Automotive Design & Production is the one media brand invested in delivering your message in print, online, via email, and in-person to the right automotive industry professionals at the right time.
Issue link: https://adp.epubxp.com/i/383875
by Lawrence S. Gould > Contributing Editor It's not a new idea. It's just another step toward a goal, which, says Chuck Grindstaf, president & CEO of Siemens PLM Software ( plm.automation.siemens. com/en_us/ ), is to "defne not only the traditional connections between all of the components in a product, but also its functional, safety, and sustainability characteristics in a way that lets us close the loop with the requirements important for that product." Siemens has a name for this engineer- ing process: system-driven product design (SDPD). SDPD is akin to systems engineering, which the U.S. Department of Transportation defnes as "an interdisciplinary approach and means to enable the realization of successful systems. It focuses on defning customer needs and required functionality early in the development cycle, documenting requirements, then proceeding with design synthesis and system validation while considering the complete problem." SDPD, admits Grindstaf, is "really broad," but it's invaluable at sorting out the inherent complexity in today's prod- ucts, such as automobiles, by invoking a continuous process of decomposition, iteration, and closed-loop feedback through design, test, validation, manu- facturing, and related processes. Many challenges exist in implementing efective SDPD. In design, connecting the system of systems that make up an automobile. In production, connecting car design to the distributed and increasingly intelligent devices in manufacturing that make the car. In information technology, creating the infrastructure that supports distributed systems thinking; distributed design, simulation, analysis, and test; and all the distributed decision-making that goes with all that. PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT EVOLVES Vehicle development has changed over the years. It's faster. It encompasses electromechanical components, soft- ware, and all the related connections, interactions, and behaviors of those elements—the convergence known as "mechatronics"—as well as magnetic, hydraulic, thermal, and other domains in physics. There's also the realization that "requirements are part of product confgurations, and should be embedded in the design process. They should be treated the same way as any other design deliverable," says Stefan Jockusch, Vice President, Automotive Industry Strategy for Siemens PLM Software. Innovative car designs, let along mecha- tronics itself, breeds complexity. Sure, many vehicle systems are natural and obvious: chassis, suspension, power- train, body design, and so on. Breaking these systems down—a process called "decomposition"—into individual subsystems and components from an engineering perspective is also natural and obvious. Unfortunately, that break- down does not account for all the multi- domain interactions across all the sub- systems—"or not as efectively as auto designers would like," says Grindstaf. PLM HELPS SDPD Siemens NX covers three areas of prod- uct development, explains Jockusch. It's geometry design. It's the connection to simulation. It's computer-aided manu- SYSTEMS ENGINEERING IN PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT AD&P; > October 2014 > FEATURE > Systems Engineering in Product Development > Lawrence S. Gould > lsg@lsgould.com 36