NAFEMS Americas and Digital Engineering (DE) teamed up (once again) to present CAASE, the (now Virtual) Conference on Advancing Analysis & Simulation in Engineering, on June 16-18, 2020!

CAASE20 brought together the leading visionaries, developers, and practitioners of CAE-related technologies in an open forum, unlike any other, to share experiences, discuss relevant trends, discover common themes, and explore future issues, including:
-What is the future for engineering analysis and simulation?
-Where will it lead us in the next decade?
-How can designers and engineers realize its full potential?
What are the business, technological, and human enablers that will take past successful developments to new levels in the next ten years?

Resource Abstract

A plethora of factors like expanding technologies, complexity of the products, reduction in time to market led to Cummins adopting a strategy of Simulation Based Product Development. As simulation and modeling capability matured the impact of this strategy was felt across the product development lifecycle from component level detailed design to subsystem and system level design. Cummins started leveraging the benefits of application of Multidisciplinary Design Optimization (MDO) techniques for integrating multiple disciplines in complex workflows and then using mathematical optimization and data driven decision-making techniques for generating more value out of the simulations.

This strategy led Cummins to move to a more holistic design approach where product architects, system engineers, design engineers and simulation engineers were all involved in the decision-making process using simulation as a backbone. Use of optimization and decision-making techniques moved to early stage design in the product development cycle. This presented a challenge of enabling effective use of system simulation tools and analytical decision-making methods to various stakeholders in the product development cycle. In this paper we explore the use of desktop and web-based MDO platforms to democratize simulation workflows, mathematical optimization and decision-making techniques to enable a Simulation Based Product Development

The case study highlights the evolution in Cummins’ approach to the use of simulation from architecture to detailed design enabled by an MDO and Systems approach. We will highlight the migration from a desktop and manual share of models approach to a web-based simulation platform to democratize decision-making and simulation/optimization capabilities. This final piece enables creation of a seamless decision-making platform which can be deployed across the broader design community and leverage the value of simulation and optimization for effective and efficient product design. We will present some specific examples to illustrate our vison for the use of MDO tools and their impact on the product development process.