Automotive Manufacturing: The Siemens Approach

February 8, 2022

For those working in automaton and control there is no need to stress the importance of automotive manufacturing in Canada. As a country, Canada produces roughly 2 million light vehicles a year through 5 main OEM’s (Fiat Chrysler, Ford, GM, Honda, and Toyota) that contributes roughly 19 billion annually to the GDP. The industry employs over 125,000 people in the manufacturing process and nearly 700 additional parts suppliers and manufacturing companies, and nearly all these supplies and OEM’s are utilizing automation to some degree.

To ensure Canada continues to be a dominant player in the automotive industry Siemens has devoted focus on this sector through its Digital Enterprise portfolio.

“Digital Enterprise is the comprehensive portfolio from Siemens for the digital transformation with solutions for the specific requirements of the automotive industry. The automotive industry is the technological trendsetter among manufacturing industries. It keeps evolving on a fast pace and is a driver of the new era of digitalization. Digitalization with the Digital Enterprise solution portfolio helps the automotive industry to turn their ideas into successful vehicles faster and more efficiently.”

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One of the premier features of Digital Enterprise is development of digital twins. There has been substantial buzz about digital twins in recent years on the advantages and cost saving it can provide. For the automotive industry digital twins can aid in limiting prototype development, predict performance of products and production units and support expectations regarding individualization and drive concepts.

“The digital twin in the automotive industry is the precise virtual model of a vehicle or a production plant. It displays their development throughout the entire lifecycle and allows operators to predict behavior, optimizing performance, and implement insights from previous design and production experiences.

Our comprehensive concept of the digital twin consists of three forms: the digital twin of the product, the digital twin of production, and the digital twin of the performance of both product and production. Thanks to our comprehensive domain expertise and optimized tools, Siemens is the only company that offers this holistic approach.”

Considering the operation and performance of production in this way allows for companies to perform various ‘what if’ scenarios at a fraction of the cost that was once associated with pursuing new ventures. The digital twin allows companies to close the loop between the virtual world of product development and production planning with real world applications.

This focus is part of the digitalization of the automotive industry that will carry the sector forward now and in years to come. In this consideration the Digital Enterprise can support growing trends in AI, eCar production, Autonomous driving and even the growing use of AGV’s.

Further as digitalization continues to move in more directions within the automotive industry security becomes a major concern. “In order to protect plants, systems, machines, and networks against cyber threats, it is necessary to implement – and continuously maintain – a holistic, state-of-the-art industrial security concept. Siemens’ products and solutions only form one element of such a concept.” This includes considerations of the depth of your defense, plant security, network security and system integrity.

To learn more about Siemens directions and capabilities for the automotive industry visit https://new.siemens.com/global/en/markets/automotive-manufacturing.html

Or reach out to Siemens to learn about the support they can provide for your business https://new.siemens.com/global/en/markets/automotive-manufacturing/contact.html