REDUCING TIME-TO-MARKET WITH PLM: LESSONS FROM EV’s, AEROSPACE AND DEFENSE SECTORS

Time-to-market (TTM) is extremely critical in today’s highly competitive marketplace. It is among the defining competitive levers in industries that are characterized by complexity, regulation, and rapidly evolving technologies. Both EV and A&D sectors face enormous pressure. In the case of EVs, there is pressure for sustainable mobility, battery innovation, and software integration. On the other hand, in the aerospace and defense sectors,  regulatory compliance, safety weight, performance, supply chain complexity, and very long lifecycles, remains the primary factors.

PLM system (Product Lifecycle Management) has emerged in both domains as a critical enabler for reducing time-to market and cost. They are also critical for  managing risks.

What Makes Time-to-market Critcial?

The following details factors that make it critical.

Technological Disruption And Customer Expectations:

• EV companies need to constantly innovate. Areas of innovation include battery chemistry, range, charging, connectivity, and autonomy.
• A/D companies constantly deal with new materials. Like composites; software-defined systems; etc.

Regulatory And Safety Requriements:

• Certification cycles (FAA, EASA, etc), and environmental standards.
• Safety (especially in aerospace or defense), and export/security compliance.

Supply Chain & Globalization:

• Multi-tier suppliers across nations.
• Collaboration with many external partners.

Cost-pressures:

R&D, prototyping, and testing are costly. Delays can cost millions. They can be especially more prominent in R&D.

Digital Transformation & Industry 4.0:

Companies today seek

• Fewer physical prototypes and more virtual testing/simulation. Reuse of components, digital twins, etc.

A PLM system due to the above factors has become essential. They are especially critical for complex products. Like for instance, vehicles, aircraft, defense systems, etc.

Lesson From The Ev Sector

The EV sector is relatively young. However, it is scaling at a rapid pace of late. PLM is helping EV companies reduce time-to-market in the following areas:

• Model Based Systems Engineering (Mbse): EV designs depend heavily on integration of electrical/electronic (E/E) architectures; control software; and battery systems. A PLM system supporting MBSE aligns teams from electrical, mechanical, and software around shared requirements, traceability, and simulation models. Siemens for instance had published a white paper on how autonomous vehicle architecture and model-based systems engineering were integrated. This significantly helped autonomous vehicle development under its umbrella of Siemens PLM Software.
• Digital Prototyping And Simulation: EV players instead of building several expensive physical prototypes, use simulation (thermal, structural, crash, and battery behavior) to test varied designs. Siemens Simcenter tool family plays a helpful role here. It enables early validation of performance under multiple operating conditions. Similarly, virtual design inputs allow cost and weight trade-offs.

• Speeding Design Release & Managing Change:The handover from design to hardware (manufacturing) is a big obstacle. Leveraging the capabilities of a PLM system helps to manage review cycles, release workflows, and change requests. These in turn helps reduce delays. They later ensure all required data (CAD geometry, tolerances, supplier documentation) is available.

• Reusability & Modular Design:EV platform sharing, modular battery packs, and shared E/E module architectures can be reused across models. Siemens PLM tools play a key role here. Companies by using them can reuse designs, components, and requirements. This way, engineering time for new variants can be reduced.

• Supplier Integration: Many EV firms rely for battery cells, inverters, sensors, etc, on external suppliers. A PLM system allows visibility into supplier design status, BOMs, quality, and changes. Ultimately, they ensure misalignments are detected early and action taken swiftly.

 Case Examples (Ev Domain)

• Desay Sv Automotive: is a major Chinese automotive electronics supplier. It adopted end-to-end Siemens PLM Solutions. This included Teamcenter and NX CAD. They were used to manage project planning, 3D modeling, quality, collaboration, and manufacturing. The main goal was to decrease costs. Also, reduce time-to-market. These were successfully realized.

• EV companies have used model-based design, simulation, and centralized PLM. They helped reduce wasted operations in prototyping.

Lessons From Aerospace And Defense (A&d)

Aerospace & Defense is traditionally slower. Besides they have longer cycles, and heavy regulation.

• Centralized Cross-domain Data & Traceability: There are several domains in aerospace programs. This includes propulsion, structural, avionics software, safety, etc. Siemens PLM Software (Teamcenter, NX, Simcenter) allows cross-domain data management. ADG (armored military vehicles) Mobility for instance uses NX, Simcenter, and Teamcenter. This helped reduce development time facilitated by better handling of design changes, simulations, and data-sharing.

• Digital Twin & Virtual Verification: Aerospace firms before building the hardware use simulation environments. Like Simcenter, etc for testing aerodynamics, structural loads, and thermal issues, etc. they help reduce physical testing which is slow and costly. Besides they are also risk-laden. Siemens has expanded simulation capabilities. This helps address electrification and aerospace designs. And significantly reduce key tasks like preprocessing of structures by big percentages.

• Plm For Regulatory & Compliance Management: Defense and aerospace sectors products should adhere to rigorous safety, reliability, and environmental expert and certification standards. A PLM system like Siemens Teamcenter ensures every requirement, change, test, and document is traceable and auditable. This helps reduce delays in certification and regulatory reviews.

