Ducati motorcycles are sleek, sporty and stylish. But don’t let their appearance fool you. Beneath the façade lies sophisticated motoring technology.
Indeed, 20 percent of Ducati’s global workforce of 1,000 people is dedicated to R&D. To keep some 200 manufacturing and design engineers on time and on the same page, Ducati relies on two products from Siemens PLM Software: NX CAD software and Teamcenter product life cycle management (PLM) software. Ducati uses NX to digitally model vehicle assembly. The company uses Teamcenter to share and distribute data securely, both in-house and with suppliers.
“We use NX from the moment we start thinking about a new project up to its completion,” explains Piero Guisti, Ducati’s information technology manager for R&D.
“NX is used to design many different motorbike components, including the wheels, chassis and the body…virtually everything except the engine.”
There are currently more than 50 NX workstations at Ducati. “The key benefits of NX are flexibility and ease of use,” Guisti says. “By ‘flexibility,’ I mean that it lets you generate 3D models with different methods, without constraining you to a fixed approach. NX with synchronous technology is a hybrid approach that avoids having to parameterize everything, so the user is free to choose how to achieve the final result.”
Ducati engineers use the 3D wiring functionality in NX extensively. It allows them to verify cable routing inside a virtual assembly, minimizing possible routing issues downstream.
“We can create wiring diagrams using the NX schematic functionality,” says Guisti. “After that, the diagram is passed on to the NX wiring application to incorporate all electrical information into the design. And finally, using the NX electrical routing function, we prepare the documentation for cabling installation. NX lets us cover the entire process with an integrated approach.”