Scania: Reducing the Development Cycle with Assembly Automation
Technology Category
- Application Infrastructure & Middleware - Middleware, SDKs & Libraries
Applicable Functions
- Product Research & Development
About The Customer
Scania is a European-based manufacturer of heavy vehicles, known for its ability to deliver highly customized products. The company's unique selling proposition lies in its ability to rapidly verify a multitude of different variants using finite element simulations. However, this process was time-consuming and prone to errors, leading to the need for automation. Scania's goal was to automate the entire virtual model assembly process, which included tasks such as positioning hundreds of components, creating contact definitions, and building part connections with pre-strained bolts.
The Challenge
Scania, a European heavy vehicles manufacturer, is renowned for its ability to deliver highly customized products. This unique selling proposition, however, presents a significant challenge for the company's computer aided engineering (CAE) departments. The engineers are tasked with rapidly verifying a multitude of different variants using finite element simulations. The entire virtual model assembly process, which includes positioning hundreds of components, creating contact definitions, and building part connections with pre-strained bolts, was a major goal for Scania to automate. This process was not only time-consuming but also prone to errors, thereby necessitating a solution that could streamline and automate the process.
The Solution
Scania collaborated with Altair ProductDesign’s Process Automation team to identify areas where standard design routines could be automated. A semi-automatic pre-processing manager was developed based on the HyperWorks framework to meet the special modeling requests of the chassis department. The HyperWorks Process Manager application performs several tasks during model assembly. These include reading CAD libraries and automatically selecting appropriate files, monitoring the FE and geometry libraries and providing notifications if changes are made, cutting holes in geometries/meshes to prepare for bolt connections, and generating 'spider connections', solid bolts with pre-tension and contact definitions.
Operational Impact
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