Fast Development of Trains: First Digital, Then Real

2007-Nov-11 |   Design, planning, and manufacturing using digital technology, as well as the incorporation of suppliers and customers into these processes, will become increasingly important in the future. That’s because these factors make customized and efficient production possible. Siemens Transportation Systems (TS) is already designing trains from start to finish in a continuous 3D CAD process chain. Conceptualization, development, production preparation, manufacturing, and assembly are all carried out virtually, and the results are made available to all designers in various development stages by means of a standardized product data management system.

Individual processes run in parallel here, and each developer always knows exactly what the others are doing. This means all development advances are immediately incorporated into planning processes at other units. Such data is also exchanged virtually between TS plants in “Collaboration Meetings”: instead of traveling to specific plants with 2D drawings and then synchronizing results onsite, development advances can be compared and aligned on an international scale — practically in real time.

Virtual reality has also become a feature of production operations, with experts now creating 3D animations of work process steps and initial simulations of individual component modules as early as the design-creation phase. Production preparation specialists use this data to plan and manage manufacturing and assembly processes by defining entire assembly sequences, for example. Assembly technicians are then shown the work process steps in virtual animations before they begin putting a train together. In addition to shortening worker-orientation times for new products, this also reduces the enquiries and errors.

Some 2D drawings are still needed during production, as it is difficult to transfer the complex information they contain to 3D models. Such data transfer should be possible by the end of 2009, however.