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Case Study
·Commercial Kitchen Manufacturing·2026

One parameter.
Not a rebuild
from scratch.

Custom stainless steel casework varies on nearly every order. Widths, heights, door counts, frame layouts, none of it repeats exactly. We built a single parametric template that turns that variation into a set of numbers instead of a redesign.

The Problem

Knowledge that
lived in someone's
head, not the model.

Each new job meant a designer rebuilding geometry from scratch, or hand-editing a prior job's model and hoping nothing downstream broke. That worked at low volume. It didn't scale.

Every manual rebuild carried the risk of a missed dimension, a door that didn't line up with its frame opening, or a toe kick gap that only showed up once the unit hit the shop floor. The knowledge of how to build these assemblies correctly lived in a handful of people's heads, not in the model itself.

The Approach

One skeleton driving
every downstream part.

A single driving skeleton carries the true parametric intent for the entire assembly. Change a width or a door count once, and everything downstream updates in lockstep.

Skeleton.ipt driving sketch with dimensional parameters in Autodesk Inventor
The driving skeleton sketch. Every dimension shown here (fx:) is a parameter, not a fixed number.
Back counter frame assembly generated from the driving skeleton
The frame assembly the skeleton drives. Every strut and bay position traces back to that one sketch.
Parameter table showing tiered classification of dimensions in Autodesk Inventor
Every parameter is tiered by who's allowed to touch it, and when.
The Parameter Tiers

Not every dimension
should be touched the same way.

Every parameter in the skeleton is classified into one of three tiers, right in the parameter table where a designer will actually see it.

Tier 1
Required per job — the dimensions that change on every order: length, depth, height.
Tier 2
Override per job — has a sensible default, but can be adjusted when a job calls for it.
Tier 3
Fixed standard — locked shop standards a designer shouldn't be touching at all.
Hard-Won Lessons

Not in Autodesk's
documentation.

These came from building the template, breaking it, and rebuilding it until it held up under real order variation. They're now baked permanently into how the template works.

01
Suppression isn't visibility
Frame Generator members can't be suppressed, only hidden. Any logic that tries to remove a frame member has to work through visibility state at every level of the assembly hierarchy, or the part reappears somewhere unexpected.
02
Every hierarchy level, every time
Visibility rules have to be set at every level of the assembly, not just the top. Skip a level and the model looks right in one view and wrong in the next.
03
Full paths, no exceptions
iLogic rules that call across documents fail silently without absolute file paths. It matters the moment this template gets copied into a new project folder, which is every job.
04
Two skeletons, not one
The toe kick gap in split frames couldn't be solved with a single driving sketch. It took two separate skeleton sketches to carry both halves of the geometry without a gap.
The Outcome

A parameter change,
not a redesign.

Completed back counter assembly generated from the parametric template

A designer sets the envelope dimensions, door configuration, and frame layout, and the skeleton propagates those decisions through every downstream component automatically. What used to be a rebuild is now a set of inputs.

The risk that used to live in someone's memory now lives in the model's logic, where it can't be forgotten on a Friday afternoon. It's the same principle behind the CAM stabilization work we'd already done for this same manufacturer: find where tribal knowledge is doing the job a system should be doing, and build the system.

1
Template drives every job variation
0
Manual geometry rebuilds required
4
Structural failure modes solved for good
"

Find where tribal knowledge is doing the job a system should be doing, and build the system.

The operating principle · Kaisyn Labs
Client name withheld at client's request.
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