Digital prototyping

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Digital Prototyping gives conceptual design, engineering, manufacturing, and sales and marketing departments the ability to virtually explore a complete product before it's built. Industrial designers, manufacturers, and engineers use Digital Prototyping to design, iterate, optimize, validate, and visualize their products digitally throughout the product development process. Innovative digital prototypes can be created via CAutoD through intelligent and near-optimal iterations, meeting multiple design objectives (such as maximised output, energy efficiency, highest speed and cost-effectiveness), identifying multiple figures of merit, and reducing development gearing and time-to-market. Marketers also use Digital Prototyping to create photorealistic renderings and animations of products prior to manufacturing. Companies often adopt Digital Prototyping with the goal of improving communication between product development stakeholders, getting products to market faster, and facilitating product innovation.

Contents

Digital Prototyping goes beyond simply creating product designs in 3D. It gives product development teams a way to assess the operation of moving parts, to determine whether or not the product will fail, and see how the various product components interact with subsystems—either pneumatic or electric. By simulating and validating the real-world performance of a product design digitally, manufacturers often can reduce the number of physical prototypes they need to create before a product can be manufactured, reducing the cost and time needed for physical prototyping. [1] Many companies use Digital Prototyping in place of, or as a complement to, physical prototyping. [2]

Digital Prototyping changes the traditional product development cycle from design>build>test>fix to design>analyze>test>build. [3] Instead of needing to build multiple physical prototypes and then testing them to see if they'll work, companies can conduct testing digitally throughout the process by using Digital Prototyping, reducing the number of physical prototypes needed to validate the design. Studies show that by using Digital Prototyping to catch design problems up front, manufacturers experience fewer change orders downstream. [4] Because the geometry in digital prototypes is highly accurate, companies can check interferences to avoid assembly issues that generate change orders in the testing and manufacturing phases of development. [5] Companies can also perform simulations in early stages of the product development cycle, so they avoid failure modes during testing or manufacturing phases. With a Digital Prototyping approach, companies can digitally test a broader range of their product's performance. [5] They can also test design iterations quickly to assess whether they're over- or under-designing components.

Research from the Aberdeen Group shows that manufacturers that use Digital Prototyping build half the number of physical prototypes as the average manufacturer, get to market 58 days faster than average, and experience 48 percent lower prototyping costs. [6]

History of Digital Prototyping

The concept of Digital Prototyping has been around for over a decade, particularly since software companies such as Autodesk, PTC, Siemens PLM (formerly UGS), and Dassault began offering computer-aided design (CAD) software capable of creating accurate 3D models.

It may even be argued that the product lifecycle management (PLM) approach was the harbinger of Digital Prototyping. PLM is an integrated, information-driven approach to a product's lifecycle, from development to disposal. [7] A major aspect of PLM is coordinating and managing product data among all software, suppliers, and team members involved in the product's lifecycle. Companies use a collection of software tools and methods to integrate people, data, and processes to support singular steps in the product's lifecycle or to manage the product's lifecycle from beginning to end. [8] PLM often includes product visualization to facilitate collaboration and understanding among the internal and external teams that participate in some aspect of a product's lifecycle.

While the concept of Digital Prototyping has been a longstanding goal for manufacturing companies for some time, it's only recently that Digital Prototyping has become a reality for small-to-midsize manufacturers that cannot afford to implement complex and expensive PLM solutions.

Digital Prototyping and PLM

Large manufacturing companies rely on PLM to link otherwise unconnected, siloed activities, such as concept development, design, engineering, manufacturing, sales, and marketing. PLM is a fully integrated approach to product development that requires investments in application software, implementation, and integration with enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, as well as end-user training and a sophisticated IT staff to manage the technology. PLM solutions are highly customized and complex to implement, often requiring a complete replacement of existing technology. Because of the high expense and IT expertise required to purchase, deploy, and run a PLM solution, many small-to-midsized manufacturers cannot implement PLM.

