Case Study: Vapor Stone Rail Systems achieves faster development, improved large-assembly sheet-metal design, and fewer prototypes with SolidWorks

Advancing Passenger-rail Vehicle Door Development With SolidWorks Software

Vapor Stone Rail Systems, a developer of automated passenger-rail vehicle door systems, faced challenges designing large assemblies of sheetmetal parts while ensuring safety and reliability for products required to run millions of cycles. After using Solid Edge, the company selected SolidWorks 3D CAD—deploying 12 seats of SolidWorks Professional and a seat of SolidWorks Premium—to gain more robust large‑assembly performance, integrated product data management, and built‑in analysis tools.

SolidWorks implemented improved large‑assembly handling (700–1,500 components), collision detection, advanced sheet‑metal modeling, integrated SolidWorks PDM, and SolidWorks Simulation/SimulationXpress for upfront analysis and validation. As a result, Vapor Stone Rail Systems accelerated development cycles, reduced prototypes and interference rework, better met shock/vibration and two‑million‑cycle reliability requirements, and improved design data control and customer communications using SolidWorks tools.

Vapor Stone Rail Systems

Pascal Choiniere

Mechanical Engineering Manager