Virtual Engineering and Morphing Technology

As competitive pressures in the automotive industry continue to increase the need for reduction in product development time, OEM's are searching for ways to eliminate non-valued added activities. Today, still too much time is devoted to the laborious process of manipulation of CAD geometry in the advanced stages of a program in order to develop feasibility for emerging design themes, involving the packaging and function of vehicle systems. Technology is being developed that will eliminate much of the tedium currently involved in this design engineering process. As theme iterations or packaging changes occur, CAD models that intelligently link the theme, the packaging, and the engineering “rules” will automatically “morph” into new designs. This Morphing process will execute CAD model changes according to engineering rules that are considered to be industry best practices. Product engineers will interface with the computer in terms of engineering parameters, a more effective method of designing than the inherently inefficient process of manually manipulating CAD geometry. This will free engineers to spend more time adding value to the product at the advanced stages of a program. A further benefit of this Morphing technology will come out of the linkages to manufacturing and program business “rules.” With the greater dependencies on the quality of the CAD for actual manufacturing tool design, build and process verification, the use of these “best practice” rules early in the CAD design phases will greatly reduce the amount of rework through all phases of a program.