Digital Prototyping is a viable alternative to PLM for these small-to-midsized manufacturers. Like PLM, Digital Prototyping seeks to link otherwise unconnected, siloed activities, such as concept development, design, engineering, manufacturing, sales, and marketing. However, unlike PLM, Digital Prototyping does not support the entire product development process from conception to disposal, but rather focuses on the design-to-manufacture portion of the process. The realm of Digital Prototyping ends when the digital product and the engineering bill of materials are complete. [9] Digital Prototyping aims to resolve many of the same issues as PLM without involving a highly customized, all-encompassing software deployment. With Digital Prototyping, a company may choose to address one need at a time, making the approach more pervasive as its business grows. Other differences between Digital Prototyping and PLM include:

Digital Prototyping Workflow

A Digital Prototyping workflow involves using a single digital model throughout the design process to bridge the gaps that typically exist between workgroups such as industrial design, engineering, manufacturing, sales, and marketing. Product development can be broken into the following general phases at most manufacturing companies:

Conceptual Design

The conceptual design phase involves taking customer input or market requirements and data to create a product design. In a Digital Prototyping workflow, designers work digitally, from the very first sketch, throughout the conceptual design phase. They capture their designs digitally, and then share that data with the engineering team using a common file format. The industrial design data is then incorporated into the digital prototype to ensure technical feasibility.

In a Digital Prototyping workflow, designers and their teams review digital design data via high-quality digital imagery or renderings to make informed product design decisions. Designers may create and visualize several iterations of design, changing things like materials or color schemes, before a concept is finalized.

Engineering

During the engineering phase of the Digital Prototyping workflow, engineers create the product's 3D model (the digital prototype), integrating design data developed during the conceptual design phase. Teams also add electrical systems design data to the digital prototype while it's being developed, and evaluate how different systems interact. At this stage of the workflow, all data related to the product's development is fully integrated into the digital prototype. Working with mechanical, electrical, and industrial design data, companies engineer every last product detail in the engineering phase of the workflow. At this point, the digital prototype is a fully realistic digital model of the complete product.

Engineers test and validate the digital prototype throughout their design process to make the best possible design decisions and avoid costly mistakes. Using the digital prototype, engineers can:

By incorporating integrated calculations, stress, deflection, and motion simulations into the Digital Prototyping workflow, companies can speed development cycles by minimizing physical prototyping phases. [10] By implementing a digital prototype of a partially or fully automated vehicle and its sensor suite into a dynamic co-simulation of traffic flow and vehicle dynamics, a novel toolchain methodology comprising virtual testing is available for the development of automated driving functions by the automotive industry. [11]

Also during the engineering phase of the Digital Prototyping workflow, engineers create documentation required by the production team.

Manufacturing

In a Digital Prototyping workflow, manufacturing teams are involved early in the design process. This input helps engineers and manufacturing experts work together on the digital prototype throughout the design process to ensure that the product can be produced cost effectively. Manufacturing teams can see the product exactly as it's intended, and provide input on manufacturability. Companies can perform molding simulations on digital prototypes for plastic part and injection molds to test the manufacturability of their designs, identifying potential manufacturing defects before they cut mold tooling.

Digital Prototyping also enables product teams to share detailed assembly instructions digitally with manufacturing teams. While paper assembly drawings can be confusing, 3D visualizations of digital prototypes are unambiguous. This early and clear collaboration between manufacturing and engineering teams helps minimize manufacturing problems on the shop floor.

Finally, manufacturers can use Digital Prototyping to visualize and simulate factory-floor layouts and production lines. They can check for interferences to detect potential issues such as space constraints and equipment collisions.

Customer Involvement

Customers are involved throughout the Digital Prototyping workflow. Rather than waiting for a physical prototype to be complete, companies that use Digital Prototyping bring customers into the product development process early. They show customers realistic renderings and animations of the product's digital prototype so they'll know what the product looks like and how it will function. This early customer involvement helps companies get sign-off up front, so they don't waste time designing, engineering, and manufacturing a product that doesn't fulfill the customer's expectations.

