Design and Manufacturing Process

Product realization: arguably it’s the most vital part of the design and manufacturing process Without a well-crafted product design and production process – all coordinated to work together to ensure that the assembly flows seamlessly across the manufacturing floor – your idea will remain nothing more than a beautiful drawing or something less your original desire. For years, the way products are designed and their manufacture planned has remained more or less similar – complete with some inherent fault lines that can increase costs and delay development. In the spirit of innovation that’s essential for manufacturers to survive, Siemens has looked at the process to see if it can be streamlined. We should first discuss the inefficiencies that need to be ironed out before introducing the concept of the Digital Twin.

To visit a modern manufacturing plant is to witness a jaw-dropping symphony of people, parts, materials, robots and machines – all working down to the minute or second to hit schedules. It looks incredible. But behind the scenes the way goods are designed and planned for production remains based on aged processes. One of the most important issues we see is that the design team uses separate systems to their manufacturing colleagues. In practice this can mean that designers pass over their creations to the manufacturing guys who have to try to create the subsequent process plan using the software they’re used to. In this scenario – which is quite common – information can get out of sync so it’s hard for everyone to see what’s happening. This increases the scope for failure.

Moving through into the creation of the manufacturing floor layout, we regularly encounter problems here too. These tend to be based around the fact that layouts are created using 2D floor plans and paper blueprints that take time and effort to create. While they are an essential part of the process, they are quite inflexible and we often find that any changes to the floor’s layout do not get reflected in the plans.

The manufacturing workflow typically progresses through into process validation. Here we also find a potentially major barrier to efficiency. It’s that manufacturers typically wait for actual equipment to be in place to see how it performs. If it doesn’t do as well as expected, it’s late in the day to look for an alternative solution this process can cause serious delays.

So, what’s to be done?

A Digital Twin is a virtual copy of something that’s modelled to behave realistically. Digital Twins can be modelled to realistically replicate the product design and assembly processes – from beginning to end.

Design: Using NX software (and other CAD systems), we can create a model of our product – and open them in Teamcenter as a 3D JT model. The software can virtually build literally thousands of variations of the product, just as it would be physically built, in seconds. It uses big data techniques, descriptions of the Product and Manufacturing and Information ), and a basic description of the manufacturing process to determine if we have any clashes.

Process planning: The Digital Twin can improve collaboration between the design and manufacturing teams to better plan what needs to be made, how it should be made, the resources needed and where it can be made

Layout: With the floor layout, we recommend creating the Digital Twin – with all the mechanical, automation and resource details – and inseparably linking it to the product design and manufacturing eco-system. Using a combination of PLM tools, you can simply drag and drop cells, equipment and people into place on your line and simulate the operation. It’s a very simple but hugely effective way to design your floor and make changes. So, if a product is changed and this requires the use of a new robot, simulation engineers can see if the robot’s size will, for example, interfere with one of the conveyors. The layout engineer can then make the adjustment and issue a change request notifying purchasing that a new piece of equipment is needed.

Process validation: With process validation, the Digital Twin can be used to digitally validate the assembly process.

Throughput optimisation: The Digital Twin can also be used to statistically simulate and assess your planned production system. It can evaluate whether to use people, robots or a combination of the two.

Digital Twin Verimlilik Optimizasyonu

Manufacturing execution: You can improve manufacturing execution by using the Digital Twin to close the loop between the physical and virtual worlds. Manufacturing instructions are released direct to the design floor where operators can view them along with associated videos. Operators can feed back data from the production floor while other automated systems can also collect performance data. This can be used to assess if there’s any difference between the build designs and results to isolate and rectify any issues.

Using a Digital Twin, which truly replicates a physical product, can help you to spot problems more quickly to accelerate production and reduce costs across the production chain. What’s more, it ensures that you know the design can be made; the plan is always up to date and synchronised; the strategies will work; and production will perform as you anticipated. It also helps you to see how new technologies can be integrated into your lines without the risk of buying and installing them to see how they perform.

Digital Twin which enables an innovative spirit in design, manufacturing and planning is an effective technology offered by Siemens PLM Software company. Boğaziçi Yazılım is Turkey didtributor of Siemens PLM Software company.