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Autodesk has announced that it is shifting to a new buying process to streamline and improve the buying experience for your Autodesk subscriptions. These changes will take place on June 10th, 2024 for customers in the United States and Canada.
Acquisition Strengthens Symetri’s position as a leader in digital solutions, helping customers deliver projects more efficiently.
Addresses the urgent need for enhanced sustainable practices, reduced embodied carbon and CO2 emissions in the AECO and manufacturing industries
Autodesk has announced that it is shifting to a new buying process to streamline and improve the buying experience for your Autodesk subscriptions. These changes will take place on June 10th, 2024 for customers in the United States and Canada.
Acquisition Strengthens Symetri’s position as a leader in digital solutions, helping customers deliver projects more efficiently.
Addresses the urgent need for enhanced sustainable practices, reduced embodied carbon and CO2 emissions in the AECO and manufacturing industries
Company Overview
Mint Innovation is a clean technology company founded in New Zealand in 2016. It specializes in recovering critical and valuable metals from electronic waste (e-waste) using a proprietary biosorption and smart chemistry process. The technology extracts metals such as gold, copper and silver, reintegrating them into domestic supply chains as a sustainable alternative to traditional mining and smelting.
Mint Innovation is expanding into the United States with a commercial scale facility in Longview, Texas. This facility supports the national strategy for securing critical minerals and advancing a circular economy. The facility will have the capacity to process over 4000 tons of printed circuit board waste annually, returning pure copper sheets and high purity gold into local industries. The project will create high-quality jobs and has received support from LEDCO and various government departments.
The company’s process also ensures NSA-standard destruction of obsolete electronics, addressing data security concerns associated with e-waste exports. Mint’s vision is to construct a network of facilities in the U.S and across the globe to address the growing e-waste challenge and return recycled metals to domestic supply chains, reducing reliance on environmentally harmful practices.
Project Challenge
To support its U.S. expansion, Mint Innovation needed to customize AutoCAD Plant 3D content and templates for a new processing facility in the U.S.—the first of several planned U.S. sites. This included:
Developing tailored pipe specifications.
Implementing custom reporting features.
Streamlining workflows for existing software tools.
Enhancing access to metadata within AutoCAD Plant 3D files.
Configuring intelligent Piping and Instrumentation Diagrams (P&ID) to replace static documentation.
The challenge required converting legacy plant designs into a smart, scalable system aligned with the new facility setup.
Project Goals
Mint Innovation set out to achieve the following:
Customize AutoCAD Plant 3D content and templates to streamline workflows and improve metadata access.
Transform existing P&IDs into intelligent diagrams for efficient design and documentation.
Develop four pipe specifications, prioritizing PVC and stainless steel in the initial phase.
Create reusable configuration packages for future sites, including templates for P&ID, Isometric, and Ortho drawings.
Generate reports from 3D models and P&IDs in Excel and PDF formats.
Save each P&ID sheet as an individual drawing file for clarity and organization.
These goals supported the creation of a scalable design framework replicable across global sites, aligning with Mint’s mission to recover circular supplies of critical metals to power advancing industries and economies, globally.
Solution Implementation
Symetri proposed a tailored customization of AutoCAD Plant 3D to meet Mint Innovation’s operational and environmental objectives. The solution included:
Configuring AutoCAD Plant 3D, and its consumed content, to meet project-specific requirements.
Enhancing the intelligence and structure of design documentation.
Establishing a repeatable design framework for deployment across multiple sites.
This approach supported Mint’s long-term goals of global scalability, operational efficiency, and sustainable innovation.
Business Outcomes
Accelerated Market Readiness: Mint rapidly prepared for its U.S. rollout with design tools aligned to project needs.
Improved Operational Efficiency: Standardized templates and specifications streamlined workflows and reduced manual effort.
Enhanced Design Intelligence: Intelligent P&IDs improved data integration and reduced documentation errors.
Consistent Documentation: Custom reporting templates ensured professional-grade outputs across project phases.
Scalable Global Framework: A repeatable design model reduced onboarding time and ensured uniform practices.
Conclusion
As a precursor to the construction and anticipated opening of Mint Innovation’s first U.S facility in Longview, Texas, Symetri’s two-phase customization project has laid a strong foundation for a significantly enhanced data management system. This initiative elevated Mint’s historic use of Autodesk software tools to a more advanced level of functionality and efficiency, aligning with the company’s strategic goals for operational excellence and sustainability. By streamlining workflows, improving metadata accessibility, and introducing intelligent design documentation, the project has positioned Mint to execute its U.S. projects with greater speed, accuracy, and consistency. The scalable design framework developed through this collaboration supports global replication, ensuring uniform standards across future sites.
Importantly, this solution also reinforces Mint’s broader mission of recovering critical and valuable metals from waste streams using low-carbon technologies, offering an alternative to traditional, unsustainable practices. As Mint gains deeper insight into its processes over time, there will be opportunities to further enhance the performance of its facility, data systems, and engineering workflows. These advancements may include the implementation and expansion of additional features within their Autodesk software environment, driving continuous improvement and innovation.
