RCID

Automated Stairlift Design Tool

Problem

A stairlift design company have developed a modular rail system for curved staircases. Dealers visit customers’ houses and measure the staircase and client, this information is then faxed back to the design team who use SolidWorks to manually draw up a stair lift. The finished drawing is sent back to the dealer for signing off, and then forwarded on for manufacture, delivery and installation. The company wanted to reduce this lead time using a web based solution.

Solution

The RCID’s software team worked with the client to fully understand the order and design processes. Rules and decisions in the design process were documented from interviews with the stairlift design team.

The RCID’s software and mechanical engineers developed algorithms for producing suitable stairlift design solutions for given staircase and client measurements.

The algorithms are also flexible enough to handle changing rail part availability plus modifications to part specifications in the database.

Due to the modular nature of the stairlift there can be any number of solutions for a given staircase. The software is able to produce a number of these and score each according to criteria specified by the client.

The solutions can then be viewed in the web browser as interactive 3D VRML models.

These solutions are then exported into SolidWorks where a macro produces the drawings, bill of materials and cut lists ready for manufacture and installation.

The web application is able to take survey data and provide a number of possible solutions for the client to view within a matter of minutes rather than days, greatly reducing lead-time.