How the SIMSCAN Cuts Reverse Engineering Time in Half

Based in Columbia, South Carolina, CADmore has built a reputation as a company with the 3D design expertise to turn its customers’ ideas into high-quality products. Those customers, from solopreneurs to Fortune 100 companies, turn to CADmore when they need something new created—or something old recreated.

In this case study, we find out how CADmore has used a Scanology SIMSCAN 30 from Digitize Designs to cut its reverse engineering time in half, improve accuracy, and safeguard its manufacturing processes.

Reverse Engineering in Slow Motion

CADmore is a product development and mechanical engineering company whose bread and butter is 3D design: finding out what a customer needs and creating a top-quality 3D model for them.

Sometimes, however, a project starts not with a fresh idea but with an existing part. That might be a legacy part that needs a digital twin, an outdated part that needs replacing, or a broken part that needs to be digitally “fixed” so an intact version can be manufactured.

So how does CADmore turn a physical object into a new 3D design?

As the company found out in 2024, some ways are easier than others. That was when it took on a major reverse engineering job with a large consumer goods company, attempting to manually measure around 100 parts per month.

According to Davis Latham, CADmore’s Operations VP, the process was slow, lacked accuracy, and ultimately cost them the contract.

“I regret every day that we didn’t have a 3D scanner for it,” Latham says. “We just weren’t producing the level of quality that we needed to produce, because we were doing hand measurements. It still gives me nightmares: we were all sitting there with calipers, triple checking each other’s work and taking pictures.”

Bringing 3D Scanning In-House

CADmore was already familiar with 3D scanning for reverse engineering, using Digitize Designs’ 3D scanning services for a few projects a month. (CADmore engineers would mail us physical parts, we would digitize them, then they could work their magic on the files we sent back.)

But the sheer volume of that 2024 job was a tipping point. It convinced the company that having its own 3D scanner would be worth the investment.

“It was after that project that we made the decision: if we’re ever going to be able to take on a project like this, we’re going to have to do it with a scanner,” Latham recalls. “We ran the numbers, and we couldn’t make the margin work without bringing it in-house and spreading out the cost of that scanner over many projects.”

That decision was made easier by market conditions. In fact, bringing 3D scanning in-house aligned with the company’s broader strategic vision.

“We knew that there would be an attempt and a desire to onshore manufacturing in the U.S., both using traditional and advanced manufacturing techniques, and that the vast majority of people who were doing overseas manufacturing didn’t have the CAD data that they needed,” Latham says.

That meant the rest of the CADmore team was fully on board with Latham’s plan—especially once they had seen the tortuous manual reverse engineering process themselves: “I literally just had to show them pictures and say, ‘you know we have four people on the team working on this right now, when we could just be scanning it?’”

Cutting Reverse Engineering Time in Half

Once the decision was made to purchase a 3D scanner, the next task was finding the right model.

Having already established a working relationship with Digitize Designs, CADmore told us its requirements in terms of part size, scanning environment, level of detail, post-processing, and budget.

Bo Helmrich, our Director of Customer Success, then provided Latham with a range of options via video call, and CADmore decided on the Scanology SIMSCAN 30, a palm-sized device known for its precision and portability.

Over the last couple of years, the SIMSCAN has delivered on its promise.

According to Latham, reverse engineering time has halved. Previously, manual measurement would take about 90 minutes, engineering 60 minutes, and validating the measurements another 30 minutes. Now, about 30 minutes of scanning and 60 minutes of engineering is all it takes.

“Literally nothing beats a scanner,” Latham says. “It’s probably at least half the time per part. But that doesn’t even do it justice, because it just sucks measuring parts all day long!”

Maintaining a close relationship with Digitize Designs has also been an asset for CADmore, as on-demand assistance from our scanning experts allows CADmore’s engineers to focus on design and engineering.

“The fact that Digitize is available to help is of tremendous value to us, because I don’t have to reassign someone to educate themselves on something that to us is a tool, not the core business,” Latham explains. “Scanning is a part of our business, but we don’t want it to become the only thing we’re focused on all day.”

Scanning as a Tool on the Production Line

With the SIMSCAN 30 in its arsenal, CADmore is now in a better position to take on massive reverse engineering projects. But the company is also discovering new uses for its scanner.

Over the last 12 months, the company started offering metal 3D printing services through its sister company, CADmore Metal, which specializes in a cutting-edge variant of the Selective Laser Sintering (SLS) process called Cold Metal Fusion. In this department, the scanner is being used not for reverse engineering, but quality control.

“We now use the scanner to do comparison scans and determine the accuracy of our manufacturing processes,” Latham says. “We’re scanning, adjusting our print parameters, and then scanning again.”

Being able to use the scanner in different areas of the business shows that CADmore is making the most of its investment.

“The scanner accomplishes what we need it to accomplish, and we’re still learning new things that it can do,” Latham explains. “So not only have we not hit a wall, there’s probably a door that we could open to learn even more about it.”

To find out how your business could benefit from an in-house 3D scanner like the SIMSCAN, contact us today or schedule a demo.