Ep: 27 Solve Complexities with Production Line Definition

Solve Complexities with Production Line Definition (Part 2)

Therese (00:05):

Welcome to a DELMIA podcast, Global Operations on the Go. I'm your host, Therese Snow. Today I'm talking to Prashanth Mysore, Offer Marketing Strategic Business Development Director here at DELMIA. He's a distinguished expert in robotics, and we'll be discussing production line definition today. Welcome, Prashanth.

Meet Prashanth Mysore

Prashanth (00:24):

Thank you. Hello everyone, and thank you for joining this podcast on robotics, especially on production line definition. Hopefully it'll be an interesting one.

Therese (00:34):

Before we get started, please tell our listeners a bit about your background.

Prashanth (00:39):

Sure. As you've already introduced, my name is Prashanth Mysore. I'm a global strategic business director, and I've been with Dassault Systèmes over 23 years and worked in leading automotive companies like T R W and Suzuki Motors before joining Dassault. And I've been working on robotics automation factory of the future and supply chain of the future topics.

Therese (01:00):

Could you please tell us about 3DS robotics solutions? How can it help robotics startups to be successful in this market?

DELMIA Robotics and the Virtual Experience

Prashanth (01:07):

To me a robotic solution, as most of it's part of the virtual to an experience solution, and it's broadly, it's an industry proven solution approach that helps in validation of production systems and robot programming. And of course we do all within 3D collaborative environment, which is 3D experience platform solution is quite flexible and easy to use for defining robotic work, sales, manufacturing process like drilling, riveting, a welding spot, welding material handling, painting, sealant applications, even remote handling applications and pop plants and some of those hazardous operations where health and safety is paramount. We also have tooling definition, auxiliary equipment, definitions like conveyors and material handling equipment and one can actually program and optimize robots, robotic moments and ultimately simulating the entire manufacturing environment, including production flow and eventually commissioning. Commissioning as well in the production work. So that's kind of in a nutshell what we do with the robotics. But the solution also provides some of the things business process like avoiding accidents during production, which is like collision detection, cycle time analysis to improve productivity and simulation of the whole robotic process itself for a sustainable operations and improving productivity based on lean manufacturing principles.

(02:37):

And with respect to your second question there is on how robotics can help startups and being successful in this market. So let's imagine with post covid, a lot of people are calling this as new normal or next normal environment for manufacturing and supply chain, where we see health and safety being paramount and health and safety of workers workforce. We are also seeing a lot of sensors and sensitive driven processes, contactless operations, all of this is really contributing, or I would say there are a lot of challenges like skill, labor shortage. And then we are also seeing nearshoring and on shoring of manufacturing and supply chain due to avoiding dependency on certain countries. On some of these critical supplies, this is actually increasing the need of robotics and automation to support sustainable business economy. And this is where startups and upcoming economies can leverage our robotics solution, not only to ramp up industrial economy, but also help in building workforce, a workforce of the future, which includes augmented reality, virtual reality, anyone. Big data is also coming into picture

Therese (03:47):

Which industries are the primary targets, and in particular, can you elaborate on production line definition? It's

Industries Using Robotics

Prashanth (03:55):

Predominantly automotive, transportation, mobility and transportation, mobility suppliers like tier one and tier two suppliers. That's the first business which we would really look up to. Industrial equipment, a lot of these industrial missionaries, equipment which are being manufactured mostly for construction equipment and farm equipment and all those industrial equipment missionaries. And then we also have aerospace and defense. That's our primary area of interest where robotics can play an important role, especially on retting processes and fabrication process within the aerospace industry. The production line definition, which we would say it includes validation of industry process experience, and it provides, it's obviously a collaborative approach to enable validating assembly process of complex product designs. It could be cars, it could be trucks or industrial machines. And these designs in context can also be taken to factory, you know, put into a factory, factory layout. In a virtual world, it leverages all existing, it can leverage existing layouts like your 2D layouts and 3D elements.

(05:06):

And you can also bring in cloud of points these days. You know, scan your existing facilities; you bring in cloud of points to reconstruct the whole process in a virtual environment, to create a virtual twin of your factory or a production process. And what we call this as a digital twin of your plant, your production line, or even in a complete works itself, robotic works itself. It'll definitely optimize and ensure the safety of your resource, which is all about robots, material handling, equipment, conveyors, and even human interaction as well. Safety is extremely important. This is where production line definition will really come in handy. And eventually, if you can also do simulation. And what if scenario analysis for productivity improvements, as I said earlier,

Therese (05:52):

How does the usage of a virtual twin fit into what we're discussing today? Does it impact the success of a business?

Optimizing with the Virtual Twin Experience

Prashanth (06:00):

All right. Let's look at what is virtual twin. People are talking about digital twin in the market. Virtual twin is beyond digital twin and virtual twin experience. What we talk about on 3D experience platform is an executable model of a physical system. It brings in learnings and experiences from the real world and update the distal twin model. Beyond static, distal twin and virtual twin experience are more dynamic and it has ability to visualize model, simulate sophisticated experiences, not only of the product, but also the complete manufacturing environment as well, which includes robotics and automation, which we are talking about. So virtual twin with respect to robotics, production line validation is a, it's a collaborative approach to build and validate 3D virtual factory. As a part of virtual twin, you can validate capacity and flow improvements by simulating the manufacturing process, robotic manufacturing process across all factory sources.

(06:57):

One can improve accuracy through virtual validation of the whole plant. With respect to robot and other axillary devices. One can anticipate equipment commissioning constraints and issues. One can minimize by simulating the dynamic behavior of the complete production scenario with robots, with workers, with fixed and mobile equipment, machine tools, et cetera. It's like how do you virtually commission them in a virtual world? And one can save cost by reducing idle time, a number of required workers and costly equipment through what if scenario analysis and factory or robotic simulation within the 3D environment. So this is the benefit of having a virtual twin with robotic work cell along with the production system which you can actually validate, simulate what if scenarios and even commission it using a virtual commissioning solution.

Therese (07:45):

Is there anything you would like to add that we haven't yet discussed?

Adapting to Various Manufacturing and Supply Chain Scenarios

Prashanth (07:49):

Yes, yes. With the change in manufacturing and supply chain scenario and challenges which manufacturing and suppliers are currently facing due to this disruption, del me, our robotics supports a wide range of in industrial robots. And now we have close to, we have over 1500 industrial robots, which are all pre-programmed and ready to use, ready to simulate within our solution. And it is also used by many companies to achieve standard enterprise approach to robotics programming. And within me application of manufacturers can validate the production concepts, reduce cycle time, and improve all aspects of implementing and programming robot systems and tools, including virtual commissioning. It's kind of a end-to-end scenario, which has proven industrial proven scenario with a lot of our customers have actually used it in a day-to-day life in optimizing their production processes.

Therese (08:43):

Prashanth, this has been an extremely insightful conversation. Thank you for being a guest on our podcast.

Prashanth (08:49):

Awesome. Thank you. Therese and I hope this information helped our audience as well.

Therese (08:57):

Thanks to our listeners for tuning in. I'm your host, Therese Snow, and you've been listening to DELMIA’s podcast, Global Operations on the Go!