Automotive faces massive transformation

The automotive industry is at a major turning point with everyone planning to electrify their entire fleet of vehicles. Automotive manufacturers are not only faced with new challenges in developing vehicles significantly different from building Internal Combustion Engines (ICE). There is also a growing effort to develop innovative solutions such as autonomous vehicles. Additionally, automotive companies used to plan long cycles when retooling a factory for a new car model. The new dynamic of the industry is to be more agile and capable of better responding to market demand. The ongoing effects of the Covid-19 pandemic and rapid inflation have caused supply chain disruptions, leading to manufacturers seeking solutions to maintain acceptable profit margins while delivering vehicles to customers. These challenges, coupled with demographic changes, are causing significant fluctuations in supply and demand over short periods. So, for the foreseeable future, flexibility and fast response will be key in production planning.

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The Challenge

The key challenge for the automotive industry is to navigate the generational shifts towards electrification and connected cars, while also transforming their manufacturing processes and securing their supply chains amid a tense geopolitical backdrop.

Accelerated design iterations

As the automotive industry moves towards software-defined vehicles (SDVs), the ability to fine-tune personalization levels is becoming increasingly important. This requires a dynamic manufacturing environment that can adapt quickly to changing market conditions, which can be achieved through using advanced simulations and tools such as pre-design. By adopting Prevu3D digital twin software, manufacturers can create facility layouts and improve their pre-design process to be more agile, enabling them to change manufacturing configurations faster.

Bring visual context to documentation

The challenge of having documentation and data spread across various systems without a proper visual context to link everything together can lead to multiple site visits to close documentation gaps. This increases the risk of overlooking significant details during surveys or documentation updates, which can result in surprise engineering change orders during construction, ultimately raising schedule and budget risk. Implementing Prevu3D digital twin solution with advanced visualization capabilities can help link all documentation and data together, reducing the need for multiple site visits and minimizing the risk of errors and delays. Having a centralized digital twin platform that provides a comprehensive view of all data in a visual context is key to work efficiency and improving decision-making processes. Lack of, incomplete, out of date, or non-existent documentation increases the pressure on engineers when they are creating and validating layout and reconfiguration options.

Enabling better decision-making

Prevu3D digital twin technology provides a more comprehensive and user-friendly way for stakeholders to visualize and interact with data compared to CAD files, which are often static and lack interactivity and simulation capabilities. This makes it easier for stakeholders to engage in projects and provide clear feedback, which can help accelerate the pre-design process and improve the quality of recommendations, especially for non-engineering collaborators.

Prevu3D approach

Prevu3D’s digital twin addresses each pinch point of the current approach to factory layout pre-design.

Understand site conditions.

Load and process massive scan data sets to create 3D replicas of sites. Flesh out the current state with AI-powered AssetFinder tools. It automates the extraction of assets, systems and other key building elements from interior scans.

Powerful yet simple Reality Modeling tools.

Create multiple layouts in seconds with cut-and-paste simplicity. Prevu3D still provides all the power engineers need to analyze logistics and operational constraints, and identify optimal choices.

Immersive, intuitive collaboration.

Non-engineers can easily navigate through photo-real and millimeter-accurate visualizations and provide their feedback in context in the digital twin. Served wirelessly ‌wherever collaborators may be on their mobile devices.

Results from using Prevu3D scan-based digital twins

Using Prevu3D in pre-design enables engineers to uncover opportunities obscured by CAD-based processes and reduces the risk of surprise engineering change orders during construction. The ability to process scans from many sources quickly means Prevu3D eliminates the disconnect between production layouts and the as-built documentation for your current and future projects. Prevu3D digital twin assets are re-usable for other functions. For example, to create simulations for employee onboarding, upskilling, and health and safety training. New Prevu3D tool sets will extend digital twin re-use to operations improvement, preventative maintenance and site monitoring.