Mitsubishi Motor Sports goes for World Rally success with PTC

World Rally Championship player Mitsubishi Motor Sports (MMSP) reckons it is achieving significant speed, quality and performance gains as a result of standardising on CAD/CAM and PLM (product lifecycle management) software from PTC. The company is using PTC’s Pro/Engineer and Pro/Intralink for development of its Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution WRC car – enabling radical improvements in terms of collaborative and continuous design and development. Indeed, MMSP chief designer Paul Doe goes as far as to say development time for the rally cars is now down by 30%, with great improvements in design accuracy. Next, the firm intends to implement aspects of PTC’s Windchill PLM software to take that even further. This is intense stuff. With an 11-month racing season, 16 rallies and 15 test sessions, there is no ‘off season’ in WRC. The Mitsubishi design team has to concern itself with next year’s design alongside different vehicle configurations to suit the range of driving conditions at all events. Cost is inevitably also a factor, so finding the most efficient ways to improve performance is important. Doe says that with Pro/Engineer’s behavioural modelling capability, MMSP engineering analysts are able to predict performance gains for any project, and compare against likely cost. MMSP has been using PTC software since 2001, then alongside SolidWorks, but last year began a three-year initiative to regain its lead in the WRC – one of the keys of which was its move over entirely to PTC. Currently, the 12-man MMSP development team uses Pro/Engineer for: development and modification of surface design and car components; and CAE tasks such as structural and thermal simulation and FEA (finite element analysis) of all highly stressed and safety-critical parts, such as the roll cage, suspension links, transmission parts, and wheel rims. Doe cites the system’s associative CAD/CAM/CAE capabilities in particular have helped the company to improve time-to-production, product quality and manufacturing consistency – not least because all changes are updated automatically in the analysis database and manufacturing tool paths. “Our main challenge is to push the limits of performance without compromising reliability,” he says. “Pro/Engineer not only facilitates all of our development processes, but also has a very easy-to-use, intuitive user interface. This combination allows us to perform complex tasks quickly, fuelling the productivity improvements.” Next, MMSP intends to implement PTC Windchill for data management and more collaboration. Since the team modifies and builds new car components for each rally and test event, it needs to manage huge amounts of data that change regularly. It also needs to do that while managing complex and time-sensitive processes, and coordinating its efforts and those of its suppliers to optimise the race cars. Doe expects its PLM investment to help MMSP to maximise productivity through strengthened collaborative processes, while further reducing its development costs and the overall development time required for new cars.