Going global with collaborative design

For larger manufacturers wrestling with the significant changes they need to make throughout engineering design - both to get the best out of modern IT and to reflect the reality that suppliers are increasingly responsible for development - it's well worth looking at how Jaguar and Land Rover, part of Ford's PAG (Premier Automotive Group) are coping. This is not just about Ford's C3PNG (three Cs of CAD/CAM/CAE, P for product information management and NG, next generation), the group's world-wide CAD engineering design, development and PLM (product lifecycle management) data management environment, which is founded on Dassault Catia V5 and TeamCenter Engineering. There's no doubting that as the technology driver, but according to a senior source at Jaguar, Land Rover, the process and workflow changes embodied in Ford's global product development system (GPDS) are at least as important. GPDS is aimed at shaving months off the development cycles achieved with Ford's earlier FPDS (Ford product development system). It's central to Ford's world-wide push to cut costs and improve efficiencies in product innovation, capitalising on the power of new IT. But what's particularly interesting here are its solutions not only for ensuring that the goals of design component re-use, global CAD data sharing and the rest are met, but that the tools and processes developed will work across the design chain, including in the real world of existing and new suppliers. First things first: our source notes several changes in the process of design at Jaguar and Land Rover brought about to capitalise on what's now possible with IT. In particular, that's enabling collaboration across functions like purchasing, manufacturing engineering and production, with processes running in parallel, rather than sequentially, using early and less complete engineering data where possible. "For example, with FPDS we focused a lot of work on getting completeness of the geometry, whereas with GPDS, for the early phases we're more interested in capability and compatibility - how the designed components work with the rest of the vehicle," he says. "So there's more emphasis on information and making that available to others. Then again, with FPDS we version-controlled everything. But now the virtual vehicle is the starting point. Before that there is no version control." Virtualised processes This represents a huge transition in Ford affecting all the PAG companies and their suppliers - and it flies in the face of traditional design operations. Our source outlines sequences of virtualised processes - like checking designs and technologies that are going to be used, running packaging studies to examine fit and form - all without worrying about detailed geometry. "We've got to change the mindset of individuals, departments and suppliers, which was all about completing their part of the project before showing their data to others. Instead, we're asking them to release data and make it visible early." Making that work is about having a well-defined and publicised, very inclusive global design process that spans right into production planning. But it's also about initiatives like ensuring no local data storage. Instead, everything is ported immediately to Ford's new PLM system. In brief detail, the Jaguar and Land Rover approach is to split early phase car design into two macro levels - under body and upper body - with parallel design processes for each. Those run from virtual prototyping through manufacturing engineering to mechanical analysis and FEA, culminating in final data judgement, which covers the whole integrated vehicle design, as if for production, including virtual factory build. "At that point we have a six month change moratorium, and only then do we start going for engineering change control," says our man. It all looks good, but he also observes that, while the GPDS workflow and its underpinning 3D CAD and PLM technologies are working well, Ford is now preparing to turn off its old systems. On the one hand that puts the pressure on migrating data from Ford's old system to 3CPNG, and that's for exiting as well as new models. On the other, it leaves issues around interoperability and what amount to workarounds with people and companies - particularly those in the all-important automotive supply chain, which now accounts for 50-80% of vehicle development. "For example, we need to capture design and build information [from suppliers] so that it's always used in exactly the right way." In other words, Ford needs standards so that any potential for misunderstandings, errors and risk can be engineered out, while the good bits are cemented in and the realities of business, operations and the way people work are accommodated. Beneath that are two key challenges. The first is IP (intellectual property) security, particularly in some of the emerging industrial economies. The second concerns standardising suppliers' CAD interchange formats and associated processes. Looking at IP security, our man says: "Linking suppliers is our biggest headache. It's a global automotive industry and global vehicle community out there so security is almost crippling us." Before GPDS, Jaguar, Volvo and the others in PAG each had their own tools and mindsets for this in terms of supplier management and workflows. But with the drive now for low cost global sourcing, those have had to change. The requirement is a protected standard approach for both existing and new suppliers, but one that works fast, enabling all that's best in supplier collaboration. All change Then there's data delivery, and Ford's new systems also impact everything down to basic design office practices and procedures. "For example, we don't produce drawings any more," says our source. "It's 3D data right from the start, all the way to producing the tooling. So although some of the suppliers' systems currently need drawings, they're outside our process and they have to change. They need to work with 3D data and do it in the right format using the correct tools and methods." That's not a problem for the Tier One suppliers but it may mean difficulties for some smaller and more specialist organisations. "To integrate suppliers, we are asking them to communicate digitally with our systems. They need to get the data themselves from our TeamCenter system, and provide it back directly into our database. Many of our top suppliers are there, but others are having to do it through peer-to-peer data exchange - and we don't like that." Given that most OEMs are putting similar requirements on suppliers, they undoubtedly see a risk of potentially significant IT investments staring them in the face just to continue doing business. And hence Ford's global focus on JT format. "We will only exchange data in neutral CAD format," says our man. "We won't resource data exchange. All our suppliers will have to pull data using our toolset and we will both support and police this. In fact in the future we will categorise suppliers as close and not so close to us, according to their scale of CAD integration." Note 'support and police': our man says Ford understands that making this work for all parties will necessitate proactive processes geared to helping suppliers deploy the IT they need. "We see three lifecycle phases: analysis, build/test and post implementation. The first part is talking about our CAD requirements to key suppliers and also new suppliers we source during the design phase. We'll probably need interim solutions to help them get the right tools for our supply chain. Then in build and test we'll roll out our preferred tools. And then post implementation it's all about support - making sure they have the right licences, identifying the holes in the toolset, helping with where to get the data and so on."