Altair > Case Studies > Scania's Simulation Driven Design Process for Efficient Vehicle Development

Scania's Simulation Driven Design Process for Efficient Vehicle Development

Technology Category

Analytics & Modeling - Digital Twin / Simulation

Applicable Industries

Automotive
Equipment & Machinery

Applicable Functions

Product Research & Development
Quality Assurance

Use Cases

Digital Twin
Virtual Reality

Services

Testing & Certification

About The Customer

Scania is an international manufacturer of commercial vehicles and engines. The company is based out of Sweden, operates in over 100 countries, and employs approximately 38,600 employees worldwide. Scania faces many challenges in bringing new products to market, including CO2 emission regulations, customer demands for more efficient vehicles, high competition, and pricing pressure. These challenges prompted Scania to reevaluate their current process and implement a simulation driven design process to speed up their development process and produce lighter yet structurally and functionally efficient component designs.

The Challenge

Scania, an international manufacturer of commercial vehicles and engines, was faced with the challenge of speeding up their design and development processes to produce lighter yet structurally and functionally efficient component designs. The automotive and commercial vehicle industries face many challenges when bringing a new product to market, including CO2 emission regulations and customer demands for more efficient vehicles. There is also high competition and pricing pressure in this market, forcing development teams to speed up their development process to achieve a shorter time to market. Scania's traditional process involved physical testing of prototypes, which led to many iteration loops between design and engineering departments, slowing down the development process.

The Solution

Scania implemented a simulation driven design process using solidThinking Inspire within the development chain. This allowed designers to take more responsibility over the design work by implementing upfront simulation and optimization. The process begins with Scania’s designers defining a design space, applying loads and other known boundary conditions, and then running an optimization. The ideal structural shapes generated by Inspire are then transferred into their CAD system to refine the geometry and run a first structural analysis. This new process allows the designer to handle structural tasks within their CAD tool, reducing iteration time between different departments. A recent example of this new process involved the redesign of a steering arm, where the designer used Inspire to create multiple design proposals, which were then refined and analyzed in Catia. The final design was handed over to a CAE engineer for verification and passed all required tests.

Operational Impact

By deploying an optimization tool (Inspire) and simulation into the design process, designers no longer have to wait for the CAE or test engineer’s evaluation of their design. This reduces iteration time between different departments and leads to a lean and more efficient development process. The input criteria such as loads and other boundary conditions still come from the CAE engineer, who verifies if the design meets all criteria before the component is built and physically tested. This new process has led to fewer iteration cycles between the CAE and the design departments, leading to significant savings in development time, costs, and the creation of better products. The success of this process is attributed to the efficient use of software such as Inspire.

Quantitative Benefit