| |
 |
 | |
Maserati back in the race
'An old name in motor-racing is using lifecycle management systems to improve its
performance in an ambitious new development programme', says Brian Davis
Published with the kind permission of Brian Davis and Professional Engineering magazine www.pepublishing.com
Maserati Racing recently rejoined the racing circuit, under the control of Fiat. It is using product lifecycle management (PLM) systems to rebuild its name for high-performance vehicles and to automate the process of constant design reiteration.
Maserati has faced significant changes since being switched to and fro between Ferrari and Fiat control. But it has racing in its blood, and two years ago decided to develop a new line of street racers. It had to develop and rapidly reconfigure several new racers on the same technology platform for each racing season.
Use of PLM is key to success in this ambitious development programme. One of the big challenges is to reduce time to market for both its main racing lines - the Trofeo Light in the Trofeo Maserati, and the MC12 racing model for the GT Championship
and the American Le Mans Championship.
"We recognised this would require a strongly co-ordinated group effort with partners, working 22 hours a day, seven days a week for almost 365 days a year," says - Giorgio Ascanelli, technical director of Maserati Racing.
Racing cars require constant improvement. "A racing car is never good enough," Ascanelli says. "It takes co-ordinated effort, constant innovation, quality, passion and sporting spirit."
Efficiency, information transparency and customer satisfaction are also key values - not a million miles from most ambitious new develop manufacturers' aims.
Creating new performance vehicles meant building a team of 230-250 people, though this is smaller than that of competing teams. Partners include HP, Giugiaro for styling and PTC for PLM and design engineering. Information transparency is paramount for continuous exchange of data by the team, partners and suppliers.
Beauty Parade
Ascanelli joined early in the programme and found few clear links between design and manufacturing systems. The designers used Pro/Engineer CAD, but integration of design with product data management (PDM) meant dealing with two other systems - an
AS400 mainframe and an ERP business admin system. |
At the start of the racing-car development, Ascanelli held a beauty parade of PLM systems, and chose PTC with Pro/Engineer Wildfire for design of the entire car including body, engine and powertrain; Windchill ProjectLink and Pro/Intralink to manage, share and exchange data related to the design; and Windchill PDMLink to manage the entire lifecycle of each part.
Engineers and partners can now check the status of each component phase by phase and race by race. This leads to substantial time reduction and maintains high quality performance and safety.
"PDMLink improved our internal change process, allows us to monitor the lifecycle of single serialised objects and helps manage the various configurations or events," says Ascanelli. Together with PTC, Maserati has developed 26 different racing models supported by the same technical structure.
The integrated PDM system helps manage the complex development process with flexibility and speed, allowing continuous product development at affordable cost. "Our resources are not as big as the F1 racing teams, so we have to build to a different spec but still keep in mind the need for a highly competitive product," says Ascanelli.
Design is a case in point. "We don't simply aim to go fast. The MC12 is a good example of how performance can be achieved with a beautiful looking product. Quality is paramount, and innovation is a risky and dangerous business unless you do it
continuously," he says. Good service is also an issue for both racing and potential private clients.
PLM helped produce the MC12 racing version in just four months, compared with 16 months for the original MC12. The internal
change process was also using product lifecycle improved, with better management of its configurations. What's more, PLM points up anomalies in design, production, testing and in the actual races, so changes can be made fast.
PDMLink allows the team to attach "performance" data to each part number, taking into account factors such as the bumpiness of the track. An anomaly report goes into the PDMLink, attached to a bill of material, and sends data to purchasing to ensure a new part is available within a month. It also cross-references to parts already on order that may have to be changed.
PDMLink works like email, with strict version control so engineers can't start redesigning until they get the latest version and understand the impact on other components during the car's lifecycle. The system flags up "out of life" parts and part history.
"But you can't make everything bullet-proof," says Ascanelli. Premature failure at a racing event may call for a replacement. At the end of a race, the engineering team checks PDMLink and either replaces the part or orders a new one - which is usually made in-house.
Nine cars are being produced for racing in the latest season. Maserati competed in seven events in 2003-4, winning two victories in its first year in the GT class, and plans to take part in eight this year.
Brian Davis |
|
|
| BACK TO MORE ARTICLES |
|
|
|