Marketing

Using 3D CAD data from the digital prototype, companies can create realistic visualizations, renderings, and animations to market products in print, on the web, in catalogues, or in television commercials. Without needing to produce expensive physical prototypes and conduct photo shoots, companies can create virtual photography and cinematography nearly indistinguishable from reality. One aspect of this is creating the illumination environment for the subject, an area of new development.

Realistic visualizations not only help marketing communications, but the sales process as well. Companies can respond to requests for proposals and bid on projects without building physical prototypes, using visualizations to show the potential customer what the end product will be like. In addition, visualizations can help companies bid more accurately by making it more likely that everyone has the same expectations about the end product. Companies can also use visualizations to facilitate the review process once they've secured the business. Reviewers can interact with digital prototypes in realistic environments, allowing for the validation of design decisions early in the product development process.

Connecting Data and Teams

To support a Digital Prototyping workflow, companies use data management tools to coordinate all teams at every stage in the workflow, streamline design revisions and automate release processes for digital prototypes, and manage engineering bills of materials. These data management tools connect all workgroups to critical Digital Prototyping data. [12]

Digital Prototyping and Sustainability

Companies increasingly use Digital Prototyping to understand sustainability factors in new product designs, and to help meet customer requirements for sustainable products and processes. They minimize material use by assessing multiple design scenarios to determine the optimal amount and type of material required to meet product specifications. [13] In addition, by reducing the number of physical prototypes required, manufacturers can trim down their material waste.

Digital Prototyping can also help companies reduce the carbon footprint of their products. For example, WinWinD, a company that creates innovative wind turbines, uses Digital Prototyping to optimize the energy production of wind-power turbines for varying wind conditions. [14] Furthermore, the rich product data supplied by Digital Prototyping can help companies demonstrate conformance with the growing number of product-related environmental regulations and voluntary sustainability standards.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Computer-aided design</span> Constructing a product by means of computer

Computer-Aided Design (CAD) is the use of computers to aid in the creation, modification, analysis, or optimization of a design. This software is used to increase the productivity of the designer, improve the quality of design, improve communications through documentation, and to create a database for manufacturing. Designs made through CAD software help protect products and inventions when used in patent applications. CAD output is often in the form of electronic files for print, machining, or other manufacturing operations. The terms computer-aided drafting (CAD) and computer-aided design and drafting (CADD) are also used.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Prototype</span> Early sample or model built to test a concept or process

A prototype is an early sample, model, or release of a product built to test a concept or process. It is a term used in a variety of contexts, including semantics, design, electronics, and software programming. A prototype is generally used to evaluate a new design to enhance precision by system analysts and users. Prototyping serves to provide specifications for a real, working system rather than a theoretical one. In some design workflow models, creating a prototype is the step between the formalization and the evaluation of an idea.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Computer-aided engineering</span> Use of software for engineering design and analysis

Computer-aided engineering can be defined as the general usage of technology to aid in tasks related to engineering analysis. Any use of technology to solve or assist engineering issues falls under this umbrella.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Product lifecycle</span> Duration of processing of products from inception, to engineering, design & manufacture

In industry, product lifecycle management (PLM) is the process of managing the entire lifecycle of a product from its inception through the engineering, design and manufacture, as well as the service and disposal of manufactured products. PLM integrates people, data, processes, and business systems and provides a product information backbone for companies and their extended enterprises.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">PTC (software company)</span> U.S.-based computer software company

PTC is a computer software and services company founded in 1985 and headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts. The company was a pioneer in parametric, associative feature-based, solid computer-aided design (CAD) modeling software in 1988, including an Internet-based product for Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) in 1998. PTC markets products and services and an Internet of Things (IoT) and augmented reality (AR) platform for partners and developers.

