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Chrysler Corporation Announces Digital Manufacturing Application

11 May 1998

Chrysler Corporation Announces Digital Manufacturing Application That Further Reduces Manufacturing Lead Times: Will Result in Millions of Dollars in Savings on Plant Floor

    AUBURN HILLS, Mich., May 11 -- Chrysler Corporation
, in partnership with Rockwell Automation, Dassault Systemes
, Deneb and Progressive Tool & Industries (PICO), announced
today that they have jointly developed a next-generation digital manufacturing
system that will save millions of dollars and shave months in the development
time of passenger vehicles.
    Control Program Generation and Analysis (C.P.G.A.) replaces the lengthy
programming of control code to operate each workcell on the plant floor, thus
shortening the launch time of manufacturing facilities.
    "The C.P.G.A. technology will reduce the time it takes to program a
typical workcell by thousands of hours, shave two to four months off the
development time of passenger vehicles and save upwards of $20 million per
assembly plant," said Frank Ewasyshyn, Vice President, Advance Manufacturing
Engineering, Chrysler Corporation.  "The system will also more readily
identify and eliminate process variation in the build process for better
vehicle quality, and improve communication among manufacturing, engineering
and supplier personnel."
    The new system provides an integrated environment for tool process,
vehicle design and the automated generation of plant equipment diagnostics and
control code.  In addition, this system allows the sharing of process
information for the generation and validation of control programs prior to
tooling construction in a vehicle program.

    Building Upon Virtual Manufacturing Advances
    C.P.G.A. builds upon the Digital Manufacturing Process System (DMAPS),
which Chrysler introduced with Dassault Systemes in 1995.  DMAPS is now a
fully computerized end-to-end product and process management system which
enables Chrysler to design, construct and run a "virtual manufacturing
process."
    C.P.G.A. further develops machine logic digitally within the system --
thereby eliminating the end-line programming needs -- so workcell control
logic is defined much earlier and automatically.  Controls engineers can then
concentrate on other value-added areas of the manufacturing process rather
than manual programming tasks.
    In addition, C.P.G.A. is an integral part of the CATIA computer aided
design system which Chrysler first used in 1984.  CATIA 3D models have
replaced engineering drawings and allows for an integrated design.  This
provides designers from different disciplines to better understand how their
parts relate to others during the design of the vehicle, at the same time
increasing overall quality levels.
    "The generation of control code is the last step in integrating all the
virtual manufacturing advances we've made into one system and allows for
seamless communication to workcells on the plant floor," said Ewasyshyn.  "It
also provides for the automatic generation of diagnostics and the verification
of control code prior to the construction of any tooling.  By stretching the
imagination, we've taken the virtual world almost to its limits."

    Common CAD Environment
    C.P.G.A. captures product, process and resource models in a common CAD
environment, which allows the data to be shared among all stages of vehicle
development.  Control code and diagnostics are then generated from the given
sequence of operations defined in the particular process model along with the
tooling elements in the design model.
    An important element is that the system enables Chrysler engineers to
program its manufacturing processes consistently, thereby reducing and even
eliminating programming errors.  This allows all manufacturing facilities
across the organization to operate on standardized and optimized control code.
    "A key feature is the creation of a centralized and consistent database of
process knowledge that our engineers will tap into," said Dan Vandenbossche,
Manager, Manufacturing Technical Support, Chrysler Corporation.  "This capture
of best practices across all of our manufacturing facilities will improve the
knowledge base of plant personnel and process and tool design engineers, and
benefit future product launches."
    In addition, the validation of control code in a virtual world rather than
on the plant floor will greatly reduce workcell verification, thus shortening
the launch time of manufacturing facilities.  The generated diagnostic rules
and graphical representation of fault locations will also improve machine
operating cycles once a plant is launched.
    The effort to develop computer generated programmable codes began between
Chrysler and Dassault Systemes, Deneb, Rockwell Automation and PICO in mid-
1996.  C.P.G.A. will be moving from the development stages into production
applications over the next 12 to 24 months

SOURCE  Chrysler Corporation