Igor Burchitz, Techincal Consultant at In Summa, sees growth and demand in a specific industry: “Virtual manufacturing solutions are becoming an essential tool for successful process development. A tool that makes manufacturing processes more transparent, cost-efficient and more reliable”.
Processes like welding, forming, and even (another trend-y one) Additive Manufacturing, are processes that can be optimized with help of simulations to save costs and materials. Though in processes like these, it is fairly new to use CAE still. A market that – as the name ‘manufacturing itself’ even implicates, likes to ‘make’ and traditionally go by trial and error. But CAE has for sure untapped potential here.
A perfect example is a collaboration with a brand new customer that started a few months ago, and for Igor an important highlight of 2023. This customer, previously unexperienced with CAE, is working with Igor to optimize their welding processes through simulations. In turn they can also use the results to showcase and convince their own customers of the reliability. It’s a privilige to work with customers like these.
Especially Additive Manufacturing remains an interesting application. We’re confindent this technology is getting more and more mature and is finding its right place amongst other manufacturing methods. There are still more hurdles to overcome compared to other longer-exisitng techniques. But the technology has also already shown that it can help reduce time in the design cycle(s) and materials of course. For sure, it will cost time to invest in adapting a new technology, but luckily Hexagon has extensive knowledge and experience in Additive Manufacturing. In 2023, as part of Nexus, they launched Design for Additive Manufacturing. A complete flow helping you design for first time right printing. Everything from Generative Design, build preparation, demansional analysis, materials management, shape compensation, etc. are part of this solution.
