Automating Reporting Process in Automotive Industry: A Case Study of F.tech R&D North America
Technology Category
- Analytics & Modeling - Digital Twin / Simulation
Applicable Industries
- Automotive
- Equipment & Machinery
Applicable Functions
- Product Research & Development
- Quality Assurance
Use Cases
- Experimentation Automation
- Time Sensitive Networking
Services
- Testing & Certification
About The Customer
F.tech R&D North America, founded in 1947, is a world-class certified Tier-1 international automotive systems supplier. Headquartered in Japan, with a research and development office located in Troy, OH, the company provides a range of automotive components to its OEM partners including subframes, trailing arms, lower control arms and pedals. F.tech R&D North America has full in-house R&D capabilities including design, CAE, prototyping, and testing. It has its own research and development groups along with design and engineering service teams that work on CAE and testing lab validation. F.tech R&D North America’s CAE team focuses on virtual design validation and makes extensive use of simulation tools, including Altair’s own HyperWorks suite.
The Challenge
F.tech R&D North America, a world-class certified Tier-1 international automotive systems supplier, was facing a challenge in their reporting process. The company utilizes HyperView to investigate test results, using the data to inform decisions on methods to improve designs. This data is often used to create reports and presentations during the development process, using images and animations generated by HyperView to illustrate particular areas of a component where additional work may be required. However, exporting these assets was a highly manual process of loading in results, positioning the model and taking screenshots. This was time-consuming and took away from the engineers' time to focus on exploring and interpreting the results. F.tech R&D North America wanted a way of automating this process to reduce the time taken to produce project reports.
The Solution
Altair ProductDesign’s Enterprise Solutions Group (ESG) was approached to provide a solution. They tackled the reporting issues in two parts. First, they evaluated the 50 different testing metrics F.tech R&D North America generally uses to generate a report and recommended that Altair’s Automated Reporting Director (ARD) could be implemented to help streamline reporting activities. ARD is integrated directly into the HyperView environment and is designed to eliminate the tedious and repetitive tasks associated with the mechanics of generating reports. The solution automates the detection of result maxima or hot spots, best view selection, creation of notes and legends, and highlights the most interesting results in an interactive tab. Altair ProductDesign customized the ARD to meet company-wide best practices and ensure it would work seamlessly within the existing workflow. They then trained key members of F.tech R&D North America’s engineering team on how to use the new panels in HyperView effectively.
Operational Impact
Quantitative Benefit
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