t easy, as Brian Williamson, CAD-PDM Administrator and design engineer with QubicaAMF Worldwide, will be the first to admit. “When I got here four years ago, I think I spent more time trying to locate the designs for the parts in our machines than I did designing new ones,” he says. “CAD files were scattered all over the network and on local drives with very little chance of being found again so they could be reused.”
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Razorleaf Helps Nuclear Power Toolmaker Use PDM Tools to Speed New Product Design

Utilities worldwide are engaged in a complex struggle to meet the world’s escalating demand for electricity without increasing emissions of greenhouse gases. The challenge has re-focused attention on nuclear power, enjoying a resurgence as today’s only commercially viable, carbon dioxide-free technology.
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