Virya Autonomous Technologies

The automation industry is rapidly accelerating and transforming the way sectors like manufacturing, automotive, and consumer goods operate. Today, industries are expecting autonomous technologies to enhance efficiency, eliminate human error, and be both sustainable and scalable.

Virya Autonomous Technologies (Virya) is an India-based startup that promises to do exactly this with its autonomous technologies designed to transport people or materials to and from any physical environment. Their mission is to create innovative products and solutions that cater to the unique customization requests of their customers through scalability, customization and sustainable growth. “Our customers today are looking for personalization in their solutions. So, while we have a base set of products, we need to do a lot of rapid iteration and customization when a customer wants something specific,” said Virya Autonomous CTO Sabarish Gurusubramanian, who goes by Saba Guru. 

While they are currently focused on the manufacturing sector, their mission is to disrupt multiple industries, including fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) and logistics, by designing autonomous robots that promise to be more flexible than their competitors. “We have probably the only robots today that are truly capable of safely handling material movement in indoor and outdoor environments,” said Saba Guru. “The same robots can be indoors, for example, inside a factory shop floor, picking up material or tugging a trolley, and then drive multiple kilometers outdoors to deliver that material to a different warehouse. Our solutions are meant for different environments, including up to medium rain conditions, so they are very versatile.”

Creating these highly unique, customizable robots for their customers is no easy feat. Thankfully, Saba Guru had already spent a lot of his earlier career working with Dassault Systèmes solutions, and was convinced that the team at Virya would strongly benefit from their cloud-based technology to handle the rapid pace of manufacturing innovation and customization. “I’ve spent almost 14 years now in the automotive world and throughout my journey, I’ve tried a variety of tools but the 3DEXPERIENCE platform always stood out. When we started Virya and we were looking for the right tools and partners, I recalled my very positive experiences with Dassault Systèmes. I knew if we partnered with them, we would have access to world-class tools and support, so it felt like a natural decision to choose them as a partner and use the 3DEXPERIENCE platform as a tool,” said Saba Guru.

Since adopting the 3DEXPERIENCE platform on the cloud, Virya has been able to work with far more efficiency than ever before, thanks to the platform’s comprehensive features. “We were looking for something that would connect multiple job functions, like product design, engineering and maintenance, to help us with collaboration and allow us to scale. The 3DEXPERIENCE platform on the cloud is very comprehensive because it can handle all the different innovation stages, so it fits the bill,” said Saba Guru.

Virya currently offers indoor and outdoor autonomous robots to its customers – the AMR 50 designed to tow payloads up to 5000kg, the AMR 10 designed to tow payloads up to 1000kg, the APT20 designed to move pallets, and their autonomous golf cart. The company uses the 3DEXPERIENCE platform on the cloud for developing these solutions at every stage of the design journey. “All of Virya’s development in terms of mechanical and electrical design is handled by Dassault Systèmes solutions. There is no other tool in between, which makes for a much smoother developmental process,” said Saba Guru.

SOLIDWORKS, which is seamlessly integrated into the 3DEXPERIENCE platform, has been particularly critical for establishing a strong design workflow. “We are using SOLIDWORKS for the entire design process, from idea to design release - whether it’s a component, a subsystem, or an assembly,” said Saba Guru.

The 3DEXPERIENCE platform’s simple-to-use interface and CAD capabilities make it easy to address any customization requests during the design process. Without the platform, design modifications would have been time-intensive and prone to inaccuracies due to isolated workflows or multiple design versions. “There’s a certain level of intuitiveness that our engineers see in the platform. They’re able to make design changes easily from start to finish –creating the initial design, making a prototype, confirming its functionality, getting the product fabricated, etc,” said Saba Guru. “I think the biggest benefit is we're not dealing with 10 revisions of a file lying in obscure folders on different computers, so we’re minimizing miscommunication and design errors.” 

Beyond design and customization, having the right tools for team collaboration was another critical priority for Virya as its team and stakeholders are geographically dispersed – and continue to grow. Conventional tools, particularly on-premise solutions, lacked the flexibility to support Virya’s desire for rapid prototyping and communication with suppliers and clients around the world. Therefore, it made sense for Virya to choose a cloud-based platform rather than an on-premise one.

“We recognize that things are going to keep changing. We’re also at a point where our focus is on building the right things we need as an organization. If we were to go with an on-premise solution, it would take a lot of work to maintain, get licensed, and everything would be outsourced,” said Saba Guru. “What’s really cool and nice about the 3DEXPERIENCE platform on the cloud is that it’s flexible – we can add the solutions that we need as we progress.”

Working with ENOVIA on the 3DEXPERIENCE platform on the cloud has completely transformed the way the team collaborates. “If you compare our team’s efficiency now to before we had the platform, I would estimate a reduction in product development time by 30-40%,” said Saba Guru. “The collaboration aspect is probably the biggest benefit we’ve seen. For example, if I’m in Delhi today while the team is working on something in Bengaluru, I can still easily log into the platform to do a review. This has positively impacted our productivity. Everyone can pull up the 3D model anywhere in the world, do what needs to be done, and the work isn’t slowed down due to location.”

As Virya expands its reach into different industries, having the support of Dassault Systèmes and its huge network of resources will be extremely beneficial. “The 3DEXPERIENCE platform is a large ecosystem we’re now a part of. There are existing user communities that we can join, with easy access to software-related discussion and support. As a startup, having that support is very valuable to us. We’ve also set up communities internally for our own collaboration,” said Saba Guru.

Virya plans to incorporate even more tools from Dassault Systèmes. Most recently, they have started exploring product lifecycle management (PLM) capabilities on the 3DEXPERIENCE platform. “We’re at the early stage of using ENOVIA’s collaboration capabilities, but we’re already pretty excited to be able to connect and structure our ideas, and update data and processes in real-time,” said Saba Guru.

What’s next for Virya and the future of autonomous technologies? The company is confident that autonomous driving technology will continue to advance rapidly around the world and looks forward to ongoing engagement from Dassault Systèmes to helping the team pick the right tools and having a deep understanding of the challenges a startup faces, “We’ll always be innovating new products and product variants, and we’ll need to get these to market fast,” said Saba Guru. “At the end of the day, good engineering and good design are extremely fundamental for us as an organization. We anticipate that everything we do in that space is going to be with Dassault Systèmes.”