Siemens Digitalization of Art to Part: IMTS 2024

Summary

The Siemens software portfolio was demonstrated at IMTS 2024 illustrating the digitalization of “art to part” at its booth at IMTS 2024. The digitalization of “art to part” is the process of turning ideas and creative thinking into a physical product creating designs virtually where mistakes can be made and detected early at lower cost before creating physical prototypes and production pieces.

The software provides an environment to easily and efficiently perform iterative design: virtual prototyping, virtual testing and refinement that in the past been labor-intensive, wasteful and expensive. The old methods limited the number of design ideas that could be verified or disproved to explore new ideas. The software portfolio also features analysis and optimization at every level of machine operation and manufacturing processes to increase productivity, quality and profits in the real-world.

Core design tools coupled with digital twins provide immediate feedback in the design and manufacturing process:

• Engineering and simulation
• Generative design and 3D printing
• Manufacturing optimization
• Project planning and management
• Manufacturing operations management.
• Additive manufacturing
• CAM programming and simulation
• CNC machining and measuring
• Part, quality, inspection
• Assembly planning and simulation

The software is designed for industrial people to achieve the goal Barbara Humpton, president and CEO of Siemens USA describes as, “democratizing technology." Using interactive demonstrations at IMTS Siemens showed how to accelerate digital transformation addressing industry requirements faster, shortening time-to-market and increasing overall efficiency.

Real world example: eRod

The value of using Siemens offerings to efficiently achieve “art to part” design was demonstrated in the redesign of the eRod’s transmission housing design to withstand high forces, particularly in sport mode and to reduce noise and vibration during deceleration. 



Building off the successful rollout of its eRod “electric buggy” at IMTS 2022 Siemens improved the performance of the design of the KYBURZ Switzerland AG eRod electric sports car and displayed the results at IMTS 2024.
 
Matthias Leinberger, director, Business Development at Siemens PLM Software demonstrated and described the end-to-end virtual design, 3d prototyping, additive/subtractive machining processes and production of the new gear housing.  Every stage of the development was visualized with displays illustrating the digital manufacturing process.

This included Siemens NX CAM software for 3D models, data and processes to seamlessly connect planning and shopfloor operations, to the SINUMERIK ONE, the digital-native CNC that permits a digital twin of the machine tool and its full operation in production. The completed optimized new gear housing delivers superior results.

Key elements

To enhance the eRod’s transmission housing for high-performance driving, advanced design tools from the Siemens Xcelerator were applied to analyze and optimize material layout to withstand high forces without compromising performance.

Optimizing the transmission housing design by integrating pre-existing and new data into a single parametric CAD model to create a faceted and B-Rep (boundary representation) data simultaneously with all changes updated across the entire model.

Designing for additive manufacturing was accomplished to efficiently develop an optimized design for additive manufacturing while also preparing the build tray in the same associative environment verifying designs and prints using Simcenter 3D simulation fully integrated CAE solutions to achieve first-time-right printing parts.

e-Rod background

The KYBURZ Switzerland AG eRod electric sports car has a powerful power electric drive. Options include a 39kWh battery pack and a bigger motor that generates nearly 200 horsepower with 136 miles before recharging. KYBURZ describes the The eRod as the epitome of a (legal in the EU and Switzerland) roadworthy electric sports car: “It offers passionate drivers maximum driving pleasure." It cuts no corners when it comes to technology and how it handles offering maximum driving fun. The powerful electric drive ensures it has that thrust when you need it for raw driving pleasure with a top speed of 120 km/h (75 mph). Buyers can purchase a complete built vehicle or choose a building seminar to build a customized eRod under the guidance of an expert. The seminar takes one week and takes place at the production facility of KYBURZ. KYBURZ is located in Freienstein near Zurich, Switzerland. With more than 170 employees, it develops and produces high-quality electric vehicles for delivery and industrial companies as well as for private individuals. Martin Kyburz, founder and CEO of Kyburz AG, founded his company in 1991, building electric mobility scooters for the elderly because they were relatively simple to make.

Democratization of technology

Barbara Humpton, president and CEO of Siemens USA, at the IMTS 2024 Main Stage discussed the Democratization of Technology sharing insights on transforming manufacturing through the fusion of digital and physical worlds. She is shown in the top photo in this article.

The democratization of technology allows many people to collaborate for better results with software that makes it easy. She described bringing the technology revolution to industry and the industrial revolution to technology, closing the gap between how fast technology changes and just how fast our customers can adapt increasing innovation and tangible results. The democratization of technology provides the tools for industrial people to get things done efficiently without being computer experts. An analogy is how spreadsheets enabled a wide range of people to do many things without being programmers and Siemens digitalization software is a major enabler along that journey. These new levels of digitalization software enable Small Medium Enterprise (SME) manufacturers to enjoy the productivity and efficiency, that in the past was only enjoyed by large companies with specialized staff.

Digital manufacturing coming into focus

The concepts of digital manufacturing are coming into focus with these software tools. I started my career as an engineer working with direct computer control of machine tools many years ago, and there were concepts of Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM), but the hardware and software technologies were not available to achieve the vision and benefits. Industry does come a long way with new and refined technologies to make “art to part” digital design and manufacturing a reality.