Integrated Model Creation

Adient, a global automotive and aerospace seating and interior supplier, spun off from Johnson Controls in October 2016 as an independent entity, is a leader in both products and product development. Their goal of an Integrated Model Creation Process is a recognition that quality and innovation depend on data accuracy, and that accuracy and reliability of data are underlying requirements for automation and efficiency.

With that in mind, collaborating among 5,600 employees in 12 core development centers, connected to more than 230 manufacturing and assembly plants across 32 countries, demands a clear process vision.

“We are a true global company of 80,000 people operating among different time zones, cultures, customers and partners and, importantly, drawing on many different computer-aided design (CAD) systems to build our products,” says Ramanamurthy H Pentakota, Global Director of IP, Technical Services and Operations at Adient.

“All the OEMs we serve use different CAD systems—or varying versions within it,” said Ram, as he is referred to by colleagues.  “They also have their own type of certifications, specifications, and how they want to fit this or that annotation on what data layer.” He notes that some want drawings, some want 3D, some want fully parametric models, some want just the envelope geometry and some have specific quality checking tools. “The variations involved for each OEM make it very hard for a Tier One supplier such Adient to easily optimize production and product development,” he says.  “Generally, there are no uniform standards across all the different supply chains either because OEMs follow their own standards, which suppliers must then adapt.”

How do Tier One suppliers reconcile the geometric differences, manufacturing instructions and Bill-of-Materials (BOM) associated with the different OEM and partner CAD systems? The answers vary, but for Adient fidelity to their Integrated Model Creation Process offers a uniform path forward.

“We try to standardize on a single CAD platform in-house, specialize in two more, and then faithfully recognize the original data from another 25-30 different CAD and analysis environments that send information to us,” said Ram.

Four years ago Adient engaged Elysium to provide the software tools needed to translate and package all the data for their different OEMs and suppliers. “The validated modeling data that Elysium facilitates is a key part of our integrated process approach to Model-Based Definition (MBD) and a Model-Based Enterprise (MBE),” says Ram. “Sometime in the near future a robust, all-digital, MBD/E environment will help us better integrate the mobility devices, sensors and mechanical systems required for autonomous vehicle development. That’s our direction.”

Translating the future

Shorter product life and engineering development cycles are moving the automotive industry away from 2D toward 3D MBD/E processes that serve end-to-end automation from design to manufacturing and marketing. Where engineering and management disciplines had manual or paper transition points, tomorrow’s data environments will be interconnected and quickly available to support decisions or run machines and electronics. That is a real-world vision propelled by breakneck innovation and the necessity to keep up or fall behind.

“Robust translation and validation off source information—and insight into that data—is what will keep ‘Industry 4.0’ and true automation on track,” says Ram. “Then we need to embed rich data, such as all the combinations of processes that create a drill hole, with materials and suppliers, costs, and other profiles. We have GD&T and PMI now. Everyone is using that. But we want to take it to the next level of product intelligence—manufacturing-processes intelligence baked into the CAD model so that machine software picks that up and actually does the programming, optimized and without error.

“Elysium R&D has supported our internal efforts and joined us to test the possibilities we see,” Ram says. “I’m one of the co-chairs for the workgroup of the Automotive Industry Action Group (AIAG), and I represent the automotive industry at NIST. They have MBE consortiums, and I normally speak at those.  Elysium puts their share and talent into the workgroup, too, so I appreciate that as well.  To date, the Elysium tools have saved Adient at least 10% in data preparation and iteration costs, and 10% in costs related to automated validation. This is very significant.”

With smart seats for autonomous vehicles in the planning, Adient is thinking about feedback loops that report posture and ergonomics and enable e-commerce to improve the passenger experience. Translating the future—be it for the rider or the data traveling underneath and throughout that experience—is what Adient is driving for at full speed.