Digital pipeline speeds new Nissan to market

ICEM Surf software helped the Nissan Design Centre in Japan cut the design development process timescale for the body and interior of the new Nissan Note by some 30%.

The ICEM Surf software suite has played a leading role in helping the Nissan Design Centre in Japan cut the design development process timescale for the body and interior of the new Nissan Note by some 30%, compared with previous methods.

In mid-2002, Nissan selected the ICEM Surf software suite to provide a "digital pipeline" for the design development of the complex, free-form surface shapes that represent the body and interior of new Nissan vehicles.

The Nissan Note is the first of the company's new vehicles to benefit from the use of this software.

The car was launched in Japan in April this year and is expected to be available in other parts of the world later this year.

"Our target when we introduced ICEM Surf was to reduce the Class A surfaces development process for vehicle bodies and interiors by 30%".

"We are delighted to have achieved that target on our first major project, the Nissan Note", said Yukinori Kishimoto, Manager in Charge of Surface Modelling, Model Development Department, Nissan Design Centre, Japan.

He added: "The ICEM Surf software suite now plays a major role in our new V-3P vehicle development process".

"This is designed to enable Nissan to satisfy the demands of the market more quickly and cost efficiently through a reduction in overall development timescales and costs".

One of the major contributors to this streamlined design development process is the ability that ICEM Surf gives Nissan's designers and surface engineers to manipulate surfaces directly and to see the results in real time, without the need to recreate geometry.

In addition, the direct interface between ICEM Surf and Nissan's engineering CAD/CAM system provides a digital pipeline that makes design information available to other processes, where and when it is needed.

The higher surface quality provided by ICEM Surf's advanced surface modelling and surface quality analysis facilities and the early availability of surface data to downstream engineering processes also enabled improvements to be made in the tooling development process.

This resulted in higher quality achievements in the final vehicle manufacturing process.

"We are proud that Nissan selected ICEM Surf for its body and interior design development processes and in particular, that they achieved their targets with the software on their very first major project", said Kate Mills, Global Marketing Director, ICEM.

"We are continuing to work with Nissan Design Centre staff in Japan to help them implement other aspects of the ICEM Surf software suite in order to achieve even better results in the future".

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