Only a few short years ago, a typical automotive conference focused on physical vehicle technologies and the digital CAD/CAM/CAE solutions that have infused the development process with efficiency. How things have changed. At Dassault Systèmes’ recent Automotive Industry Day the prevalent theme was data digitization and the value it can bring when transformed from random information into business intelligence, providing a level of insight into real-time operations as never before. But, as many of the speakers informed the audience, we still have a ways to go regarding the platforms and processes required to truly capture this plethora of data and apply it as powerful knowledge.
Turning Data into Business Intelligence
Olivier Sappin, Dassault Systèmes’ Vice President of Transportation & Mobility opened the event, stating how the auto industry has always been a core focus for the company and remains its number one sector, representing about 30 percent of company revenue. This is a result of Dassault Systèmes staying on top of industry trends and needs, building upon its work in 3D, DMU (digital mockup), and PLM (product lifecycle management) to develop the 3DEXPERIENCE platform, a business experience platform with Apps that provide solutions for every organization within the company through a single, easy-to-use interface.
Sappin then announced the company’s newest solution for this industry, Vehicle Program Intelligence (VPI), designed to reveal, measure and analyze real-time statistics of vehicle engineering projects, providing contextual business information for program executives and managers to make informed decisions.Through easy to use dashboards companies gain greater visibility into customer issues and response time, failure mode and corrective action trends, parts and manufacture risks across cost, quality and material compliance.
He then referenced customer Jaguar Land Rover’s use of the solution where 80 role-based dashboards have been developed to date, quickly providing insight into the current state of product development. Jaguar Land Rover has a goal of totally eliminating Excel spreadsheets from any management meetings.
Preparing for Manufacturing 4.0
Presenter John Fleming, recently retired from 37 years at Ford Motor Company as Executive Vice President of Manufacturing and Labor Affairs, reminded the audience of how quickly the world is moving. Although manufacturing simulation has been around since the 1980s, full internet industrialization is now expected to double every 12 months. Where the digitization of manufacturing was evolutionary, he remarked that the Cyber-Physical world of Manufacturing 4.0 will be revolutionary as sensors and networks connect factories and vehicles, creating a closed-loop scenario where data analytics is applied to continually improve all processes.
The lean digital age helped to improve safety by 36 percent, quality by 65 percent, dependability by 50 percent, and throughput by 49 percent. But, Fleming said that Manufacturing 4.0 has the ability to achieve zero equipment accidents, zero manufactured quality defects, and perfect production flow as the equipment adjusts itself. And, although there have been some concerns regarding totally lights-out factories as machines take over the workforce, Fleming emphasized that people are very much a part of this brave new Manufacturing 4.0 world, but that there is a need to reskill the workforce to gain these new technical skills.
It’s All About the Right Platform
The next two speakers addressed the increasingly complex world of mobility, and how today’s vehicle development processes lack the ability to totally comprehend connected vehicles.
First speaker Rick Sturgeon, senior director of Transportation & Mobility at Dassault Systèmes and formerly Executive Director of Global Engineering Operations at Johnson Controls, addressed how industry trends are complicating the industry, specifically referring to increasing globalization of vehicle programs with more reliance on global design centers and low cost resources, and the integration of big data and analytics global vehicle programs. Today’s automakers have to find a way to manage 10,000,000 files in various repositories, 6,000,000 parts, 50,000 products, 20 approvals per design release, 40+ design centers and 200+ strategic suppliers. No doubt we are in the midst of a data explosion and the current global development platforms do not have the capability to leverage all of this data and apply it as business intelligence.
Sturgeon noted that for efficiency, design has to be dynamic, global, real-time and integrated. This means companies must employ IT solutions that enable real-time collaboration across departments and locales.
Gregg Johnson, CEO & Managing Director of Connected Strategy Advisors, corroborated the need for an integrated IT platform, stating that processes implemented in various IT systems get confused. He stated that today’s vehicles contain 50 control modules processing over 10 times the amount of data as compared to an airplane. However, the existing 3D CAD model does not include a record of any electronics, software, version updates, maintenance history, part replacement data, etc. – all of which should be collected over the lifecycle of a vehicle. Johnson believes that in order to make decisions using the available data there must be a Digital Twin that represents the actual product (inclusive of all the updates and touches) over its entire life, and accomplishing this will require full access to the subsystem Bill of Materials (BOM) information by the Tiers since much of the expertise is actually being supplied by them to the OEM. A winning platform for today’s connected vehicle must be able to pull of this information together and share it with the right stakeholders in a way that improves the entire process and driving experience.
Correcting to a Connecting Future
Although the last few years have seen an amazing change in the automotive industry, there are many lessons still being learned. The growth of electronics and software still challenges an industry based upon mechanical design. In 2015, 50 percent of warranty claims in automotive were software related. But, with the rate of knowledge doubling every 13 months as compared to every 25 years in the 1950s according to presenter Fleming, you can bet that the industry will quickly overcome these challenges and connect the data and the dots to create a brave new world of mobility.
