Local product life-style man- agment (PLM) specialist CNC Design Consultants (CDC) has teamed up with vehicle producer Optimal Energy in the design of the first South African electrical car, the Joule.

The plug-in electric vehicle was conceived by Optimal Energy and has been refined by automotive and design company Zagato’s Total Design Centre. “CDC is working closely with Optimal Energy to ensure a quality design,” says CDC MD Igal Filipovski. The car will reportedly go into production in 2013 and is on display this month at the Geneva Motor Show, in Switzerland.

He says that Optimal Energy is one of a number of companies worldwide which have implemented three-dimensional (3-D) and PLM specialist Dassault Systèmes’ (DS’s) latest product, Enovia V6 PLM. CDC also pro- vided the company with its computer-aided 3-D interactive application (CATIA) implementation, and is confident that, in conjunction with Enovia, DS’s integrated PLM solution will ensure that a world-class vehicle, with zero defects, is produced.

Enovia V6 provides a centralised PLM platform that supports product development, communication and data shar- ing throughout a product’s life cycle – from design concept to product retirement. It enables industries to use the Internet to design and collaborate in real time, from remote locations. The product also provides predefined processes that can be imple- mented to allow more control over engineering changes.

“The world is increasingly becoming a global village and more companies are relying on suppliers in Asia, Europe, the US or South Africa,” says Filipovski. He explains that if products go through the design process in different locations, there needs to be a system in place that can manage collaboration, secure all data and share it among the locations. The Enovia PLM suite enables this collaboration to take place, reports the company.

Cad Grows Up
He says that the traditional computer-aided design (Cad) and computer-aided manufacturing (Cam) tools have essentially become a commodity. “With companies now more focused on virtual design and product manufacture, the concept of standalone Cad/Cam is rapidly becoming impracticable,” he says, adding that companies are increasingly turning to PLM.

He explains that Cad/Cam tackles only the design aspects of product development and very little manufacture. It can be used in the manufacture of smaller components, such as a die or mould. However, in creat- ing a complete product, such as the Airbus 380 and 400M, which is extensively designed with Dassaults’ PLM products, a comprehensive, end-to-end solution is essential. This solution should manage mechanical and electrical design, and the manufacturing and assembly of a myriad of component parts into the finished product, reports the company.

The subassembly of the aero-planes is undertaken in many different locations before undergoing final assembly in another location. While Cad/Cam is still important in this process, collaboration between all the suppliers must be ensured so that the pro-duct is assembled and manufactured correctly, without having to build a prototype, and delivered on time, he says.

To this end, digital manufacturing (such as Delmia, part of the total PLM solution from DS) is used to shorten time-to-market and reduce the use of costly prototypes. “We have to ensure that, at the end of the process, we can see all the bottlenecks of the assembly process and, simultaneously, ensure quality,” he says.

Energy Sector Focus
Filipovski says that CDC is also focusing on energy-related situations, such as power stations and new energy plants. DS solutions are used by many constructors and users of power plants in the world, particularly for simulation and validation. He explains that, when designing and manufacturing a complex plant, software that simulates human ergonomics, using virtual mannequins, can be used to ensure that maintenance opera- tions can be performed.

He explains that the mannequins behave like humans, and a complete posture analysis and load analysis can be done on them. The simulations will also reveal how many operators are needed, the reachability, what tools will be required, and the minimum time required to perform a task, which is important in the nuclear indus- try to reduce exposure to radia- tion. This system, which was originally designed for submarines to gauge whether there would be enough space for maintenance, is now also used in the aerospace industry.

Meanwhile, the CATIA system provides an integrated solution to design complete plants and the electrical cabling and piping inside them, and simulates maintenance tasks, he says, adding that everything is done on a single platform, virtually and in 3-D, which ensures a more effective manufacturing process with fewer errors.

The CATIA system has more than 200 different role-based configurations, targeting several industries, in one integrated suite of programmes, where different licences activate specific functional applications. For this reason, it is important for CDC to carefully analyse customer requirements to choose the right solution. The CATIA system is dominant in automotive and aerospace industries, with 100% of all commercial aeroplanes and 80% of all new cars dependent on it for design and manufacture, he says.

CDC is the only South African business partner accredited by both information technology developer and manufacturer IBM and PLM and software provider DS as an authorised CATIA, Enovia and Delmia systems (besides others) reseller, and is a leading supplier of Cad/Cam and PLM products to local industry.