Exa Corp., a global innovator in simulation software for product engineering, and DENSO Corp. have announced a new collaborative partnership that will transform the way carmakers have traditionally interacted with suppliers. The partnership enhances the product development process by moving key engineering and design work from automotive suppliers to a certified simulation-driven process that can be done much earlier in the development process, reducing the number of late-stage vehicle design changes.
Using Exa’s digital simulation platform, DENSO and Exa will create a validated PowerFLOW simulation database of DENSO thermal products that will be offered to authorized automotive and heavy vehicle customers, providing the ability to simulate and integrate DENSO’s technology and components early in the development process. The company says this new process represents an important breakthrough in new vehicle design, as it replaces the current process which selects and tests supplier components much later in the development cycle, which can result in costly fixes to already established designs.
Steve Remondi, president and CEO of Exa, said, “This expanded ecosystem of validated components and subsystems will greatly change how the global auto industry develops new vehicles – by enabling OEMs and suppliers to collaborate in the earliest stage of design. The insight enabled will significantly reduce the billions of dollars spent annually testing and retro-fixing late-stage design problems. Ultimately, automakers will move into production with greater confidence that their supplier subsystems will perform as expected, achieving cost, time and quality targets.”
Hirotsugu Takeuchi, executive director from DENSO, said, “After more than 15 years of working closely with Exa for the design and development of our own products, we see an enormous potential in this collaborative partnership with Exa to dramatically impact our joint OEM customers. By reducing the amount of time and effort required to fix late-stage design problems, we’re helping carmakers bring better vehicles to market, more efficiently.”
Carmakers are experiencing a period of dramatic change, and Exa’s simulation-driven design simulation platform will help them as they work to fully comply with dramatically changing global emissions and fuel efficiency regulations, and simultaneously reduce their development costs and improve product quality and passenger comfort.
