For an Indian small and medium enterprise (SME), it is critical to be able to fulfil its customers’ needs in terms of a quality product to be delivered as per its engineering requirement, to maintain the cost and within the timeframe agreed. Small and mid-size manufacturers constantly make efforts to meet the customers’ demand. Here knowledge sharing plays an important role. This critical capability can be acquired by a SME through adoption of digital ways to execute design to manufacturing projects.
The demand of having products made to the customer’s requirement will not only grow but will get more complex with time. SMEs are agile, flexible and therefore can tune into the customer’s demands sooner as compared to larger organisations. SMEs need to have infrastructure and capabilities to be
able to cater to such dynamic demands. That is where Digitalisation of the entire Value Chain from design to manufacturing to services plays a critical role.
Digitalisation for SMEs is easily achievable and needs moderate financial investment. To propagate this thought among the SMEs of India, Siemens Digital Industries Software and Manufacturing Today collaborated for two conferences with the theme – ‘Digital Transformation – Opportunities for small and midsize manufacturers’, on August 6th and 7th in Pune and Chennai respectively. The focus was on sharing the best practices to be adopted for digitalization by the Indian SMEs.
At these events, Siemens Digital Industries Software also unveiled Solid Edge 2020 with its new features such as augmented reality, expanded validation tools, model-based definition, and 2D Nesting. Digitalising the entire product development process with Siemens Solid Edge 2020 is easy to implement.
Danish Mohammad, Marketing Director – Asia Pacific, Mainstream Engineering, Siemens Digital Industries Software, welcomed the guests and introduced the agenda of the day. This was followed by a welcome address by Vishal Chopra, Business head of Mainstream Engineering, who introduced the latest version of Solid Edge to the audience.
Anshuman Prakash, technical marketing manager, Siemens Digital Industries Software, said, “we have an annual release cycle with additional products to the portfolio.” He also shared a success story of a SME Solid Edge user. He shared, “They used Solid Edge mechanical and electrical design and its technical publications module. The software offered them seamless communication. In fact, when we talk about design creation, it also involves design validation and means first-time-right”. This was among many technical details he shared while he demonstrated to the audience the capabilities of the latest Solid Edge 2020.
Nitin Malvadkar, technical consultant, Siemens Digital Industries Software, delivered a detailed explanation of Solid Edge 2020 and its advantages. Meant for design professionals, the advantage of the latest version is its ability to manage the data generated during design process. A free cloud-based collaboration enables one to discuss the design with customers and share files seamlessly. The company offers a digital twin along with next-gen tools focusing on generative design, which can be a boon to automotive designers to lightweight components thus improving manufacturing cost and efficiencies.
Augmented Reality (AR) in Solid Edge 2020 helps in reviewing the design in context of varied environments. With added product manufacturing information, it provides the most appropriate immersive environment for training, maintenance and engineering decision making. One can add multiple features on the PMI based animation and this can then be consumed for downstream manufacturing. For the design function, Siemens has incorporated reverse engineering capability that helps integrate next-generation technologies to provide a rapid and simplified way to create a digital definition of a physical product.
Based on the complexity of the engineering requirement, Solid Edge can be enhanced with add-ons for Mechanical Design, Electrical Design, Simulation, Data Management, Cloud-based Collaboration, Manufacturing, and Technical Publication. Solid Edge offers exceptional design capabilities for sheet metal, enhanced photo rendering, large assembly performance and data migration.
Pramod Kalyani, CEO, Karlson Engineering Solution, attended the conference as a guest speaker and shared his insight on his experience of using Solid Edge and how he has been able to introduce digitalisation in his small & medium organisation. Dev, GM, Premos pointed out that “new product development means aligning the concept generation, design, manufacturing and assembly operation”. Premos caters to the engineering needs of tyre manufacturers, ranging from developing equipment for tyre manufacturing and the related chemical industries. The company uses Solid Edge’s integrated data management and library systems in addition to the CAD capabilities.
Aiyappan Ramamurthy, technical director, Siemens Digital Industries Software, drew attention to the fact that OEMs operate based on market demand. He said, “Disruption in the market is causing rapid changes in engineering products. We provide technology that helps define digital twin of product, process and performance. Products are becoming smarter and therefore, needs multi-disciplinary design and development capabilities. The digital twin framework makes it possible for designers to define such complex “system of systems”, validate and select the most optimal design in least possible time, first time right without using expensive physical prototypes.” For manufacturing function, he mentioned, “Machines communicate with each other. The need is to incorporate them into a smart production scenario. Digital twin of production scenario can help validate process, improve throughput and reduce waste.”
L Murali, senior director, Siemens Digital Industries Software, spoke about the need to redefine processes and systems, “Businesses need to adopt systems those facilitate traceability and transparency. Especially because the ratio of non-mechanical components vs. mechanical components in today’s smart products continues to increase and customer satisfaction is driving brands. Service is the new emerging business opportunity and adoption of these systems is the only way forward.”
With the discussions, insights and knowledge shared on the platform, we conclude that Industry is transforming and the organisations which are embarking on the journey of Digitalisation will be the winners of the future. Digitalisation is getting democratised with adoption of low cost, efficient and scalable tools available. It is in the interest of the organisations to make early moves and lead rather than forced by environment to change.