Playrite designs, manufactures, and installs all manner of artificial sports surfaces in the UK and EU. By deploying BricsCAD for the design of its playground surfaces, Playrite is now more efficient than ever.
Complex and detailed designs
Manufacturing sports surfaces requires more preparation than people might think. Imagine a multi-sport playing area 100m long and 60m wide for example. Its lines are marked in white for soccer, yellow for hockey, and in red for the two five-a-side soccer pitches. The playing surface is created by laying long four-meter-wide rolls of artificial turf onto a compacted sand sub-surface. Each roll has the required stripes (white, yellow and red) woven in during the manufacturing process after being carefully measured and calculated.
From manual to automated tasks
Playrite needed one single CAD platform that could enhance productivity across the team by automating tasks. As Playrite Sales Director Chris Pickles explains, their previous working processes were not scalable or sustainable.
“Before moving to BricsCAD, playing areas would be hand-sketched and the costs estimated manually. This hand sketch would then be used as a presentation to the client, and when the contract was won, each roll had to be designed for manufacture. As you can imagine, this was a very time-consuming task.”
The company wanted to offer their customers a roll layout for a sports pitch or tennis court that they could also incorporate into their production program. A local BricsCAD reseller and developer, CADaptor Solutions, created a personalised application that could run on top of BricsCAD and automate these tasks.
“BricsCAD allows us to draw the layout, then recalculate the most economical way to supply our carpet. From there we can then create the number of rolls needed and in the right sequence for production. With BricsCAD, we now have a program that handles the design, the cost estimation, and the manufacturing layout all in a matter of minutes.”
Playrite sees the advantages of their ‘personalised’ CAD solution, which makes it easier to stay ahead of their competitors.
“We are very happy with the results and BricsCAD is quite simple to understand and use. We are only using the 2D features and functionality, but I can imagine there is so much more available.
“BricsCAD has given us an edge over our competitors.”
“At the same time, it has enabled us to implement a production system that is transparent throughout the entire sales process from initial quotation and ordering to planning production and invoicing. All the details are available in BricsCAD.”
