Driving Down the Time and Cost of Powertrain Engineering with V5 PLM

Date: 01/11/2005

Integral Powertrain Ltd. is an automotive powertrain engineering consultancy based in Milton Keynes, UK. Founded in 1998, Integral Powertrain’s core business units include Powertrain Engineering, Tooling Design, Motorsport, and a specialist PLM division named Intrinsys. Today, Integral Powertrain has prestigious customers among OEMs, engine manufactures, and Tier 1 suppliers including Aston Martin, Bentley Motors Ltd., DaimlerChrysler AG and General Motors, just to name a few. The challenge facing Integral Powertrain boiled down to increasing globalization and aggressive OEM purchasing strategies are driving intense competition in the automotive powertrain market. In order to secure its business, Integral Powertrain had to offer advantages to OEMs while maintaining product quality levels now required across the industry.

A complete powertrain engineering program costs approximately €300 million, and may take up to 48 months to complete. In this context, reducing the cost and time of powertrain engineering programs becomes a necessity to gain competitive advantage. The success of a powertrain engineering program depends largely on the ability of the OEM and suppliers to collaborate on product development to avoid unnecessary duplication and improve decision making.

Part of the Solution
As part of its goal to reduce program time and costs and improve supplier-client collaboration, Integral Powertrain deployed CATIA V5, SMARTEAM and ENOVIA, Version 5 Product Lifecycle Management (V5 PLM) solutions from Dassault Systèmes. Integral Powertrain identifed many advantages for using the V5 PLM solutions in powertrain engineering. CATIA V5 automates repetitive design tasks through intelligent design templates, part of the CATIA V5 knowledge-based engineering solution. Consequently, powertrain design can be done faster by updating the templates to OEM requirements. CATIA V5 also provides early digital simulation and verification tools for powertrain parts and sub-assemblies, thanks to a truly integrated environment for design and validation (digital mock-up and analysis tools). This enables Integral Powertrain engineers to continually review and evaluate designs at the early stages of an engineering program and ensures the quality of the in-progress work.

Faster Tooling
CATIA V5 techniques for tooling design allow associative tooling parts to be created directly from the master component. The tooling pack and any subsequent operations are controlled by the master. This ensures fast iterations between design and manufacturing. With the help of SMARTEAM and ENOVIA solutions, design changes, workflow mechanisms (Smartflow) and multi-model links (in ENOVIA) can be easily managed enabling multiple users to gain simultaneous access to a full and up-to-date representation of data. The flow of information around the business is controlled and data management is automated, ensuring that designs adhere to defined rules. As part of its goal to reduce program time and costs and improve supplier-client collaboration, Integral Powertrain deployed CATIA V5, SMARTEAM and ENOVIA, Version 5 Product Lifecycle Management (V5 PLM) solutions from Dassault Systèmes. Integral Powertrain identified many advantages for using the V5 PLM solutions in powertrain engineering.

Faster Design
CATIA V5 automates repetitive design tasks through intelligent design templates, part of the CATIA V5 knowledge-based engineering solution. Consequently, powertrain design can be done faster by udapting the templates to OEM requirements. CATIA V5 provides early digital simulation and verification tools for powertrain parts and sub-assemblies thanks to a truly integrated environment for design and validation (digital mock-up and analysis tools). This enables Integral Powertrain engineers to continually review and evaluate designs at the early stages of an engineering program and ensures the quality of the in-progress work.

Faster Tooling Design and Quality
CATIA V5 techniques for tooling design allow associative tooling parts to be created directly from the master component. The tooling pack and any subsequent operations are thus controlled by the master. This ensures fast iterations between design and manufacturing. Thanks to SMARTEAM and ENOVIA solutions, design changes, workflow mechanisms (Smarflow) and multi-model links (in ENOVIA)can be easily managed enabling multiple users to gain simultaneous access to a full and up-to-date representation of data. The flow of information around the business is controlled and data management is automated, ensuring that designs adhere to defined rules.

Based on CATIA V5 template-based design, Integral Powertrain was able to capture its powertrain engineering knowledge by developing its own suite of powertrain templates named “Automated Intelligent Engine Design” (AIED). These templates are used by Integral Powertrain for many significant engine design investigations. Even if the customer’s project is not developed within CATIA, the time savings and engineering robustness far outweigh the additional time spent translating models to and from CATIA.

Success Granted
The combination of this much-improved engine design process and the availability of faster methods to create representative prototypes now enables Integral Powertrain’s customers to obtain better quality engines in less time than was possible even six months ago. Early-validated designs also mean less costly downstream design modifications and fewer physical prototypes. “The more virtual simulations that can be conducted mean less physical prototype testing, and therefore save time and money,” says Roger Duckworth, Engineering Director, Integral Powertrain.

Finally, faster design enables Integral Powertrain engineers to be more productive. Application of CATIA V5 template-based design, design in context, digital mock-up and other features has reduced overall concept design labor costs by more than 40%.

Note:
Independent ROI study
CIMdata performed an independent Return on Investment (ROI) study on Integral Powertrain’s implementation of Dassault Systèmes V5 PLM solutions. The study was based on Integral Powertrain’s data about the benefits of PLM versus the cost of implementation(software, hardware, training, maintenance and administration).

Findings
CIMdata took a conservative approach when measuring Integral Powertrain’s ROI. The study Findings show significant ROI:
• the payback period is 2.5 years
• the net present value of the investment (the cumulative discounted cash flow) over 6 years is 3,249k€
• the internal rate of return is 104.5%.