Product design as a verb is to create a new product to be sold by a business to its customers. A very broad coefficient and effective generation and development of ideas through a process that leads to new products. Thus, it is a major aspect of new product development.

JT is an openly-published ISO-standardized 3D CAD data exchange format used for product visualization, collaboration, digital mockups, and other purposes. It was developed by Siemens.

Enterprise test software (ETS) is a type of software that electronics and other manufacturers use to standardize product testing enterprise-wide, rather than simply in the test engineering department. It is designed to integrate and synchronize test systems to other enterprise functions such as research and development (R&D), new product introduction (NPI), manufacturing, and supply chain, overseeing the collaborative test processes between engineers and managers in their respective departments.

Process development execution systems (PDES) are software systems used to guide the development of high-tech manufacturing technologies like semiconductor manufacturing, MEMS manufacturing, photovoltaics manufacturing, biomedical devices or nanoparticle manufacturing. Software systems of this kind have similarities to product lifecycle management (PLM) systems. They guide the development of new or improved technologies from its conception, through development and into manufacturing. Furthermore, they borrow on concepts of manufacturing execution systems (MES) systems but tailor them for R&D rather than for production. PDES integrate people, data, information, knowledge and business processes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ProductCenter</span>

ProductCenter is a commercial software product, that is an integrated suite of Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) software for managing product data. The software was engineered for the Microsoft Windows and UNIX operating systems. Along with core applications, it includes localized and web-based services. ProductCenter is suited for managing various types of CAx data, but it can be used for many forms of data management and product management.

Virtual product development (VPD) is the practice of developing and prototyping products in a completely digital 2D/3D environment. VPD has four main components:

Virtual prototyping is a method in the process of product development. It involves using computer-aided design (CAD), computer-automated design (CAutoD) and computer-aided engineering (CAE) software to validate a design before committing to making a physical prototype. This is done by creating computer generated geometrical shapes (parts) and either combining them into an "assembly" and testing different mechanical motions, fit and function. The assembly or individual parts could be opened in CAE software to simulate the behavior of the product in the real world.

Plant Simulation is a computer application developed by Siemens Digital Industries Software for modelling, simulating, analyzing, visualizing and optimizing production systems and processes, the flow of materials and logistic operations. Plant Simulation, allows users to optimize material flow and resource utilization and logistics for all levels of plant planning from global production facilities, through local plants, to specific lines. Within the Plant Design and Optimization Solution, the software portfolio, to which Plant Simulation belongs, is — together with the products of the Digital Factory and of Digital Manufacturing — part of the Product Lifecycle Management Software (PLM). The application allows comparing complex production alternatives, including the immanent process logic, by means of computer simulations. Plant Simulation is used by individual production planners as well as by multi-national enterprises, primarily to strategically plan layout, and control logic and dimensions of large, complex production investments. It is one of the major products that dominate that market space.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Siemens NX</span> Computer-aided design software

NX, formerly known as "unigraphics", is an advanced high-end CAD/CAM/CAE, which has been owned since 2007 by Siemens Digital Industries Software. In 2000, Unigraphics purchased SDRC I-DEAS and began an effort to integrate aspects of both software packages into a single product which became Unigraphics NX or NX.

Siemens Digital Industries Software is an American computer software company specializing in 3D & 2D Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) software. The company is a business unit of Siemens, operates under the legal name of Siemens Industry Software Inc, and is headquartered in Plano, Texas.

A digital twin is a digital model of an intended or actual real-world physical product, system, or process that serves as the effectively indistinguishable digital counterpart of it for practical purposes, such as simulation, integration, testing, monitoring, and maintenance. The digital twin has been intended from its initial introduction to be the underlying premise for Product Lifecycle Management and exists throughout the entire lifecycle of the physical entity it represents. Since information is granular, the digital twin representation is determined by the value-based use cases it is created to implement. The digital twin can and does often exist before there is a physical entity. The use of a digital twin in the creation phase allows the intended entity's entire lifecycle to be modeled and simulated. A digital twin of an existing entity may be used in real-time and regularly synchronized with the corresponding physical system.

