Renault
Boulogne-Billancourt, France
Giant automaker, Renault, long ago standardized on Bentley MicroStation for the design of their manufacturing plants around the world
Turning a 50-year-old Plant into a Plant of the Future
When their team set out to integrate a new workflow, into one of the largest auto manufacturing plants in the world – with a sprawling floor area of six million square meters, utilizing three hundred kilometers of production lines, and boasting a capacity of 650,000 vehicles per year – Renault was confident they had the technology to do so.
Given that the AvtoVAZ plant, in Russia, was also one of the oldest, meant that drawings of the pipelines and conveyers were difficult, if not impossible, to locate and would need to be recreated. Renault’s Process Engineer, Dara Vazhenina, explained that she simulated the future workflow at the factory using 3D modeling and point cloud technology from Bentley. Ms. Vazhenina goes on to say, “by combining everything in Bentley MicroStation, we identified vulnerabilities and avoided very costly pitfalls that would have arisen during the installation of the new process.”
Image: Courtesy of Renault
MicroStation Delivers Power and Efficiency
Remnant CAD systems were in use by the plant’s engineering staff, from the time prior to AvtoVAZ becoming part of the Renault corporation. In attempting to share files, Renault’s team experienced the existing systems freezing when converting files and delivering inferior performance for files larger than 40MB (when many working files are up to 200MB). This inefficiency resulted in 30-40% longer design and engineering time. This was just one more proof point of the significance of the ROI for the company’s use of MicroStation. On retooling of the AvtoVAZ plant alone, Renault achieved bottom-line savings severalfold the cost of their MicroStation subscription.
Renault is pleased that they were able to accomplish their goals and deliver this project at a minimal cost, and with maximum efficiency. Their ability to customize MicroStation capabilities to their unique needs, including maintaining a general database of the drawings of all their plants, automatic calculation of floor space, and a database of 3D container models, among many others, dramatically increase efficiency and save time for their engineers throughout the world.
Manufacturing Planning Software
MicroStation is the computer-aided design (CAD) software that users worldwide trust for creating precise 2D and 3D drawings for infrastructure projects. Engineers, architects, and construction professionals openly collaborate to deliver inspiring projects, utilizing the industry-leading DGN file format. MicroStation can help you deliver your designs on time and on budget, even as project complexities and scale increase.
Facts
- 3D modeling of Renault’s manufacturing workflow eliminates costly errors.
- MicroStation provides superior performance for large data files.
- Saving design and engineering time means cost savings and higher profitability for Renault.
“By combining everything in Bentley MicroStation, we identified vulnerabilities and avoided very costly pitfalls that would have arisen during the installation of the new manufacturing process.”
Dara Vazhenina
Engineer
Renault
Image: Courtesy of Renault
