DIGITAL FACTORY
“ It ’ s still always start small , but think big . Be able to have the end goal in mind , but initially focus on trying to optimise a particular line or a particular quality issue ”
MAURICE LIDDELL , PRINCIPAL AND SENIOR CLIENT EXECUTIVE , BDO DIGITAL
So what are the best use cases for manufacturers ? When asked this question , both Liddell and Nowoswiat agree that digital design capabilities can help manufacturers to optimse and reduce overall design times and new product introductions . “ In our Oulu factory where 4G and 5G radio base stations are produced , there are new models being delivered to the production floor all the time . Digital designs of new models can be easily validated and tested for manufacturing before the actual units are produced ,” says Nowoswiat .
Adding to Nowoswiat ’ s comments Liddell says : “ I started my career in the automotive industry , and if you take a look back then at the overall timeframe from concept to getting the vehicle manufactured , it took about five years . That is because there were a lot of different unconnected manual processes and no digital thread of the whole design processes . Whereas now , being able to design a 3D model of a component and conduct some scenario analysis that can be fed back in to make modifications to the design before even committing to building a prototype for testing . This evolution has reduced the timeframe for an element of the cycle that always took a long time . Now we can shorten a lot of that by designing digital concepts , as well as digitally analysing and modelling before going to the first product stage .” manufacturingglobal . com 49