Configuration Lifecycle Management (CLM) is the management of all product configuration definitions and configurations across all involved business processes applied throughout the lifecycle of a product.

Digital manufacturing is an integrated approach to manufacturing that is centered around a computer system. The transition to digital manufacturing has become more popular with the rise in the quantity and quality of computer systems in manufacturing plants. As more automated tools have become used in manufacturing plants it has become necessary to model, simulate, and analyze all of the machines, tooling, and input materials in order to optimize the manufacturing process. Overall, digital manufacturing can be seen sharing the same goals as computer-integrated manufacturing (CIM), flexible manufacturing, lean manufacturing, and design for manufacturability (DFM). The main difference is that digital manufacturing was evolved for use in the computerized world.

Predictive engineering analytics (PEA) is a development approach for the manufacturing industry that helps with the design of complex products. It concerns the introduction of new software tools, the integration between those, and a refinement of simulation and testing processes to improve collaboration between analysis teams that handle different applications. This is combined with intelligent reporting and data analytics. The objective is to let simulation drive the design, to predict product behavior rather than to react on issues which may arise, and to install a process that lets design continue after product delivery.

Centric Software® provides a product concept to launch platform for consumer goods such as fashion, retail, footwear, luxury, outdoor, consumer electronics, cosmetics & personal care, and food & beverage. Headquartered in Silicon Valley, Centric has shattered the mold to create state-of-the-art digital solutions to satisfy the needs of every player in the market, large and small, and supports their mission to develop high-quality, sustainable products that are on time and on-trend.

References

  1. ↑ Aberdeen Group, “The Transition from 2D Drafting to 3D Modeling Benchmark Report,” September 2006, p. 6.
  2. ↑ "Ideenmanagement Software" (in German). Ivan Jovic. Archived from the original on 2015-11-15. Retrieved June 3, 2020.
  3. ↑ Jeff Rowe, “Virtual Reality,” Cadalyst, March 2, 2006.
  4. ↑ Aberdeen Group, “The Transition from 2D Drafting to 3D Modeling Benchmark Report,” September 2006, p. 7.
  5. 1 2 Aberdeen Group, “Complementary Digital and Physical Prototyping Strategies: Avoiding the Product Development Crunch,” February 2008, p. 11.
  6. ↑ Aberdeen Group, “The Transition from 2D Drafting to 3D Modeling Benchmark Report,” September 2006.
  7. ↑ John Teresko, “The PLM Revolution,” IndustryWeek, February 1, 2004.
  8. ↑ "Management of Innovation". University of Toronto. Archived from the original on 2019-10-01. Retrieved June 3, 2020.
  9. 1 2 IDC, “Digital Prototyping: Autodesk Strengthens Competitiveness of Worldwide SMB Manufacturers,” October 2008.
  10. ↑ Jeff Rowe, “Autodesk Acquires ALGOR,” MCADCafe, January 12, 2009.
  11. ↑ Hallerbach, Sven; Xia, Yiqun; Eberle, Ulrich; Koester, Frank (3 April 2018). "Simulation-based Identification of Critical Scenarios for Cooperative and Automated Vehicles". SAE Technical Paper 2018-01-1066. Retrieved 23 December 2018.
  12. ↑ Rapid Prototyping of Digital Systems. James O. Hamblen, Michael D. Furman. 8 May 2007. ISBN   9780306470516 . Retrieved June 3, 2020.
  13. ↑ In Hope Neal’s October 17, 2008 Manufacturing Business Technology article, “Smart product design: it’s getting easier to be green,” she writes, “Digital prototyping can help prevent overbuilding by helping designers create virtual prototypes of products they are developing so they can see how they will work under real-world conditions. This can minimize material requirements.”
  14. ↑ See the Sustainability Report at Autodesk.com.


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