Volkswagen is improving the efficiency of its durability testing operations with a durability knowledge and process management solution that will contribute to a more effective durability engineering process.

The collaborative solution IMSBF (InformationsManagementSystem BetriebsFestigkeit) consolidates durability-specific information in a single platform with search and analytical capabilities, and automates the organisation and execution of all required durability testing tasks.

After initiating a testing request in the internet browser, IMSBF creates a workflow and links all required resources to it, including test rigs, test operators and test specimen. IMSBF’s web-based environment allows Volkswagen engineers to automatically gather data from the test equipment, and run durability-specific applications to view, analyse and compare measurement data. After realising a rollout to 100+ internal users, the project is currently in its second phase and concentrates on setting up damage data and implementing additional workflows and intelligent interfaces to test rigs.

The management of the durability department of Volkswagen made the decision to contract with LMS to develop a new collaborative database application. It concluded that the existing durability-specific management tools insufficiently support today’s durability engineering process and ineffectively maintain the durability-related knowledge base.

With the tools currently deployed, it is quite difficult to efficiently retrieve information and generate reports, and impossible to view data and perform operations in a durability-specific context. These tools often have inefficient and complex updating mechanisms, and are not capable of automatically distributing information or generating alerts in case of problems. In most cases, the tools are slow and error-prone, require a manual operation, and are only accessible by employees working in one facility.

The result of these weaknesses is that excessive amounts of time are spent on manual data management, which negatively effects the efficiency of the durability development process.

Expensive testing time on rigs and tracks is sometimes inefficiently utilised because employees find it difficult to obtain the information they need to complete a task. Projects fall behind because it takes too much time to locate the required data. It even occurred that the same durability test was performed twice because earlier results could not be found or the engineer was unaware of previously executed measurements.

Today, durability engineering processes require the capacity to efficiently set vehicle-level durability targets and cascade them down to subsystem and component level. In order to fulfill this requirement, Volkswagen decided to extend both its durability simulation and testing capability. To better streamline its durability testing efforts during the target setting process, Volkswagen opted to introduce a collaborative solution that manages the workflows of numerous specific testing assignments. When executing such a workflow, this software solution should be capable of interfacing with advanced road load data acquisition equipment, and automatically generating the specific test scenarios that are required.

Volkswagen also aims at applying similar workflows to better organise the testing efforts needed to validate the actual durability performance of newly developed components, sub-assemblies and vehicles. At the same time, it wants to incorporate a knowledge base of durability-specific data with powerful searching capabilities and transparently presented measurement data.

The new web-enabled software IMSBF systematises and manages many aspects of the durability engineering process, and provides a wealth of powerful capabilities.

Dedicated HTML pages help task initiators to easily define a new testing task and to enter more detailed requirements regarding the operational tests. Unless the requested tests have already been executed in the past, the workflow for carrying out the tests is initiated, and a confirmation email is sent to the initiator.

The execution of specific tasks follows a prescribed workflow that incorporates the required people, applications and equipment in order to make them participate in a more controlled and efficient way.

The appropriate testing systems and measurement equipment are automatically allocated and reserved, and all the involved employees are automatically notified about their specific assignments.

The information on how to perform the tests is automatically entered into a configuration file, which is used by operators to prepare a sample measurement on the allocated testing equipment, for example a durability test rig.

A practical aspect of IMSBF is that it supports the automatic synchronisation of wheel force transducers and integrates dedicated durability-specific applications that automatically generate drive files for rig test campaigns. If the sample measurement is successful, the operator executes the real measurements and uploads the measurement data into the application, after which the data is automatically analysed and formatted.

The application keeps track of when each testing assignment is performed and users have the option of entering comments, such as why a particular task was delayed, or how a specific complication was solved. Users can check the status of and obtain more information about specific projects by calling up a list of ongoing tasks.

Once the testing work is completed, the project manager, who is often also the task initiator, is notified and invited to immediately evaluate the measurement data.

After this, all the people involved in the project are allowed to compare, modify, convert data and transfer them to other applications. Contextual information tags, such as the type of the test, component specifications or project information, enable them to quickly retrieve the desired information, as users can search data on the basis of these specific attributes.

Example attributes linked the vehicle class are vehicle number, vehicle class, production date, identification number and chassis number. The completeness of the data is assured by the fact that certain attribute fields must be entered whenever inserting new measurement data.

Clearly presented data summaries make it possible for users to easily drill down to all underlying measurement details. They can view the data in any preferred format using LMS TecWare, the integrated durability-oriented solution that is capable of displaying rainflow matrices, power spectral densities, level crossings, range pairs and damage bar charts. This allows them to evaluate load data by comparing for example the damage caused by different load sets. 

Holger Zeiner is Development Manager with LMS Kaiserslautern, Germany. For more information, visit www.lmsintl.com