CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
26 May 2004
Implementation Investments
PROTON Slashes Stamping Process Operation Costs with Altair Engineering¹s HyperForm Technology
Altair ( http://www.altair.com ) announced that it has received an order for HyperForm from Perusahaan Otomobil Nasional (PROTON) Sdn Bhd. The order came through Mekarprise Sdn Bhd, Altair¹s representative in Malaysia. In a joint project with Altair Engineering, Inc., Mekarprise and PROTON, the Malaysian-based automotive manufacturer has announced marked efficiency gains in their pre-production stamping process, resulting in reduced operational costs to their die development process using Altair® HyperForm® sheet metal forming simulation technology.
Syed Zamri Bin Syed Jaafar, Head of Body Design Section of PROTON¹s Engineering Design Department, said, ³Software simulation techniques and products are an integral component of design and production at PROTON. Altair Engineering's Hyperworks framework of Computer Aided Engineering (CAE) capabilities provides us with a great deal of value and enables us to provide consistent results. In our extensive evaluation process to choose the right solution, HyperForm proved to be the clear winner with great local support from Mekarprise."
Syed Zamri also explained that during the evaluation period, PROTON was looking for a tool that could be easily integrated into their existing environment and capable of addressing specific goals focused on reducing costs and decreasing cycle-time development. HyperForm delivered on all fronts. PROTON projects that the implementation of HyperForm will save approximately US$1.5 million in tool and die costs that PROTON would have spent in modification prior to HyperForm¹s implementation. PROTON also plans to integrate optimization and a robust design process through HyperForm with their increasing use of high-grade steel material (tensile strength above 600 Mpa), and aluminium. By doing proper design and simulation of parts prior to delivering requirements to vendors, it takes away the risk for all parties by verifying that individual parts created in the prototype stage as well as final design will increase manufacturability.
As part of Altair's flagship HyperWorks® CAE software suite, HyperForm is a finite-element-based sheet metal forming simulation program that combines an fast one-step solver and incremental forming solution with the customized geometry manipulation and mesh generation capabilities of HyperMesh®. HyperForm provides engineers at any stage of product design with quick, valuable, reliable information that reduces the overall product cycle. HyperForm's die module enables engineers to create and analyze conceptual die designs in order to generate an optimized die. Die concepts can then be read into any Computer Aided Design (CAD) system as a starting point for the actual die build.
PROTON, short for Perusahaan Otomobil Nasional Berhad is a Malaysian car manufacturer established in 1983 by the then Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad. The main plant is located in Shah Alam, near Kuala Lumpur. Based on technology from Mitsubishi, production of the first model, the SAGA, began in 1985. PROTON acquired the British car manufacturer Lotus Cars from Bugatti in 1996. Proton cars are exported to countries in the Far East and Europe. PROTON currently holds a major market share in Malaysia.
Mekarprise Sdn. Bhd. started its operations in April 2002 and is a related company of Mega Computing (Singapore) Pte Ltd which is privately held. Mega Computing was started in June 1997 by professionals in the sales and marketing of high performance computing systems around the South East Asian region. As part of Mega Computing¹s expansion program, Mekarprise Sdn. Bhd. was set up to provide local sales and technical support to its customers in Malaysia. Mekarprise Sdn. Bhd. is the distributor in the Asia and South East Asia Region for many modeling and simulation software products such as HyperWorks and PBS Pro. For details visit http://www.mekarprise.com.my
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