Process simulation technologies in truck development

Summary form only given. In the field of commercial truck product development path, a key factor is to understand how the technological choices will impact with the flexibility of production volumes, to satisfy specific customer requirements. It is clear that the communication among these different players in the product development process, become an important factor for the project success. Furthermore, the opportunity to foresee with a relevant advance how the new product will impact the factory, can help in the reduction of prototypes and experimental testing time and cost. Shapes digitalization can be used to describe and analyze a complete set of components to be assembled together, in order to highlight possible problems and critical points or to check if a particular operation is feasible. This information can be used to simulate a complete vehicle module for which parts can be designed in different locations by different people. On the basis of such digitized information it is possible to picture a complete assembling sequence, in order to describe and evaluate production alternatives of the specific working cell. Using the same computing tools it has been possible to analyze the assembling operation from the ergonomic point of view, calculating the lifting indexes, operations accessibility, spent calories and operation visibility from the worker eyes.