First I start with reading the customer's spec, then pencil and paper. Often the whiteboard workbench as well!
Later I would move on to Assembly Design and Part Design workbenches.
Ok, so all humor aside, my point was that designing jigs and fixtures in Catia V5 typically does not start in Catia. The software is only a tool, and the tool is much more useful when you have a clear idea which direction you are driving. My personal experience has been in aircraft jigs and tooling for the past eight years or so, all in V5. Now, I'm only assuming you're dealing with aircraft because it says (Aerospace) right after your name.
On a very practical point, aircraft tooling is typically specified by the customer to be done in aircraft coordinates. To meet that, the very first starting point in Catia is to create a new product in Assembly Design workbench. The very first thing to insert into the product is the aircraft component itself, and Fix it in position. The next point from there is to insert your new parts and products, and commonly we will fix those in position as well.
This means that a particular part or assembly often has its origin (in CAD) located somewhere far away from the part itself, i.e. on wing axis if you're working on wing tooling.
What I mean about reading the customer's spec is that many aerospace companies are very particular about the method in which jigs and fixtures designs are created. Your customer should be supplying you with piles of documents detailing their requirements, if in fact that's the case. There are often rigid requirements about the tree structure in your model, part numbering conventions, rules about constraints and external links, even down to acceptable colors to apply. (Red is sometimes banned, because that's Catia's update color)
Hope that helps a little, and sorry if it's all old news!
Handy workbenches for jigs and fixtures beyond Part Design and Assembly Design, will be Generative Sheetmetal and Structure Design so look out for these if you have them available to you.
I have personally grown a passionate hatred towards jigs and fixtures. Except if you get to design them in a DELMIA context and then simulate the assembly process itself. Then I guess it's cool. Otherwise they can GTFO
KevinDeSmet and MarkAF,
Appreciate your input, really was a great help !
Looking into a tooling position in aircraft design.
Worked for a lead at another company and he moved to
another company. I found him on LinkEdin and sent him
an email. He wanted my resume and asked if I had
tooling. I replied yes but has been awhile.
Waiting to hear word if his manager agrees to take me on.
Thank you so much !
MarkAF any experience with automotive tooling? why do the parts have to be in aircraft coords? it's not like the tooling is used in the design of the AC.
also please tell us some more about it, it was a very educational post.
Ok, to start with, all my experience in automotive is working on my own cars; no experience in design, whether parts or tooling of any kind, so I don't know any of the rules or conventions there. I'll mention that I have used Delmia a bit for simulation work, but that's been outside the realm of deliverable data, and the working environment is very different.
Having not been an aircraft OEM, I can't say with certainty why they always want the modeling done in aircraft coordinates. But, here are a few points that I speculate. Please note though, that this all applies to assembly tooling, and I have no experience with detail part manufacture tooling (I expect it's probably the same for detail parts).
1) Data sharing and evaluation becomes easier. As the customer, the expectation is that I can create a new product and insert both the tool and the aircraft parts, and everything drops into the exact right location without needing any positioning.
2) Most parts are unique, one-off parts whose design depends on the position and orientation of the aircraft part, which are also commonly unique parts. See point 1 above.
3) The assembly tooling will determine in large part the configuration of the aircraft component, which of course is critical for the quality of the final product. The design model will be used to generate metrology points; the metrology point coordinates are then used to set the tooling. If the model is accidentally moved in CAD even 0.5mm, then your metrology points will be wrong and the tooling will lead to wrongly built parts. See point 1 above.
4) Doing all the work in a common coordinate system (design, metrology, tool setting, buy off) reduces the risk of errors. Again this relates to Point 1; everybody is playing in the same sandbox so to speak.
So I think the bottom line is a risk management issue, with secondary benefits in terms of convenience that the models will all just line up when done correctly. Hope that helps with your understanding.
