{"id":3422,"date":"2020-03-24T10:16:56","date_gmt":"2020-03-24T14:16:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/thought-leadership\/?p=3422"},"modified":"2026-03-26T12:08:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T16:08:12","slug":"advanced-machine-engineering-multi-disciplinary-design-podcast-transcript-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/thought-leadership\/advanced-machine-engineering-multi-disciplinary-design-podcast-transcript-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Advanced machine engineering \u2013 multi-disciplinary design (podcast transcript \u2013 part 2)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Industrial\nmachinery in manufacturing is observing widespread technological advancements.\nIt is an intimidating mission to design, validate and manage modern-day\nmanufacturing and assembly operations to achieve first-class quality while\noptimizing cost. In our current blog series on advanced machine engineering,<\/em> we are learning how machine\nmanufacturers are leveraging multi-disciplinary design to make their\nmanufacturing more efficient.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\nthis blog, we are providing a transcribed excerpt of the second podcast of this\nseries, covering multi-disciplinary collaboration for machine builders\nand examine more thoroughly the machine design process and the benefits of\nimplementing this approach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Bill
Bill Davis, Director of Industrial Machinery and Heavy Equipment Solutions at Siemens Digital Industries Software<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

I am interviewing one of our resident experts, Bill Davis, who is the Director of Industrial Machinery and Heavy Equipment Solutions at Siemens Digital Industries Software<\/em>. Bill\u2019s expertise in this industry expands over 30 years, with 20 years as an engineer.

Below, is the transcribed excerpt from the second part of this podcast series. You can also listen to this second podcast<\/a>.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bill\nButcher:<\/em><\/strong> Welcome to Siemens Digital Industries Software podcast series\non advanced machine engineering<\/em>,\nbrought to you by the Siemens Digital Thought Leadership team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In our last\npodcast, we talked about the evolution of technology within the machinery\nindustry and the key trends that continue to shape the industry today. We also\nintroduced the advanced machine engineering solutions at a high level, where\nyou brought up three key differentiators. Let me see if I can capture that\ncorrectly: multi-disciplinary design, virtual machine simulation and\ncommissioning, multi-disciplinary BOM and configuration management. Did I have\nthat right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bill\nDavis:<\/em><\/strong> Yes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bill\nButcher:<\/em><\/strong> So, in this session, I’d like to focus the conversation on one\nof these differentiators \u2013 multi-disciplinary design. Can I ask, for our\nlisteners, what exactly is multi-disciplinary design?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bill\nDavis:<\/em><\/strong> Yeah, thanks, Bill! And thank you for welcoming me back to the\npodcast. I appreciate the opportunity to speak again. When we talk about\nmulti-disciplinary design, I think it’s essential to do a little bit of\nretrospective on what’s involved in building a machine, what’s involved in\ndoing the engineering design and manufacturing of the machine, and how that\nmulti-disciplinary design fits into it. In most companies, historically, it’s\nbeen focused around mechanical CAD, so the parts that need to be manufactured\nwithin tolerance and how things had to function together was primarily a\nmechanical arrangement and mechanical assembly. To a considerable degree, a\nmachine is a mechanical machine, right? It’s a mechanical piece of equipment,\nlike an auto or an airplane.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The difference is that over the last 20 to 25 years, we’ve always had electrical power to run motors and rotatory equipment to move camshaft gears and all of that. But what’s changed is that, now, all those motors are driven by software and PLC codes. So, whereas in previous days, you could keep the mechanical design in one space, electrical design, the schematics and all of that in another space. Then, the software guys were kind of left out in the cold to do their design work, once everybody else was done with what they were supposed to do. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When we talk about multi-disciplinary design, we’re speaking about a blending of those capabilities and skill sets in a more collaborative environment and how that pays dividends for the output quality of the machine that we design \u2013everything seems to have its place. It’s more of an art form than bolted on electrical, sensors and cable runs and everything else. It’s an integrated solution. So, there’s harmony in the multi-disciplinary design that didn’t exist when they were silos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bill Butcher:<\/em><\/strong> Okay, so that seems straightforward to me in\ntheory, but some may say, “I’m a\nsmall supplier”<\/em> or “I have\na process that right now is working just fine for me.\u201d<\/em> How would you\nrespond to someone who might minimize the value that you just described for\nmulti-disciplinary collaboration?