Altrust switches its CAD systems to ZWCAD

Guangzhou, China: May 27, 2009 - Altrust Precision Tooling Co. Ltd., is one of the top 10 mold manufacturers in Asia and is ISO-certified. For more than 15 years the company has been specializing in product design, mold making, machining, assembly, and prototyping.

Its products range from household appliances and office equipment to communication facilities and accessories for automobiles and motorcycles. These products sell well at home and abroad, and have won a good reputation amongst its customers. Recently, Altrust selected ZWCAD from ZWSOFT as its primary design tool.

Figure 1. Altrust headquarters building

Mold making is at the top end of the manufacturing industry, and is usually characterized by high productivity, high maximum efficiency, and technical competence. With the recent downturn in the economy, Altrust found it necessary to examine its processes in order to maintain its leading position in the mold making industry and meet the requirements of its customers.

Prior to 2006, Altrustintroduced numerous CAD software packages to its design and production departments. These advanced systems included Pro/Engineer, SolidWorks, Unigraphics, FreeForm, an ERP system, and a CAPP system, as well as an independently-developed 3D design system.

Altrust Adopts ZWCAD

In order to expand its business more efficiently, Altrustbegan to look for a single, more advanced CAD system that was capable of handling its mold making needs. Commencing in February 2006, Altrust evaluated ZWCAD through a series of intense benchmark tests. Following a successful outcome, Altrustselected ZWCAD as its main design tool. It found ZWCAD to be superior in the areas of DWG compatibility, program stability, speed, and five-star service.

Figure 2. Working environment of Altrust's engineering departmentAn Altrust engineer designs with ZWCAD

Altrust employs more than 200 engineers and designers in its R&D (research and development), engineering, and production departments. All are now taking advantage of the capabilities of ZWCAD for designing and modifying application modules for use in technical support and production.

The application development at Altrust falls into two parts: ‘module design’ and ‘module parts’. In the first, engineers are migrating all of the functionality and designs from the other CAD platforms; in the second, they are developing new functionality on the ZWCAD platform.

Due to the strong technical support provided by ZWSOFT, Altrust was quickly able to solve many technical problems, thereby ensuring that model customization continued smoothly.

Figure 3. Processing chart of electronic die mold

Figure 4. Processing chart of hand-washing liquid mold

"ZWCAD has the powerful features and high performance that we were looking for. Our engineers find that they work very easily and conveniently with it, due to its compatibility with and similarity to AutoCAD," said Mr. Xie Ye Qing, Director of Altrust's R&D department. "What’s more, we found great innovations in ZWCAD, such as its dynamic input capability.”

"Due to ZWCAD’s fast upgrade schedule and rapid development program, since our first installation in 2008 we have now commisioned it on most of our computers," he continued. "What we particularly like is the API (application programming interface). The R&D department is now testing the speed and performance of ZWCAD's APIs so that we can gradually move all of our processes to the ZWCAD platform.”

The Future of ZWCAD in the Mold-Making Industry

Mold making is the cornerstone industry of Hengli Town, Dongguan. The town is home to more than 600 mold-making companies, headed by Altrust. Due to the global financial crisis, however, it has been confronted with declining orders, along with pressure on product pricing. The intense competition has compelled it to shorten its production cycles. In these circumstances, it is essential for it to adopt advanced CAD technology, and ZWCAD has proved to be the optimal choice.

By applying ZWCAD, Altrust's efficiency in model design and production has been greatly improved, and the production cycle also been shortened. Toensure the continuation of these benefits, ZWSOFT is committed to providing innovative, reliable and cost-effective CAD solutions which will help mold manufacturers to further improvetheir production efficiency and product quality.