Aaron Lidor likes to draw his designs by hand and see them on paper. He's an engineer, not an artist, but having the ability to follow the lines with his eyes, measure with a protractor, erase, and redraw gives him a sense of personal control that can't always be achieved with a computer model. Yet, every project he starts has a budget and a timeframe, so there's little room for rework .
Lidor, a mechanical design engineer at Rapiscan Systems, a maker of metal detectors and baggage screening machines used in airports, transfers his freehand drawings to Autodesk Inc.'s Inventor, a 3-D computer-aided design (CAD) application. Here, he makes a virtual prototype of the X-ray machine he's designing and can even simulate how it will be used in the real world, as bags move down a conveyer belt to be screened, for instance.
In this virtual environment, Lidor can ensure that what he designs will work as a functional product. There is, however, another step that he has limited control over: how that design is moved through manufacturing.
Despite the fact that manufacturers are finding ways to integrate various aspects of their organizations, there remains a distinct disconnect between engineering and manufacturing. The January acquisition of product lifecycle management provider UGS by automation giant Siemens was the first large-scale effort by a controls vendor to combine these two worlds in one company. Others may follow, but for now it remains a somewhat novel concept.
The irony is that these are two departments that should be closely aligned, since they depend on one another to meet company mandates for high-quality products that incorporate customer-specified features and are delivered on schedule. A misstep in the process costs time, money, and, potentially, customer loyalty.
Certain industry segments that can't afford to miss a beat due to the competitive landscape have opted to let technology sew the seams together. Companies in the automotive and aerospace & defense sectors, for instance, employ software that not only simulates product design, but takes that model a step further, simulating the production process as well. The concept, called digital manufacturing, is the linking of product development design with actual production. Digital manufacturing is a subset of product lifecycle management (PLM), and while it is not a new idea — 15 years ago it was called simultaneous engineering — today's technology has improved on that of years past, when most organizations were not ready to make the digital leap.
"Clearly, some of the historical challenges in engineering integration have just been because of the way companies are set up and the way the budgets are set up," says Paul Loftus, managing partner of Accenture's North American Industrial Equipment practice. "They are separate; therefore, the value of integration has not always been apparent."
Taking the Lead
Today, however, industry experts point to two major PLM players who are providing simulation software for digital manufacturing: Dassault Systemes and UGS Corp.
"These are very powerful simulation applications that don't just do factory layout, but also robotic workstations, machine tools, conveyers; and they simulate production systems very accurately," says Dick Slansky, an analyst at ARC Advisory Group. By taking a digital definition of the product and running it through a virtual production environment, processes can be validated and manufacturing equipment proven before the project gets the green light. This shortens the ramp-up time, reduces the costs, and gets product out the door faster, Slansky says.
According to Accenture's Loftus, much of a product's cost is based on where it is manufactured and the physical layout of the factory. "If you look at the overall cost curve on a new product launch and you include the facilities design and layout, the things you can catch early on don't cost you much," Loftus explains. "Once the walls are up, the price to reconfigure a factory or the cost to replace machines and expand facilities is astronomical."
California-based Rapiscan has engineering offices in the UK and in India, but does most of its manufacturing in Malaysia. A shared database helps engineers collaborate on design, but once a design is complete, a separate 2-D representation of the drawing is sent to the machine shop. The processes for making the parts are well-defined, Lidor says, in part because he and his fellow engineers are always thinking about how the manufacturing will happen.
"When you design, you have to think about how they are going to assemble it," he notes. "If something is heavy and you don't have enough room for two people to lift it, you have to take that into consideration."
By understanding the physical layout of the factory and incorporating that into the design of the product, Lidor is saving Rapiscan critical assembly time. For now, though, he must rely on his own knowledge of the process, as the Autodesk Inventor product only provides a few links to areas of manufacturing, typically as it relates to electrical design. Lidor currently has no way to simulate the manufacturing environment. But Autodesk is working to move its product to the next step, officials say.
"The 3D model, originally so valued for its visualization aspects to work with customers so that they know what you are making them... is now taking a [step] further by using rich intelligence to drive performance," says Amy Bunszel, director of product management for Autodesk Inventor. "We are building a solution around Inventor that handles design through manufacturing. It includes electrical design, mechanical design, the management of data, but also has to include the links to hand off to manufacturing."
Unlikely Unions
UGS took a step in the direction of digital manufacturing when it rolled out the Tecnomatix Production Management portfolio last September. The software suite serves to integrate production management with PLM processes. It includes Tecnomatix FactoryLink for shop floor connectivity to SCADA and HMI applications; Tecnomatix MES for production monitoring and control; and the Tecnomatix Production Management Portal for event reporting and manufacturing intelligence. These shop floor applications are tightly integrated with UGS's Teamcenter PLM software.
The integration occurs through a database shared between MES and PLM applications, according to UGS. A unique union, indeed, but one that the company says enables event capture and analysis as well as a closed-loop process for continuous improvement — from product and process design through maintenance, repair, and overhaul.
For its part, UGS competitor Dassault Systemes is making claims that its digital manufacturing solution can offer a return on investment of 20:1.
"For every dollar they invest, they get 20 back," says Peter Schmitt, vice president of marketing and business development for Dassault Systemes' Delmia group. Schmitt points to Dassault client Boeing as testament.
In December, Boeing, which is working on the launch of its highly anticipated 787 Dreamliner, announced it was using Dassault's digital manufacturing suite, including 3D technology, design software, and collaborative tools, to provide a virtual rollout of the plane. It is not just an animation of the completed airplane, but rather a simulation of the entire manufacturing process. As a result, Boeing can plan and lay out production lines using 3D models of parts and assembly tooling, while collaborative tools provide a continuous communication loop between design and manufacturing engineers.
Boeing and some automakers, including GM, DaimlerChrysler, and BMW, have naturally gravitated to these new simulation techniques, but every industry is ripe for adoption of digital manufacturing, industry observers say.
"In a virtual environment, you have all degrees of freedom, and change doesn't cost anything," says Dassault's Schmitt. When a new project is launched it starts with an early design concept, and digital manufacturing techniques provide the ability to assess manufacturing costs and structure prior to making major investments, he says.
"You can make early assessments of costs, potential risks, and timeframes," Schmitt notes. "As product design evolves you can become more detailed in setting up manufacturing processes and the impact of changes on the product, such as [the] kind of influence it will have on manufacturing time needed, cost of investment, risk to the product introduction... It provides a good picture early on to make educated decisions as to whether to do a design change or not."
While Dassault and UGS are providing the simulation tools, in order for digital manufacturing to really take off, the automation vendors that make the controls for production equipment must also be on board. Siemens' acquisition of UGS is a step in that direction. And Dassault currently has partnerships with PLC vendors Schneider Electric, Omron, and Siemens, Schmitt says, which allows Delmia to export files into the respective PLC languages of those vendors. Future plans include expanding the library to cover other PLC packages as well, he says.
While the concept of digital manufacturing has been around for a long time, some think 2007 could be a year of acceleration.
"If you look at PLM, it is an area that is seeing a lot of interest right now," says Accenture's Loftus. "At a macro level, if you look at the globalization shifts in the workforce today, most manufacturing companies have engineering centers located in different parts of the world. The ability to consistently communicate model development of products and the facilities and create a collaborative environment is a reason you'll see interest in this type of simulation software."
But a certain amount of education is still needed to help manufacturing executives understand the value of marrying product design to manufacturing simulation. More partnerships also need to be formed between automation and PLM vendors. With those ingredients in place, digital manufacturing could transform the way companies approach product innovation.
"We've just scratched the tip of the iceberg," notes Dassault's Schmitt.