Autodesk software to drive auto hardware

The 3D design and software firm launches 2014 design suites for manufacturers, enabling more advanced digital prototyping workflows. Amit Panday reports.
Autodesk, Inc, the 3D design, engineering and software solutions firm which caters to many industries including automotive, now plans to focus more on the automotive supply chain area to tap current and forthcoming opportunities.



Speaking to Autocar Professional, Martin Steuer, director, emerging market development, manufacturing, says: “Besides industrial equipment, we plan to increasingly focus on the opportunities in the growing automotive supply chain in India, China, Thailand and ASEAN region. All major OEMs in India now understand the benefits of 3D software solutions in the product design and factory design areas. While all big OEMs are fully entrenched with our 3D software solutions, I see that automotive supply chain is another widely used domain where we are going to focus. The local market in India is huge and we plan to tap more opportunities here.” “As against the mature economies where we are mostly growing in single digits, it is the emerging economies like India which are enabling a double-digit growth for us," says Steuer.



Autodesk has launched its 2014 design suites which include the Product Design Suite (PDS) and the Factory Design Suite (FDS). PDS is a comprehensive solution which enables OEMs to design, simulate and validate a product digitally before it lands into the physical production.

Besides saving costs, time and manual efforts, the digital prototyping capabilities of PDS help in optimising product designs for a range of input conditions, reduce over-engineering of products, explore alternative manufacturing processes, optimise material selection for impact and cost, identify hazardous materials usage, improve collaboration work between teams placed at different locations, enable re-usage of design data and reduce re-work processes and provide many other flexible functionalities.



According to Steuer, the PDS effectively helps in quality improvement and time efficiency in the range of 20-80 percent, depending on the product. FDS, on the other hand, helps OEMs design the most efficient layout for their manufacturing space by creating a digital factory model and making the required changes before the equipment is installed physically. Hence, it contributes in the form of optimisation of machinery, energy consumption, workforce, space, material flow and other crucial parameters in a factory set-up. “Designing the FDS solution takes around 30 months of collaborative work putting all stages together,” adds Steuer. Furthermore, Autodesk’s 2014 simulation software portfolio delivers an advanced, faster, more accurate and flexible approach to predicting, optimising and validating designs early in the design process. “The 2014 design suites provide manufacturers with affordable access to the best tools for the task at hand. Among other benefits, they help manufacturers improve productivity significantly and minimise upfront investment, resulting in increased productivity and a faster path to the market as well as ROI,” says Rajiv Bajaj, head, manufacturing solutions, Autodesk India and SAARC.



Steuer also reveals that the company has recently acquired PI-VR of Germany which develops software solutions for the automotive industry. According to reports, PI-VR’s visualisation technology, which streamlines the carmaking process through the use of sophisticated visualisation techniques on a real-time basis, will consolidate the Autodesk’s portfolio of software solutions in the auto domain. Autodesk had been focusing on multiple acquisitions worldwide as a part of its expansion strategy and has acquired more than 20 companies in the past year.