Integral Powertrain Ltd is a well-respected automotive powertrain engineering consultancy supplying vehicle manufacturers and OEMs with engine and engine installation systems engineering, engine design tools, and engine management system applications.
Established in 1998 and based in Milton Keynes, UK, the company has prestigious customers among automotive OEMs, engine manufacturers, and Tier 1 suppliers including Bentley Motors Ltd, Cummins Engines, Aston Martin, DaimlerChrysler AG, Ford, General Motors, Jaguar Cars, MG Rover Group, Nissan Motor Co, JCB, Harley Davidson, and Visteon.
Integral Powertrain and the Automotive Supply Chain
Most Integral Powertrain projects involve design changes and reengineering of engines and related systems for OEMs. Typically, Integral Powertrain works with its customer to define project inputs, assumptions, and goals and then delivers against these designs, drawings, benchmark and test data, part models, and simulation results.
To perform these tasks efficiently, Integral Powertrain uses a variety of specialized templates to consistently apply its engineering and manufacturing knowledge and rules. For example, when creating part models, Integral Powertrain collaborates with the customer''s manufacturing group and key suppliers to create the models in the customer''s native CAD environment.
The need to systematically and quickly access data, collaborate among several different engineers, and manipulate the data in multiple CAD systems spurred Integral Powertrain to seek a system such as SMARTEAM.
PLM Challenges
As competition in the powertrain market becomes only fiercer, Integral Powertrain must provide OEMs with distinct advantages in order to secure their business. Integral Powertrain decided that PLM would help meet its customers'' key challenges:
- Reduce cost and duration of powertrain engineering programs
- Improve supplier and client design collaboration
- Provide OEMs with unique powertrain engineering knowledge using state-of-the-art technology.
Moreover, by facilitating collaboration on product development between an OEM and its suppliers, SMARTEAM enables Integral Powertrain to eliminate redundancy and improve decision-making, contributing to the overall success of the powertrain engineering program.
SMARTEAM and Data Management
On the most basic level, SMARTEAM controls data flow and automates CAD data management. Says technical director Luke Barker, "SMARTEAM provides a single point of controlled access to the majority of Integral Powertrain''s CAD and non-CAD data, which was previously distributed across various network drives. Eliminating multiple copies of the same data, together with providing full revision management and document history tracking, facilitates the reuse of design data. Excellent search and retrieval mechanisms mean that engineers always have access to latest data when required; reusing existing data is therefore a much simpler and painless process."
In responding to RFQs, Integral Powertrain is expected to carry out a comprehensive feasibility study in minimal time; this means that data management is extremely important and the level of change to the data is very high.
SMARTEAM and Collaborative Design & Engineering Change Management
Integrated data and business process management within SMARTEAM enables Integral Powertrain to take a collaborative approach to design engineering. Designers are confident that they are working on the latest revision of data.
"The latest project data is easily available to all engineers employed on the project, thereby ensuring that engineers are not working in isolation; they have full visibility of all design changes as they happen," explains Barker. "The internal SMARTEAM viewer provides a valuable overview tool, enabling project leaders and managers to view the latest project data without having unnecessary and expensive CAD software installed on their machines."
"We work as a team using a number of linked CATIA v5 models and associated design tools to ensure that designs adhere to defined rules," says Darren Cairns, director of CAE. "In addition, the use of SMARTEAM -- Workflow provides a mechanism to manage our change control approval management and lets us maximize the benefit of our investment in knowledge-based design tools."
The greatest impact on the business is through the use of SMARTEAM Workflow to formalize and control the Engineering Change Process. Says Cairns, "It is a vital part of our business to keep a clear record of design changes. It is clear that the benefits achieved through the use of Workflow alone have justified the implementation of SMARTEAM."
SMARTEAM and Multi-CAD
SMARTEAM was introduced at Integral Powertrain to provide a PDM solution that could be customized to suit the needs of the business. When carrying out projects for large vehicle manufacturers, the programs often stipulate that Integral Powertrain use the same CAD solution as the customer. Simultaneously meeting these requirements for different customers is a challenge. The multi-CAD capability of SMARTEAM allows Integral Powertrain to manage data in the long term across all CAD systems and to interface with the different PDM systems specified by their customers.
Integral Powertrain currently utilizes the SMARTEAM CATIA v5, Pro/Engineer and Microsoft Office integrations to store both CAD and non-CAD data in a single SMARTEAM database. An I-deas / C3P TDM integration, currently standalone, is also under development on site.
