How Generative Design Solving Emerging Challenges Of Automobile Manufacturing?
The automobile sector has to pursue CASE (Connectivity, Autonomous, Shared Mobility, and Electrification). Accordingly, the entire industry is aligning to meet up the emerging trend and expectations which also encompasses manufacturing. Owing to this the entire design philosophy is undergoing transformation, which is where digital technologies have a critical role to play.
The CASE paradigm shift in the auto sector is not only amplifying the generally found issues in every sector’s manufacturing but also resulting in some peculiar challenges which the auto sector is attempting to resolve primarily through digital interventions. In the Indian context, while the manufacturing in the auto-sector is witnessing early signs of RPA and M2M applications, the designing is also revamping leveraging intuitive and progressive techniques like Generative Design.
"CASE is transforming the auto sector and these are emerging as the four key pillars driving manufacturing in the auto industry," said Amit Jain ED and CTO, Minda Industries, the flagship company of Uno Minda Group.
Innovation is happening at a very rapid pace in the automobile sector. Compared to launching a model of a vehicle in every 3-4 years, these days automobile OEMs are introducing new vehicles every 18-24 months. For this purpose, the traditional process of design and manufacturing doesn’t work. The design process must be just-in-time and on-the-go where improvements and tweaking in the design happen in parallel to other series of processes with active collaboration from the supply chain partners. This cannot be achieved without leveraging digital tools and applications throughout the process including design.
"Digital solutions are important enablers for this industry to achieve these competencies efficiently. For instance, automation technology such as generative design car helps automotive manufacturers explore more options simply by inputting design criteria such as weight, material, and strength. This often results in sustainable innovation - an improved vehicle design with lighter component weights for fuel economy improvement," Parminder Singh, Country Head, Design and Manufacturing and Media and Entertainment, India and SAARC, Autodesk
Every market, including India, is showing rapid transformation in the automobile sector. As a consequence, many regulations are being drafted or reframed to incorporate and leverage technological advancements that completely revamp the sector. This applies not just to emission norms, but also legislations being strengthened with regards to safety and performance of people using these vehicles. This leads to frequent redesign of the products where incremental changes are required. To adapt to this, the design process has to be flexible to support an iterative process, which is the essence of generative designing.
"The changing customer expectations are creating huge pressure on design and manufacturing. We got to align our processes with global quality standards which can only happen through an end-to-end digital transformation." Aditya K Shrivastava, SVP - Manufacturing Operations, Volvo Eicher Commercial Vehicles.
''Strengthening and modernising design and manufacturing capabilities in the auto sector will bring more reputation to us as a country which also goes with the mission of 'Make in India' and becoming self-reliant," Pradeep Kumar Thimmaiyan, Head of Product Engineering, Daimler India Commercial Vehicles.
There are lots of factors that go into design, making it one of the most complex stages for vehicle manufacturing. The boundary conditions which define the resource constraint, as well as other factors that need to be considered to achieve the optimal design in terms of cost, time, materials, safety, aesthetics, and several other parameters, can only be driven to a utopian state if all the possible design mixes are explored, and the most optimal ones chosen to make a final decision. Without tech intervention, working out all such permutations and combinations is impossible. Generative design empowers the entire process of manufacturing with super-computational capabilities where all the constraints defining boundary conditions are interworked to get all possible options making it possible and inclusive so that no design option is left to be examined.
"Additive manufacturing can be leveraged with the help of generative design as it helps achieve optimal design levels in the quickest possible time and all issues get resolved before going for actual manufacturing," said, Srinivasa Rao Dangeti, Director R&D, Honeywell Technology Solutions.
The COVID-19 pandemic has added further complexities to design and manufacturing sectors. Collaboration is key to achieving optimal and efficient designs as there is a lot of co-working and co-creation required along with the supply chain partners. Due to covid-19 restrictions globally, physical collaboration has gone to an all-time low. Digital technologies are coming to the rescue of the industry enabling collaboration through the ecosystem along with immersive applications and powerful computing capabilities bridging the gap. While this is becoming a key reason to up the digital game in the automobile sector, the supply-chain issues especially the semiconductor shortage are demanding more agility from the industry to rapidly reorient with the changing industry environment and dynamics.
"Securing the supply chain due to the present situation as well as challenges like dynamic geopolitical situation results in always hovering uncertainty for this industry. It is important that we strategically develop an indigenous supply chain," said Dipak Sen Choudhury, President R&D, Exide.
