RTC is a global point of sale company based in Sittingbourne, Kent. Long time users of SOLIDWORKS, they design products such as presentation devices, shelf management systems and full retail store planning. Their work can be seen all over the globe, with a lot of business coming from South East Asia. RTC’s clients include big names such as The Body Shop, Adidas, Nike, Polar, Lego and Ugg.
RTC were the first major player in the Point of Sale Industry to take on SOLIDWORKS and have found it to be extremely versatile. They use it right through from concept design to development and engineering for everything from small injection-moulded presentation devices to full shop-fitting and layout planning. As of late, they have also been taking on the design of air conditioning, sprinkler systems, and lighting.
The company wins most of its contracts through tendering, beating off more than a dozen competitors. Jeremy Thompson, lead designer in the Engineering department says, “SOLIDWORKS looks very slick in presentation environments. The thing that blows our clients away the most is the layout planning capabilities in SOLIDWORKS. Even high level plans incorporate the specifics of fixtures and fittings – something that was impossible with 2D CAD.”
RTC really are making the most of SOLIDWORKS’ functionality. To ensure longevity while maintaining aesthetics of their larger point of sale unity, they use laminated sheet metal. The sheet metal functionality in SOLIDWORKS has proved very effective in both the design and manufacture of these products. They can design the product inside of SOLIDWORKS, flatten it and automatically create the 2D drawings such that it can be sent to manufacture.
For more organic shapes, such as some of their smaller point of sale units, the surfacing tools in SOLIDWORKS are there to help RTC get their ideas on screen in a way that facilitates their manufacture. Creating a cavity mould for these organic shapes is simple; it is then just a case of sending the SOLIDWORKS files to the manufacturer to have them produced.
The layout planning team takes the large assemblies that make up a shop outfitting and creates all of their 2D drawings in SOLIDWORKS.
Associated bills of materials will understandably be quite large. RTC’s are even more complex than you might expect – every one of these BOMs include the units (e.g. Nike shoes) that will be displayed in addition to all of the components needed to assemble the displays. SOLIDWORKS has been excellent in helping put these tables together – it would otherwise be a huge challenge to do by hand.
The thing that has possibly helped RTC the most is the eDrawings functionality included in SOLIDWORKS. RTC is an international company – they have offices in Chicago, Singapore, China, Russia and Kent, and have clients all over the world. Communicating their solid model geometry in 3D with E-Drawings has been a game changer for RTC and has allowed them to get quick feedback from clients and vendors.
Another benefit RTC has enjoyed is the speed with which they can put together layout plans in SOLIDWORKS. When their office in Singapore needs a layout plan to be designed for a new retail store, the design team in Kent can have the layout plan completed in SOLIDWORKS and emailed back by the time the Singapore team return to work the next day. It is this quick turnaround that allows their offices all around the globe to collaborate seamlessly. With the help of SOLIDWORKS, RTC was recently able to take a full shop fitting of a 1500 sq/m Adidas store from design to completion in 4 weeks.
On Innova Systems…
Jeremy was an early adopter of SOLIDWORKS back in 1997 before he joined RTC. As such, he’s had experience with a number of other CAD resellers. “For us, the key aspect about working with Innova Systems has been their superior technical support. I’ve been frustrated in the past when we’ve needed some assistance with SOLIDWORKS – typically we’ve had to log a support request with the company and wait days for a response. This is no good for us. By the time the reseller had got back to us, we’d either worked out the answer for ourselves or found some kind of workaround. When we need help from Innova Systems, we have access to a direct line to their support team. If it can’t be resolved there and then, it is done by the end of the day.” RTC work to strict deadlines set by themselves and their clients that need to be kept to. We know that they are not unique in this respect – all of our customers get the best service possible. That’s why Innova Systems was recently voted the number one SOLIDWORKS reseller in Europe for customer satisfaction for the second time.
Take a look at other companies using SOLIDWORKS in the point of sale industry
