Doosan Engine enhances 3D design capabilities and improves efficiency with Siemens Digital Industries Software solutions

A world leader in diesel engines

Doosan Engine is a total engine manufacturer specializing in marine diesel engines for large ocean-going vessels and diesel engines for electric power generation. The company also builds and maintains dieselfired power plants. Doosan Engine began operation in 1983, with output equivalent to just 200,000 brake horsepower (bhp) in the first year. The company has grown by taking on new challenges and innovating continuously. As a result, today at least 96 percent of the company’s sales is to customers outside of South Korea. Doosan Engine has played a key role in bolstering the Korean shipbuilding industry, and is ranked among the world’s top engine makers.

Doosan Engine led the Korean industry in 2005 by completing the world’s first electronically- controlled marine diesel, and in 2012, the company’s aggregate production broke the 80 million bhp mark in the shortest time ever globally. Moreover, Doosan Engine has led the eco-friendly engine industry by successfully commercializing the world’s first electrically controlled dual-fuel/ low-speed engine and by developing ecofriendly equipment based on its accumulated technologies and know-how.

Upgrading the PLM solution

Following the introduction of an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, Doosan Engine adopted a new system that replaced its engineering bill of materials (EBOM) and manufacturing (MBOM) to standardize items. Doosan Engine had been using Dassault Systemes’ ENOVIA® product lifecycle management (PLM) software since 2012 for design work, moving from the existing 2D computer-aided design (CAD) system to 3D and the PLM-centered environment.

When Doosan Engine implemented a mandatory upgrade to NX™ software for its CAD system in 2015 to better collaborate with licensors, the company considered two options: upgrading its existing PLM system or replacing it with Teamcenter® software, also from Siemens Digital Industries Software.

As Doosan Engine used the CAD and PLM solutions from different vendors, the company encountered issues with processing speed, user convenience and data consistency. With systems from different vendors, the company found it difficult to meet users’ demands. Doosan Engine intended to reduce the time and effort required to create BOMs from NX assembly models and to eliminate the use of different properties for the same parts, primarily caused by the mixed use of data on servers and local machines. Doosan Engine also sought to use the same information for individual components as those used in assemblies, and encountered problems in moving from 2D-based design to a 3D-based process. Data consistency was poor and the synchronization of the 3D model files and BOMs was inadequate. Furthermore, model and drawing files were handled by the system in compressed file formats, which made the switch to 3D even more challenging.

Doosan Engine decided to replace the PLM solution with Teamcenter to solve the dual-vendor CAD/PLM issues and to realize a 3D-based virtual product development (VPD) process, following directives of the Doosan Group’s research and development guidelines. Because the field design teams had experienced significant efficiency gains using 3D design, the company’s positive perception of the move to 3D accelerated the effort to build a system that was optimized for 3D design.

Doosan Engine’s decision to adopt Teamcenter was based on several factors, including future upgrade plans, project execution capabilities, tight linkage with the NX CAD system, and advantages for PLM operation in the long term.

Successful introduction

For the successful implementation of the PLM upgrade project, Doosan Engine carefully reviewed the expected issues and risks through active communication and cooperation with internal and external stakeholders. The company then established core objectives that included improved system performance, smooth migration of product data, and stable implementation of the PLM system, with the additional goal of enhancing Doosan Engine’s 3D design capabilities.

The company’s goal for improving performance was to achieve a 15 percent increase in speed compared to that of the existing system. Doosan Engine also planned to transfer large amounts of data to the new system at appropriate times, and to improve the consistency of the design data. The engine maker sought to align the new PLM system implementation with the upgrade schedule of the CAD solution, to continuously implement 3D design processes using a stable PLM system, and to minimize the impact on the downstream ERP system. Through these initiatives, Doosan Engine aimed to realize 3D-based VPD by establishing a versatile system that would allow data accumulation with consistency.

To help achieve a successful implementation, Siemens Digital Industries Software provided consulting on PLM project issue management, CAD data migration, stable system operation, and the establishment of a 3D interference checking system after the project’s completion.

Doosan Engine successfully completed its PLM implementation with the expertise and assistance of the project participants. Collaborators on the project included Siemens Digital Industries Software professional engineers and those of its partner company, CITEK System; Doosan Engine design personnel; and professional PLM personnel from Doosan Corporation Information and Communications.

Doosan Engine’s design engineers who were experienced in design and 3D tasks joined the project in its initial stage as a user group to clearly propose requirements and to provide guidance on setting priorities. Moreover, they helped achieve a smooth transition to the new system by taking the lead in final verification and testing of the system’s operation.

Doosan Engine worked on standardizing 3D model maintenance in preparation for the use of 3D-based design and to secure the consistency of the design data. To transfer large amounts of design data at the right time, the company fully reviewed data conversion and migration measures and prepared a detailed migration scenario. Because accurate data is a prerequisite for efficient system operation, Doosan Engine consulted with experts and used available workforce from the early stage of the project for thorough verification. As a result, the company was able to migrate the product data successfully.

Clear-cut results

With the successful deployment of Siemens Digital Industries Software’s Teamcenter and NX solutions, Doosan Engine was able to unify and manage the CAD/BOM structure. The bidirectional synchronization of the CAD/ BOM structure enables changes to be reflected immediately as soon as the data is saved in either NX or Teamcenter, and the synchronization streamlined work processes and assured data consistency. In addition, Teamcenter managed BOM and ERP data based on NX assembly models, so that the same data was used throughout design and manufacturing.

Use of the integrated NX and Teamcenter solutions also improved productivity across other processes. Use of NX simplified the design tasks and reduced the time required to create 3D models by easily creating items in the CAD system. The company also used the large assembly modeling capacity of NX to improve efficiency and reduced time for 3D modeling by simplifying processes.

With the new system, Doosan Engine realized significant performance gains. The results of the final performance test on the system’s major functions, even considering distributed design tasks, indicated that the system’s performance exceeded the initial goal by 14 percent, representing a 29 percent speed improvement compared to the existing system. Moreover, the voice of the customer (VOC) feedback showed that users experienced substantial speed improvements in drawing and BOM tasks using 3D CAD data.

Doosan Engine plans to re-establish a 3D interference verification process and build a virtual engineering system-based foundation so that it can systematically implement 3D interference verification before assembling engines. In addition, the company has set a goal of realizing the 3D-based VPD system operation in an early stage by extending the use of 3D design and using the accumulated 3D data.

“Siemens Digital Industries Software’s Teamcenter and NX solutions enabled the unified management of the CAD/BOM structure, and we improved efficiency in 3D design tasks,” says Namsik Choi, general manager of the Business Innovation Team at Doosan Engine. “Based on these improvements, we will gradually expand the use of 3D design techniques to 50 percent of our design work in the first year, and to 100 percent within the next three years.