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bill\nDavis:<\/em><\/strong> Yeah, that’s a good point. Most of the machinery manufacturers\nare what I would call more midsize companies and, in many cases, have the same\npeople doing the electrical work and the software. So, they already understand\nthis multi-discipline approach. One item of importance is the capabilities of\nPLC and automation code, which have accelerated in the last several years,\ndriven by what I call “performance-based\nprograms.”<\/em> The software is adaptable to conditions on the\nfloor and on the machine \u2013 the sensor reading and reacting \u2013 the game is\nchanging. Even something as simple as a cylinder extending and retracting,\nwe’re seeing people use pressure differential and flow regulation and other\ntechnologies that were not available to small and medium-sized businesses a few\nyears ago due to cost. So, we’re witnessing more mechanical and capability\nfeatures being replaced by software. It’s a game-changer for every machine\ndesigner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I guess there\nare some other things that on a small scale or a smaller business they have to\nbe considerate of \u2013 for them to take the approach that “we used to build it, we used to design it, build it and then see\nif it actually worked by testing it.\u201d <\/em>Today’s machinery companies don’t\nhave the time to do that because their time to market is much more compressed.\nAgain, machine complexity is more significant. So, they need to change their\napproach to engineering and adopting things like generative capabilities and\nits requirements: what forces, what gets a hold \u2013 so they can perform the\nsimulation up front. Not that they must do everything up front, but\nrealistically, from a design exploration, it’s much easier to do the entire\ndigital machine if you can show how it performs in the virtual world. Therefore,\nitems like Mechatronics Concept Designer, which is a digital industry software\nwith specific capabilities around kinematics that can be used to define PLC\ncode, using those capabilities to show what a virtual twin looks like and lets\ncompanies fail fast. It allows them to do all that kind of work in the\nbeginning. Realistically, it’s not more work, it’s the same work that’s already\nbeing done by the team, but now they’re doing it together in a synchronized\nmanner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bill\nButcher:<\/em><\/strong> Right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bill\nDavis:<\/em><\/strong> You need to be conscious of having the right level of electrical\nengineering integration, for knowing where software belongs in the process.\nThere’s much concern in going from silos and throwing the design over the wall\nto allowing the electrical personnel to work on it after the mechanical people.\nAlso, there’s a danger in having too much integration too soon. An example of\nthis is when smaller companies get a bit hung up on trying to adopt\nmulti-disciplinary engineering. If you think about a piece of machinery in\nassembly that articulates back and forth 90 degrees, and it has pneumatics \u2013 with\ncables, sensors, hoses and tubing that’s necessary \u2013 building those detailed\npieces out for that kind of functionality early in the design. You end up\nfinding there’s more rework because the design in these early stages is very\niterative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, trying\nto take advantage of collaboration means that you get to a certain level of\nmaturity with parts of the mechanical system opening up that expose it to the\nelectrical and software teams and you’re performing the kinematics up front with\n90-degree motion, for example, already knowing the limits of what you want that\nmechanism to do. Therefore, if you can build that into the mechanical behavior,\nyou can start to realize the simulation. The software guys know what behavior\nyou’re expecting out of the mechanical and what that they need to put into that\nsoftware. It\u2019s about performing work upfront, on the mechanical side and\nexposing it to the teams in the right way, without trying to do everything\ntogether at once \u2013 which never works out. If you’ve ever tried to build a deck\nat home and tried to dig the fence post while you’re building the deck, that\ndoesn’t work, so you need to do things in a certain process. Companies need to\nmigrate toward a more collaborative approach. You can’t just throw out your old\nprocesses and start new without having some level of migration. We have learned\nseveral times over, in my own experience with companies in machinery and automation\nfor packaging machines and converting equipment. When adopting new\ntechnologies, you couldn’t consume it all once – culturally, the business can\u2019t\nhandle it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bill\nButcher:<\/em><\/strong> Alright. That\u2019s a good example, and one of the things you\nhighlighted there, which I think is important is why disciplines need to\ninteract with each other during this process. So, that was a little bit about\npeople who think that they might be okay as they are, and you addressed why\nthey shouldn’t be. But let’s twist it a bit. What about the benefits for those\nthat are incorporating a multi-disciplinary collaboration into the\nmanufacturing process? What should they expect those benefits to be?