Challenge
As a market leader in bus and coach manufacturing, Irizar Group has also established itself as a reference in the field of electromobility, electronics, communications and rotating machinery.
Irizar recognized the urgent need to reduce the CO2 emission for effective sustainable passenger transportation solutions, but was held back from meeting demand because of legacy technology. Its approach to designing buses and coaches involved switching between multiple point solutions.
“We were unable to model our vehicles in one tool,” said Jon Ander Aldasoro, the company’s mechanical engineering manager.
Irizar was also used to build and test physical prototypes – a practice that was incredibly time- and resource-intensive, and prone to error. The company realized a centralized solution would enable the geographically dispersed team to design and innovate accurately, and at speed.
“We needed a solution that would allow us to have everything in the same model so that we could optimize all the processes,” Aldasoro said.
With CATIA, we’ve been able to speed up all development phases and streamline all processes.
Solution
Irizar chose Dassault Systèmes’ next-generation collaborative virtual design application.
Using CATIA, the company designs and simulates in 3D all its components, including the bus or coach chassis, batteries, gas tanks, infrastructure and drive systems. It is then able to bring all of those parts together into a single digital model that, along with digital analysis and simulation capabilities, enables Irizar’s product development team to test their products in a virtual environment.
development time decrease.
design time reduction.
manufacturing errors downturn.
Benefits
By using CATIA, designers from different disciplines spread across the world can work together within the same solution to create standardized designs.
Physical prototypes are kept to a minimum, since all transportation vehicles, parts, systems and batteries can be accurately modeled in 3D first. This reduces waste, keeps costs down and enables Irizar to reach the vehicle manufacturing phase much earlier. While the extent and complexity of products and configurations increased, the engineering effort per product definition phase has reduced. As a result, vehicle development time has decreased by 25%, design time by 15% and manufacturing errors have fallen by 17%. Lead times have shortened and the company’s overall profitability has improved too.
This progress provides a strong foundation on which the company can develop further. In the near future, Irizar plans to leverage the 3DEXPERIENCE Cloud platform to tap the full potential of CATIA including electrical engineering functionalities, along with additional applications like SIMULIA for impact analysis. As a result, the company will be able to bring all aspects of their business together and take advantage of the advanced collaboration features of ENOVIA.
Focus on Irizar Group
Established in Spain over 130 years ago, Irizar is a market-leading manufacturer of luxury buses and coaches with traditional diesel as well as fully electric, hydrogen, hybrid and bio-diesel ranges. It has a commercial presence in over 90 countries, production plants in Spain, Morocco, Brazil and Mexico, and employs almost 3,000 people.
Focus on Abgam
Abgam, part of SEGULA Technologies Group, is an engineering services company specializing in consulting, implementation, development and support of Dassault Systèmes solutions in Spain and Portugal. An expert in business areas such as design, calculation, manufacturing and process engineering, and document management services, the company offers its technical expertise in various industries including automotive, aeronautics, capital goods, railways, energy, and civil works.