Simcenter in the AGCO Picture
In addition to the use of Teamcenter and Tecnomatix, many AGCO specialized engineers around the world count on the tools from the Simcenter portfolio to design and develop the various AGCO products in the company’s diverse agriculture brand portfolio. Learn how.
AGCO company in a nutshell
With its global footprint, AGCO has pursued a design-anywhere, build-anywhere strategy in tandem with a platform product architecture. Founded in 1990, AGCO has grown dramatically through a series of acquisitions that have brought together decades of collective agricultural equipment history and know-how, and now has a strong global presence with more than 40 manufacturing sites around the world.
Even though you might not know the company, you definitely know its brands: Challenger®, Fendt®, GSI®, Massey Ferguson® and Valtra®. AGCO products are distributed by approximately 3,000 independent dealers and distributors in more than 140 countries.
Deploying PLM software to improve products development, manufacturing, and management
product With its global footprint, AGCO has pursued a design anywhere, build-anywhere strategy in tandem with a platform product architecture. The goal is to more efficiently develop, manufacture, and manage the company’s large portfolio of products. With that objective in mind, AGCO adopted Teamcenter software for product lifecycle management (PLM) and Tecnomatix® software for digital manufacturing, both from Siemens Digital Industries Software. The company first deployed the software at the company’s Hesston, Kansas facility in the United States.
Several factors influenced AGCO’s decision to deploy Teamcenter and Tecnomatix in manufacturing, including the need for standalone, paper-based manufacturing work instructions; the need to better manage design engineering process changes; issues with the use of the engineering bill-of-materials (EBOM) in the company’s manufacturing resource planning (MRP) system and manufacturing execution system (MES); and the ability to better serve the needs of manufacturing engineering in developing the manufacturing bill-of-materials (MBOM) and process plans.
“We build the same product at various sites,” explains Susanne Lauda, global project lead, manufacturing automation at AGCO. “We want to re-use the bill-of-process, we want to re-use the MBOM and we want to re-use the majority of our electronic work instructions, so it makes a lot of sense that our manufacturing engineers are working on a common global platform, which for us is Teamcenter. With the use of Teamcenter, we are able to have one site basically doing 80 percent of the work that is necessary for all sites that are building the same product, so that’s a huge savings.”
“In the case of design anywhere, build anywhere, all of our new product introductions are going to be platform-oriented, and will re-use data,” says Gary D’Souza, manufacturing engineering lead, global manufacturing PLM at AGCO. READ the full case here…
Simcenter in the AGCO picture
In addition to the use of Teamcenter and Tecnomatix, many specialized engineers around the world count on the tools from the Simcenter portfolio to design and develop the various AGCO products in the company’s diverse brand portfolio.
The AGCO Challenger RoGator 600
Firstly, one example of the high-end side of this is high performance, all-in-one equipment, like AGCO’s Challenger RoGator 600, which was developed in The Netherlands using Simcenter simulation, testing and engineering services.
Valtra CVT tractors
Although advanced concept machines help large-scale farmers maximize efficiency, not every farmer needs an AGCO Challenger RoGator. Sometimes a farmer in Africa just needs a dependable, simple tractor that can do a small job done and is easy to fix. Or a farming business in remote northern Sweden needs a tough but efficient continuously variable transmission (CVT) tractor, like the ones Simcenter Engineering and Consulting services helped Valtra develop using Simcenter testing solutions over a decade ago.
Simcenter STAR-CCM+ for a safe and comfortable ride
Increasingly, agricultural vehicles have to provide a comfortable and safe working environment for operators, some of whom will spend their entire working day inside one. AGCO recently found itself in need of a simulation tool that would allow them to provide comfort and safety by creating a superior design in a short amount of time. AGCO saw that Simcenter STAR-CCM+ provided their engineers with a fast, efficient and cost-effective solution. But Simcenter STAR-CCM+ isn’t a one-trick pony; AGCO also realized that Simcenter STAR-CCM+ could add value in a variety of applications. Petri Hannukainen, AGCO’s global simulation lead, says, “Simcenter STAR-CCM+ is an ideal solution for our engineers as it accelerates the design process without compromising quality. For many applications, we require the use of engineering software, and Simcenter STAR-CCM+ offers an equally efficient workflow across the board.”
For example, in addition to underhood modeling, AGCO is also using the software for combustion engine analysis, heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) duct and defrost performance, as well as cabin comfort.
The engineering solutions offered by the Simcenter portfolio allowed engineers across the AGCO group to replace rounds of early physical prototyping, solve tricky engineering challenges, provide additional operator comfort as well as drive innovation across a global organization.