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bill\nDavis:<\/em><\/strong> Companies that have already experienced the challenging process\nto a more collaborative approach and are seeing the benefits of time that they\ncan compress out of the development schedule to the simulation piece \u2013 which is\na crucial part of what’s called, “virtual\ncommissioning\u201d \u2013 <\/em>software code validation. So, its system language-speak\nfor being able to test out everything that should happen on the machine in the\nsoftware code and having it displayed in the digital world, so the CAD from an\nemulation perspective. However, being able to show that the code that you’re\nwriting is doing what you thought it was supposed to do when you envisioned the\nmechanical part, when coming down to the human-machine interface part, and\npushing the button to start the machine \u2013 does it actually start the machine or\ndoes it do something else? When I say, “stop”,<\/em>\ndoes it stop it or, again, does it keep going and ignore the command? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, you can\nget to this level of simulation with software code that is necessary because\nthis is where the complexity comes in. We used to have hundreds of sensors in\nmachines, and now we have thousands or tens of thousands of sensors in\nmachines, and it’s very easy when writing code to either not identify those\nsensors upfront and push that behavior expectation downstream if we’re trying\nto write that code from scratch, or to take the code from somebody else’s\nmachine, or the last machine that we built. Therefore, being able to compress\nthe delivery time in terms of the code writing simulation is where the\ndividends get paid, when the machine is sitting on the floor, waiting for the\ncustomer to accept it and the software guy is cooking away at his keyboard \u2013\nthat’s not a very pleasant feeling for an operations manager. Those were my\nmost sleepless nights when I walked out onto the assembly floor and I saw the\ndirector of software building his code, when I was expecting that code to be\nalready written.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, having\nthis in a managed environment with an entire modular product development\nstrategy, companies realize they can beat their competitors to market by having\nthe simulation upfront and linking the software to the modules. This scenario\nis a significant groundbreaking achievement for companies to be competitive in\nthis space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bill\nButcher:<\/em><\/strong> I liked the way you just said, “strategy”.<\/em> I mean, strategy implies specific actions to\nget to a desired result. Do you have any examples for any companies that have\nembraced advanced machine engineering as a strategy, and if so, what kind of\nresults they might have seen?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bill\nDavis:<\/em><\/strong> We have a customer that I’d like to highlight, that has a lot of\nexperience with us, and they’re not in the traditional kind of machinery world,\nas they don’t build machines for machines. They build machines for the medical\nbusiness. So, they manufacture and fill ampoules or small vials. When it is\ncold and flu season, if you had your flu shot, you probably had it dispensed\nfrom one of these little glass containers. It\u2019s a company by the name of Bausch\n& Strobel, who manufactures machines that perform filling, sealing, and so,\nand there’s a more substantial requirement on the regulatory environment. They\nembraced advanced machine engineering, from the standpoint of doing the\nmechanical design and by embracing a virtual twin and doing both the\ncommissioning and visualization with their customers. They bring customers into\na virtual reality wall and see them interact with the machine in its digital\nform. From a financial perspective, it pays huge dividends for them. Also, it\nbrings together the engineering upfront in the design, and the collaboration of\nvarious disciplines in testing the machine code, they compressed their delivery\nschedule by over 25 percent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bill\nButcher:<\/em><\/strong> That’s an excellent example, It is an intimidating mission to\ndesign, validate and manage contemporary manufacturing and assembly operations\nto achieve first-class quality while optimizing cost. In our current blog\nseries on advanced machine engineering<\/em>,\nwe are learning how machine manufacturers are leveraging multi-disciplinary\ndesign to make their manufacturing more efficient.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Listen\nto podcast01<\/a>, podcast02<\/a>, podcast03<\/a> and podcast04<\/a> from this series via our Thought Leadership blogs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also, you can access\nthe entire podcast series via Apple<\/a>, Stitcher<\/a>, Spotify<\/a>, Castbox<\/a>, TuneIn<\/a> or Google<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To improve the speed\nand efficiency of your machine design process, watch our Advanced Machine Engineering \u2013 Start your digital transformation\njourney today<\/em><\/a> webinar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

About our expert:<\/strong>
\nBill Davis<\/strong><\/em> is the\nacting Industrial Machinery and Heavy Equipment Industry leader for Siemens\nDigital Industries Software. His experience and insights have been acquired\nfrom a career spanning 30 years in engineering and operations management with\nmachinery and heavy equipment companies.  Bill holds a master\u2019s degree in\nBusiness Administration from Marquette University, with a concentration in\nOperations Management and Strategic <\/em>Marketing<\/em><\/a>,\nas well as a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from\nMilwaukee <\/em>School<\/em><\/a> of\nEngineering.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This blog is an\nexcerpt from the advanced machine engineering podcast transcript, displaying the\nsecond in a series of four podcasts.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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