British lawnmower maker Hayter has been synonymous with grass cutting for more than half a century. Not only is the company a supplier of premium lawnmowers for the great lawns of English estates, golf courses and parks, but Hayter has also put professional-grade mowers within reach of every English gardener who cherishes a fine lawn.

        So, when Hayter set out to redesign its residential Harrier Model 41, it faced a number of challenges: develop a sleek, new design for the residential market; maintain its reputation for performance and long life; accommodate space for a refitted Briggs & Stratton engine; and replace the tooling used to make it.

        In approaching these challenges, Hayter turned to the CAD/CAM package it relied on to produce its award-winning Harrier 48 model, VX OverdriveTM from VX Corporation, to achieve a complex design all the way from design through manufacturing. “We wanted to modernize the Harrier 41, but we also wanted to reinforce Hayter’s distinctive ‘family’ appearance,” said Paul Goodwin, design engineer for Hayter. “Most of our residential mowers are wedge-shaped machines with fairly straight lines, but we decided to take advantage of the opportunity and explore more complex curves and surfaces and free-form shapes, but do it in such a way that we maintained the integrity of the Hayter look and feel.”

        Experimenting with new shapes, but still remaining faithful to Hayter’s product identity made it crucial that Hayter retain as much control of the design in-house as possible.

        “If you’re not using a CAD/CAM package like VX, then you’re forced to hand over 2D drawings to outside people and rely on their interpretations of those drawings,” said Goodwin. “VX really helped us to be able to produce exactly what we were thinking, including complex curves and shapes. It certainly enabled us not to be daunted by the shapes we wanted. We didn’t have to go back to the square shapes and flat sides, which was really satisfying.”

        The project began to take on greater significance as the redesigned Harrier 41 provided a framework for extending the more complex shapes and surfaces to the rest of Hayter’s residential product line.

        “In this case, VX really became a platform for moving further in this direction,” said Goodwin. “So much so that we began to refer to the new Harrier 41 internally as our ‘Genesis Project.’” The experience will allow Hayter to incorporate more curves, contours and shapes while reducing costs and improving the manufacturing of future redesign projects.

        During the concept phase of the project, Hayter used hand drawings to sketch out some of the shapes favored by the design team. An outside prototyping shop was hired to build a model. The design then moved to VX’s hybrid modeling tools, which allowed Hayter to make design changes ‘on the fly.’ While Goodwin has worked with other types of visualization software, he believes VX Overdrive is extremely accurate when it comes to machining parts and assemblies.

        Hayter believes one of the key benefits of VX was the ability to provide a working model of the deck assembly, while still being able to modify it. Data created in VX was easily exported to the casting company for CNC milling and machining.
An equally important challenge of the redesign was to reduce noise production and improve grass collection. VX was used to model a new plastic injection-molded part connected to the underside of the main casting, enabling Hayter to stay well ahead of current and forthcoming noise regulations. Using VX, Hayter was able to sculpt the helix to fit around other parts, while still maintaining functionality.

        “We’ve used VX for five years at Hayter,” said Goodwin. “You can’t beat it for functionality. Indeed, the functionality was what helped us control the design through to manufacture.”

        The new Harrier 41 will be introduced to the market in February 2002—but will still be recognizable as a Hayter by its signature dark-green color.

About VX CAD/CAM

        VX CAD/CAM software offers premium-performance capabilities typically available only in expensive enterprise-level products. VX Overdrive is the only value-priced, premium-performance CAD/CAM product that integrates design and manufacturing to eliminate the gap between CAD and CAM.
Manufacturing planning and CNC machining routines are integral parts of the VX engine and provide exceptional synchronization between design and manufacturing. In addition, VX Overdrive provides sophisticated functionality such as advanced surfacing, intelligent sketching, photo-realistic rendering and history editing, which are typically only found in premium-performance CAD/CAM software.

About VX Corporation

        VX Corporation is the pioneering developer of advanced, integrated CAD/CAM solutions for engineers and industrial designers. Using VX’s design-through-manufacturing solutions, companies can speed time-to-market, increase profitability and gain a sustainable competitive advantage – made possible by new breakthroughs in technology, price and performance. Unlike conventional CAD/CAM systems, VX technology is built on an exclusive, high-performance VX Overdrive engine that delivers sophisticated 3D hybrid modeling capabilities and provides interoperability with emerging process management and engineering tools. Some of the world’s leading manufacturers rely on VX software to drive the design, engineering and manufacturing of innovative products.

# # #

For further information, contact:

Paul Mormack (413) 445-7790        
Brodeur Worldwide        
pmormack@berkshire.rr.com                

Vince Mercurio (321) 676-3222
VX Corporation
vjm@vx.com

VX® is a registered trademark and VX OverdriveTM is a trademark of VX Corporation.