Design efficiency with frontloading simulation

In today’s rapidly evolving landscape of product development, the pursuit of efficiency and precision has become of utmost importance. With market demands constantly shifting and competition intensifying, companies face significant pressure to innovate swiftly while ensuring their products meet performance criteria. In this context, frontloading simulation emerges as an excellent strategy, reshaping traditional product development processes by bringing simulation activities to the forefront.

In this article I will discuss why you should use simulation in early stages of product development rather than just use it as a quality control tool for the finished product/design.

Decoding frontloading simulation

Currently, the product development process in its simplest form goes something like this:

If the design passes the verification stage, then it’ll continue to the latter processes. But what happens when the design doesn’t pass the verification stage? Usually, this would lead to the design being altered in multiple ways. As a person who has worked in mechanical engineering/design, I can confidently say that it is very cumbersome work since one design alteration results in many changes on multiple parts.

This is where frontloading simulation comes into play. In essence, frontloading simulation is the optimization of all available tools to produce the best possible results with the least number of resources. In short, this translates into using simulation tools to come up with a design rather than just using it as a quality assurance tool.

By utilizing simulation from the very beginning, you have a better chance at creating a design that will pass verifications without excessive design iterations.

For this reason, using simulation can decrease the time it takes to reach the final design, and may even lessen the cost of product development. With simulation, it’s also possible to create more optimal designs that can give your product a competitive advantage.

The top 5 benefits of frontloading simulation

Advantages of a frontloading simulation can be compressed into five distinct points:

Expedited design iterations: By incorporating simulation at the outset of the design process, engineers can swiftly assess multiple design alternatives and iterate rapidly to optimize performance. This agility allows teams to respond promptly to evolving requirements and market dynamics, curtailing the time and resources expended on manual design revisions.

Enhanced design quality: Frontloading simulation facilitates the early detection of design flaws and performance limitations, pre-empting costly errors downstream. Through realistic simulations of real-world conditions and scenarios, engineering teams can ensure that their designs meet performance targets, regulatory standards, and customer expectations right from the inception of the project.

Cost reduction: The adoption of this minimizes dependence on physical prototypes and testing, resulting in substantial cost savings across the product development lifecycle. By identifying design issues early, engineers can avoid expensive rework and possible warranty claims, increasing the organization’s financial bottom line and optimizing resource use.

Innovation: Frontloading simulation empowers engineers with deeper insights into product behavior and performance. With this confidence , engineering teams can explore even unusual concepts, materials, and design approaches, pushing the boundaries of possibility and gaining a competitive edge in the market.

Risk mitigation: Early identification of potential risks and failure modes enables the teams to implement risk mitigation strategies. This averts disruptions to product development timelines and market success. Through the simulation of worst-case scenarios and sensitivity analyses, engineers can pinpoint critical design parameters and make informed design decisions to mitigate any risks related to design choices.

Leveraging simulation tools

Simulation tools have been around for quite some time, but they continue to advance and are now more widely used than ever before. As a result, it is increasingly important to implement these tools to stay competitive in today’s fast-evolving market.

Frontloading simulation isn’t the only way to utilize simulation tools. It’s easy to think about using simulation only when designing new products, but it can also be an efficient tool for creating cost saving design from existing products. For example, I have created some weight optimized designs that have generated substantial savings just by having less raw material on them.

In Eviden, we help our clients to unlock the possibilities of frontloading simulation to gain a competitive edge.