Toyota Manufacturing UK rethinks car design and build strategy on simulation systems

Toyota Manufacturing UK is on the cusp of shaving vast amounts of time and cost off its car design and build cycles – by sharing of real-time data throughout the global Toyota enterprise and going totally digital and concurrent. Under what ‘s being painted as a continuation of Toyota’s strategy since 2002 of running on Dassault Systèmes’ 3D PLM (product lifecycle management) systems and modules – but is actually a major step forward – the company has started using digital manufacturing software in the UK. John Grainger, project specialist in the Production Planning and Control Division at Toyota explains that to-date, Toyota has always centralised design in Japan. “Teams of engineers and team leaders would travel to Japan and spend several weeks understanding the designs for a new model and how to build it,” he says. “Now, through development of a tailored manufacturing environment involving software from X, Y [sic] and Delmia, design data is stored in a common repository and accessible throughout the enterprise – allowing Toyota Manufacturing in locations outside Japan to share in the design-for-manufacture process.” With access to Delmia V5 DPM Assembly, Toyota UK engineers can now optimise assembly manufacturing processes concurrently during the design phase. Also, by implementing a Delmia V5 Human add-on to examine reach and motion, the UK group has been able to analyse the manufacturing feasibility of different variants of its models online. It’s a radical shift to global, collaborative design, development and design for manufacture – and it’s across the board. Big investments in 3D, video conferencing and the simulation environments now mean that some future models can be developed entirely outside Japan. They will be designed digitally, and processes, tooling and even employee training will be done using the simulation environment, which will also be shared with Japan. Although data management will be controlled through Japan, each manufacturing department, from welding to plastics, will have access to the engineering data within the same software environment. Grainger: “In the UK, we have currently only hosted one digital design review, but as they increase in frequency, we expect our total expenditure to have paid for itself within the year. Trips to Japan will become less common thanks to the power of digital technology in shrinking the distance between global teams working towards a common goal.”