Digital Prototyping Helps Company Speed Development of Lightweight, Fuel-Efficient General Aviation Engine

SAN RAFAEL, Calif., March 31 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Autodesk, Inc. (NASDAQ: ADSK) today announced that ADEPT Airmotive (ADEPT), an innovative manufacturer of general aviation engines for the light aircraft market, has been named as the Autodesk Inventor of the Month for March 2008. ADEPT relied upon Autodesk Inventor engineering design software to develop its revolutionary 320T -- a 320-horsepower general aviation engine with a compact design that offers low vibration levels and high structural integrity. The 280 lb. engine is lighter than a traditional piston engine of comparable horsepower, allowing the 320T to reap significant fuel efficiencies to the operator of the aircraft and is less impactful on the environment.

The Inventor of the Month program recognizes the most innovative design and engineering advancements made by the extensive community using Autodesk Inventor software -- the foundation of the Autodesk solution for Digital Prototyping.

Leveraging Digital Prototyping capabilities within Inventor allowed ADEPT to produce accurate 3D models of the 320T before anything was actually built -- reducing the number of physical prototypes that needed to be constructed. Processes that once took hours -- such as changing the wall thickness of an engine component -- were completed almost instantaneously with Inventor. This allowed engineers to spend less time constructing geometric models and more time creating innovative designs, and then simulating the performance of the designs under real-world conditions.

"Digital Prototyping was absolutely critical because it allowed us to bring a single digital model through every phase of design and development," said Richard Schulz, managing director at ADEPT. "We were able to explore the form, fit and function of our designs, without expending time and resources on physical prototypes."

This optimization process allowed ADEPT to minimize potentially expensive downstream changes by catching errors before they reached manufacturing. As a result, ADEPT -- with a core team of only three designers -- was able to produce a working prototype of the 320T, paving the way for the introduction of a new generation of modern general aviation engines.

"Digital Prototyping allows manufacturers of any size to innovate more effectively while simplifying the concept to manufacturing process," said Robert "Buzz" Kross, senior vice president of Autodesk Manufacturing Solutions. "ADEPT's remarkable achievements are a testament to this notion, and it is a pleasure to name them as our Inventor of the Month for March."