SMARTEAM Integration to Pro/Engineer
Integral Powertrain uses SMARTEAM to manage data on projects where the customer dictates that Pro/Engineer must be used. The integration is used primarily to provide access to SMARTEAM managed data from within Pro/Engineer and to manage the links created when working with complex product structures. When combined with the SMARTEAM revision control mechanism, the integration enables a concurrent engineering approach to working with Pro/Engineer.
The ease of accessing Pro/Engineer data via the integration, or directly from within SMARTEAM, simplifies reuse of existing designs, as desired components can be added directly to the Pro/Engineer session. The search and retrieval tools make accessing such data many times quicker. ''Where Used'' and ''Composed Of'' information for all parts is easy to access. As with the majority of CAD data types, the SMARTEAM viewer provides valuable data access to non-CAD users in management or overview roles. The main benefits of the SMARTEAM P - Integration include:
- Access to SMARTEAM controlled Pro/Engineer data from within Pro/Engineer
- Management of all links created within the Pro/Engineer product structure
- Support for concurrent engineering methods
- View and markup of all Pro/Engineer files
- Comprehensive product revision / version control.
SMARTEAM and Supply Chain Collaboration
Integral Powertrain''s main mid-term objective is to accelerate concurrent and collaborative engineering with their suppliers via SMARTEAM solutions. "Our aim is to have all of our suppliers either using SMARTEAM, or having access to SMARTEAM, so that we can collaborate more effectively by giving our suppliers greater accessibility to our live database, rather than a copy of the data," said Darren Cairns.
During 2004, Integral Powertrain plans to deploy SMARTEAM Web Editor and Community Workspace to improve communication with suppliers. The application of SMARTEAM within Integral Powertrain will grow with the increased growth of CATIA v5. In addition to expanding the use of SMARTEAM supply chain management tools, Integral Powertrain plans also to install the SMARTEAM I-deas integration.
SMARTEAM Implementation
SMARTEAM installation is very straightforward. All of the tools needed to perform customizations are supplied with the product and are fairly simple to use.
SMARTEAM is uncomplicated to use, thanks in part to its familiar MS-Windows interface. The daily maintenance of a SMARTEAM system is negligible, provided that the system is correctly configured. IBM Business Partner Intrinsys, who installed SMARTEAM at Integral Powertrain and in fact is part of the same business group, has broad experience installing, implementing, maintaining, and servicing SMARTEAM applications. Intrinsys has been responsible for some of the largest SMARTEAM installations in the UK and uses the knowledge gained within Integral Powertrain to facilitate these projects
Benefits From SMARTEAM
Integral Powertain has reduced development time for powertrain design by up to 40% (based on CIMdata study) with the IBM and Dassault Systemes PLM solution, of which SMARTEAM is a key component.
By facilitating design reuse, SMARTEAM contributes to Integral Powertrain designers making better decisions and reaching optimal, error-free designs in a shorter amount of time. Concurrent engineering and faster tooling design enable Integral Powertrain to shorten powertrain engineering design time as well.
Among the time and cost reductions that have been achieved with the IBM and Dassault Systemes'' PLM implementation (findings based on independent study performed by CIMdata):
- Engineers and designers can find information approximately 90% more quickly through the use of data management.
- The use of better automation has improved the management of design changes, with Engineering Change (EC) cycle times reduced by about 25%.
- The time required to create Bills of Materials (BOMs) has been cut over 65%; costs of fixing errors in BOMs has fallen by 85%.
- In particular, EC review time at manufacturing stage is down by up to 75%, while the cost of errors found during production has been reduced by up to 60%.
- EC administration and execution costs are down by as much as 75%.
- The cost of new parts in product designs has dropped by over 40% due to the reuse of designs from previous projects; rework costs have been reduced by 60%.
Conclusion
Integral Powertrain believes that the impact of PLM on the automotive supply chain will be huge with the realization that there is more to be gained from software tools than simply as a CAD geometry tool. The widespread use of CATIA v5 within both the OEMs and the supply chain will dictate the need for a PDM solution to support links management. As a result, the role of PLM within Integral Powertrain is seen as a vital enabler to ensure that the business is ready to cope with the future demands of the engineering industries that it serves.
"We are always searching for ways to gain competitive advantage," concludes Cairns. "CATIA v5 and SMARTEAM have done just that by giving us the infrastructure to reduce the effort spent on repetitive tasks and basic geometry creation, allowing us to spend more time on technical issues."