Boeing 787 Virtual Rollout Causes Dassault Great Sigh of Relief
After several months of bad news for Dassault with regard to Airbus blaming its delayed production on its software, Dassault must have breathed a sigh of relief when it announced "a new era" in aerospace engineering, production planning and assembly simulation with the virtual roll out of the 787 Dreamliner. According to the December press release,"This first-ever virtual rollout, and the PLM technology underlying it, is not simply an animation of the completed airplane, but a virtual simulation and validation of the entire manufacturing process."
The press release tends towards exuberant, but does impart some interesting ideas about the ability to create an entire aircraft in virtual space, prior to it being manufactured. Rather than just simulating the aircraft, Boeing is now using Dassault's software to simulate the production lines and processes: "Such a digital manufacturing environment creates a communication “loop back” between 787 design and manufacturing engineers, no matter where they are, eliminating the risk of committing to a design change only to discover it cannot be manufactured, or that it requires costly changes to other components."
The press release does not deliver any demos of this, but it would be cool to see quite how it works.