• Configuration And Change Management: Version mismatches, configuration errors, and unclear change ownership are frequent sources of delays. PLM systems enforce workflows, design reviews, BOM revisions, change request/approval loops, and supplier updates.

• Global Collaboration & Supplier Integration: Suppliers in A&D like in EV, are global and multi-tier. They are often spread across many regulatory jurisdictions. A strong PLM system helps ensure consistency and security (e.g. export control, IP protection). They also make supply chain issues visible early.

• Adopting Saas / Cloud-native Plm: A&D players are increasingly adopting cloud or SaaS versions of PLM. This helps to ease scaling, and facilitate remote collaboration. Siemens Teamcenter X is one such offering. It accelerates deployment and makes cross-regional collaboration easier.

Case Examples (Aerospace & Defense)

• Adg Mobility (Armored Vehicles): Companies today leverage Siemens NX + Simcenter + Teamcenter. They help reduce time and cost from design to hardware. They also help improve workflow, simulation, and data-sharing.
• U.S. AIRFORCE: PLM helped connect program data across phases of design, testing, sustainment, etc. the aim was to better readiness and faster capability fielding.

Pitfalls: What To Watch Out For?

PLM can drive big time reductions. However, poorly implemented PLM can create issues.

Key Pitfalls

• Over-customization: Implementation of highly customized PLM can be difficult. They are slow to evolve and hard to maintain.

• Poor Adoption By Users: At times, PLM system is not used properly by engineers, suppliers, or manufacturing teams. Else they avoid using it. This can facilitate data fragmentation returns.

• Inadequate Training / Change Management: Effective PLM system implementation can change workflows. Resistance on the other hand can slow things down.

• Data Quality & Consistency Issues: PLM system cannot fix CAD models, requirements, etc, that are inconsistent.

• Integration Challenges: PLM does not operate in isolation. ERP, MES, manufacturing, software development, quality, and supply chain systems are equally important. They all need to interoperate. Poor or improper integration can cause delays.

• Neglecting Supplier / External Stakeholder Needs: Suppliers might use different systems or methods. If they don’t align with your PLM, then handoffs can suffer delays.

What Kind Of Benefits Can Be Expected?

Companies in EV and A&D sectors have based on documented cases, achieved via PLM implementations substantial time savings.

The following are examples:

• Aerospace OEMs reduced core engineering development cycles from 60 months to 42 months. In certain cases, they reduced to as low as 24 months. All of this was achieved using PLM systems to enable reuse, virtual verification, and better process flow.
• PLM system (Teamcenter) in ADG Mobility helped reduce time from design to hardware. This was done by making design release more efficient. They helped minimize missing data for suppliers, etc.
• Simulation performance improvements (in Simcenter) helped reduce preprocessing time in certain aerospace structures by up to 80 percent. They subsequently accelerated simulation, and iterations.

The exact percentage depends on many factors. This includes, product complexity, organization maturity, and supply chain. In many instances, PLM implementations garnered 20-50 percent reductions in lead time in varied phases (design, testing, and certification).

Conclusion

Reducing time-to-market for EV, Aerospace, & Defense companies is a top priority. The challenges are huge. They result predominantly from complex systems, heavy regulation, high safety and reliability demands, and global supply chains.

However, the rewards are equally huge. They include lower costs, faster innovation, competitive advantage, and sustainability goals. PLM Software / Siemens PLM / Siemens PLM Software provides several tools and capabilities. They are directly aimed at cutting delays.

Just tools by themselves won’t solve the issue. It all depends on how companies deploy them. This includes simulation, reuse, configuration, strong governance, training, and aligning processes across all stakeholders. By leveraging CJ Tech’s proven Siemens PLM software capabilities, companies can benefit from transparent workflows, early error detection, and efficient collaboration. They ultimately result in substantial reduced time-to-market.

Faqs

1. What makes PLM system ideal for aerospace, EV, and defense sectors?

They face complex engineering challenges and strict compliance requirements. Besides companies in these sectors need to manage large volumes of data and multidisciplinary teams. A robust PLM system like Siemens PLM Software helps streamline product development. They also ensure traceability.

2. What is Siemens PLM Software’s role in accelerating product development?

It offers a broad collection of tools. These tools support end-to-end product development solutions like Teamcenter and NX. Companies using them can integrate on a single platform mechanical, electrical, and software design. This reduces rework and enhances collaboration.

3. How does a PLM system help regulated industries with compliance and quality management?

Compliance and standards like ITAR and AS900 in sectors like aerospace and defense, is mandatory. A PLM system enables companies to maintain detailed audit trials and enforce controlled workflows. They also help manage documentation throughout the lifecycle. PLM Software especially from providers like Siemens PLM helps avoid costly delays or re-certifications.

4. Is PLM Software beneficial to smaller or mid-sized EV companies?

Yes, it is beneficial. Large OEMs often lead the way in adopting PLM systems. Small and medium-sized enterprises in the EV space on the other hand are heavily investing in scalable PLM software solutions. Platforms like Siemens PLM offers modular architectures and cloud deployment options. They are a cost-effective option for growing companies.

5. Does PLM Software integrate with other enterprise systems?

Modern PLM systems like those from Siemens PLM Software are very good. They can efficiently integrate with ERP, MES, and CRM platforms. This interoperability facilitates across the product value chain, seamless flow of data. They in turn enable better planning and execution.