Dassault Systems says its 3D Experience software is the solution to a perplexing problem facing the automotive industry: time.
Product-development cycles are shrinking as auto makers strive to keep their showrooms fresh, but vehicles are growing more complicated, making it increasingly difficult to speed up the process.
Based on Dassault’s V6 Product Lifecycle Management software, 3D Experience “will pioneer a new technological wave,” Dassault CEO Bernard Charles says.
John Leney, senior director of the French company’s transportation and mobility industry group, says the 3D Experience potentially could cut product-development time one-third by allowing designers, engineers and suppliers to work collaboratively in a real-time virtual environment.
“In today’s auto industry, the (product-development) team is scattered around the globe, so the (3D platform) is a tremendous advantage for auto makers to compress cycle times and go through the complex process of developing vehicles,” he says.
In a way, the 3D platform allows product-development teams to work like they did before the advent of technology that enabled widespread globalization, he says, noting in the “old days, stakeholders would be in one room.”
The software ensures changes made to one part of a vehicle during development can be viewed in real time by everyone involved. Most systems currently in place create independent databases for various engineering departments, and some changes may not get communicated across disciplines until all departments meet.
“If a designer makes a change in one area of the vehicle, it may fix two things but have broken three other things,” Leney says. “In today’s world, sometimes those kinds of conflicts and issues are not known until the process reviews (are held) or, in the worst case, after the design freeze.”
With the 3D platform, potential problems can be identified and corrected on, saving time and money. It also allows engineers a degree of “traceability,” Leney says, citing a recent pilot program conducted with an OEM customer.
“The customer’s engineers said they were able to perform 20,000 more failure-mode and effect analyses than they’ve ever done before,” he says. “They could (ask the software), ‘What if I did this?’ and know what the impact would be.”
Suppliers also can be granted the same access to the virtual world where a product is being developed, Leney says, noting the supply chain is becoming increasingly important in providing technology solutions.
The 3D platform can be housed on either a traditional in-house server or in the cloud, and can be remotely accessed by authorized users.
Leney says accessing the software via the Internet can lower costs.
“Companies don’t have to build and buy an entire infrastructure,” he says. “They can go to a complete subscription service for a number of users. It simplifies the cost of ownership.”
Having the proprietary product-development information located externally in the cloud also alleviates security concerns. In the past, all team members involved in a product-development program would have sensitive information stored on their laptops or other devices, making it difficult to secure.
Attaching price and weight to each component during the product-development process allows vehicle price and mass to be tracked on an ongoing basis, Leney adds.
Previously, if a company wanted an update on costs during development, it would have to unleash a team of finance managers to track down the data and compile it into a report. By the time it was completed, the report oftentimes would be outdated.
“We think this online, real-time visibility to assemble this information is pretty powerful,” Leney says. “And you don’t need staffs of people running around trying to find this information.”
The 3D platform, launched in February, already is in use by several auto makers, Leney says, noting Jaguar Land Rover and Renault are the furthest along in integrating the software into their product-development processes.
“Virtually every one of our OEM customers is at some stage of evaluation, piloting the technology and really digging deep to understand how it could be applied to their business and processes,” he says.
JLR says it implemented Dassault technology because of the number of times its two brands have changed hands during the past decade. Jaguar and Land Rover were acquired by Ford in 1989 and 2000, respectively, before being sold as a single unit to India-based auto maker Tata in 2008.
As a result of implementing the new software, the U.K. brands have cut development time up to 40% in some areas, Dassault says.
