Automotive Design
The driveline and transmission design and development process across these industries is at a crossroads. Dr Jamie Pears reports.
Le processus de conception et de développement des lignes d’arbres et des transmissions entre ces industries a atteint un tournant. Le Dr Jamie Pears nous en dit plus.
Dr. Jamie Pears berichtet darüber, dass der Entwurfs- und Entwicklungsprozess für Antrieb und Getriebe am Scheideweg steht.
Streamline the driveline development process
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Modelling and analysis of gears and bearings.
n a ground vehicle, the term driveline refers to a group of key components, typically including drive shafts, differentials, rear and front axles and drive wheels.
Together with the transmission, often simply referred to as the gearbox, the driveline translates the vehicle’s power into motion and therefore its design and development is of critical importance to the design of the vehicle itself. While a great deal has been achieved
in terms of technology-enabling existing processes over the past 20 years, that progress has resulted in a ‘new normal’ where these gains have been planned for and are now taken as a given. And so, pressure is growing on organisations to breakdown siloed operational structures and to move away from legacy approaches to design and development. Twenty years ago, the industry was
heavily reliant on manual methods. The standard approach to finding failures was in physical prototypes. Slow development cycles, high development costs and the need for significant rework at many stages of design and analysis were the norm. Driven primarily by the shift from
manual methods to digital tools and from physical to virtual prototypes, the process is now working much more smoothly. We are seeing shorter planning-to-manufacture cycles; improved product quality and reduced product development and warranty liability costs. But the pressure is now on to build on these gains and to move away from simply technology enabling the legacy processes to shifting processes, adjusting organisations using the latest tools to radically transform. Automotive companies have to work
in an environment that is characterised by a lack of data standards for exchanging parametric models and interfacing with sophisticated analysis solutions. Solutions like product lifecycle management (PLM) have fallen significantly short of the promise of a seamless environment. There is also a clear need for
technology providers capable of delivering change management, consultancy and the latest high-quality collaborative solutions to help highly experienced engineers working in the industry today gain understanding of the latest modern approaches to collaboration and teaming and to become more proficient working in an environment which supports seamless technology enablement. By working with their automotive
customers, such organisations can streamline their driveline development processes to reach achievable benchmark. At the same time, working in this way helps cut development cycles and costs; reduce work across design and analysis; increase creativity and drive enhanced innovation.
The next shift
The industry is slowly churning in the New Normal zone and it’s time to move forward. The next shift will be to next-generation streamlined, cross- organisational processes that drive
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