Aug 14, 2020
About the Customer
The customer is a multinational engineering and manufacturing company in the Aerospace & Defense sector. The global industry leader specializes in the design, production and distribution of some of the world’s most innovative power generation equipment, marine propulsion systems and civil and military engines for aviation and other industries. Engineering Industries eXcellence’s simulation team recently delivered an advanced Digital Twin model for a new production line at the customer’s U.S.-based aircraft engine production site in order to help them win a large government contract with the U.S. Department of Defense.
The Customer’s Challenge
This was a very interesting use case for our simulation team, which is usually brought in by a customer to model an existing manufacturing site, process or production line that is not working optimally in order to study it, and to identify bottlenecks and areas for improvement. In this case, however, our experts were modeling a production line and process that did not yet exist in the customer’s plant. Why, do you ask?
A long-standing defense contractor and government supplier, the customer was trying to win a contract for a new line of military aviation engines. Because they planned on investing and implementing a new production line to manufacture the engines only if they received the official order from the government, they needed a solution to help them prove that they would be able to complete the order and to deliver it by the deadline set by the Department of Defense. That was the purpose of the Digital Twin our team was to build – a means by which our customer could simulate the future capacity, processes and throughput on their new production line in order to show the government that not only would they be able to meet the needs and requirements of the contract, but they could fulfill the order more efficiently and cost-effectively than any other manufacturer bidding against them. With one of the few established practices for Manufacturing Plant Simulation in North America, and some of the most experienced industrial simulation experts in the world, Engineering Industries eXcellence was called in to help the customer meet this challenge.
About the Project
In order to build the simulation model that our customer needed in order to prove that they could deliver for the U.S. military, our team leveraged the leading Tecnomatix Plant Simulation software offering from Siemens Digital Industries. To build a Digital Twin from scratch, without an actual production line, process or system in the real world to observe and simulate, the first thing we had to do was to help the customer fully define and design the “to be” process and workflow. Because this type of production line was already implemented in one of the customer’s plants outside the U.S., we started from that point of reference.
As we began building out the manufacturing process virtually and validating its feasibility in the real world, we were able to identify a number of areas for optimization and improvement that we then could build into the model and test. This was a huge advantage for the customer, since they were able to optimize their process ahead of time, avoiding the costly changes that would have had to be put in place if they had built the production line without simulating it in the virtual world first.
Engineering’s Advantage
In the end, our world-class simulation team delivered a complete Digital Twin model, which our customer could use to present to the U.S. government. Not only could they show what the future production process would look like, but they could realistically simulate the results and throughput to be expected if they were awarded the defense contract. There is no doubt that the ability to deliver a high-quality product and to deliver it in the expected timeline is of utmost importance to the government when choosing suppliers, as these elements have the ability to impact and risk the performance and readiness of the U.S. defense fleet. Simulation is an incredibly effective and reliable tool when validating a manufacturer’s promised production capacities and capabilities. Looking forward, could this project be the foreshadowing of what’s to become the standard in the world of U.S. defense when it comes to choosing suppliers and contractors?
