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Engineering Cloud


FSTJ 2012-10 Cover Image

2012-10 (Vol.48, No.4)


This special issue describes how Fujitsu's Engineering Cloud is revolutionizing the world of manufacturing and presents examples of putting it into practice, as listed below.
1) Integrated design development environment using ICT
2) Know-how consolidation and support of diverse work styles
3) Advanced, high-speed display and process technologies for moving work to a cloud


2012-10 (Vol.48, No.4) Contents

1. Preface (576 KB)
In June 2011, Fujitsu announced its "Engineering Cloud," providing advanced computer-aided design (CAD) software and simulation tools for customer use as an ICT solution supporting our customers' manufacturing. This is an "integrated technology infrastructure" that uses ICT to consolidate a wide variety of monozukuri know-how covering a wide range of processes from development to manufacturing and maintenance. ---[Hideyuki Saso, Corporate Senior Executive Vice President and Representative Director]
2. Special Contribution: Supercomputing in Industrial Manufacturing (1.34 MB )
There are high expectations in the manufacturing sector for innovation of design processes and creation of new products by making sophisticated use of supercomputing. Obviously, taking advantage of supercomputing to improve product performance and reliability and reduce development costs and periods before other enterprises in the rest of the world will lead to the strengthening of Japan's industrial competitiveness. To that end, continuous development of supercomputers and strategic promotion of computational science and technology are essential. ---[Chisachi Kato]
3. Construction of Integrated Design Development Environment and Its Deployment on Cloud (1.71 MB )
It is crucial for manufacturers in fierce competition with global vendors to continue providing products incorporating the functions, performance, quality and environmental resistance desired by customers faster and at lower costs while meeting the diversifying market needs. Accordingly, there is an urgent need to construct a global design and development environment that accelerates development while utilizing more than ever the "knowledge" existing in the fields of development and manufacturing. Fujitsu has launched and utilized a design and development environment for wide-ranging products including supercomputers, servers, network devices and mobile phones as an in-house private cloud for integrated design. We also offer this environment to external customers through forms of clouds in line with the respective customer needs as a next-generation manufacturing infrastructure service. This paper presents the integrated development environment that Fujitsu established by developing and introducing advanced cloud technology to a design and development environment that contains Fujitsu's many years of manufacturing know-how. The overall picture, characteristics and future direction of this integrated development environment are described. ---[Akihiko Miyazawa, Toshihito Nagashima]
4. Fujitsu's Engineering Cloud (1.20 MB )
Product design is currently facing some issues: higher development costs, increasingly complex products, a faster time to market, cooperation between enterprises, and business continuity including measures to deal with natural calamities. To solve these issues, it is important to have simulations, information sharing and use, and linkage between tools and sections. Of course, greater effects can be obtained by having deep mutual cooperation between them. For example, electrostatic or thermal fluid simulations are performed in order to detect at an early stage of design the possibility of a device being damaged by the heat generated within it or electrostatic discharge. However, in the distributed design environment, information on housing and printed circuit board design is collected and then work begins to transfer this information to the simulation environment. This gives rise to the issues of the effort needed to copy information and information management (security). To solve them, Fujitsu thinks that by shifting the engineering design environment to the cloud, the speed of simulations, information sharing and use and linkage between tools and sections will be enhanced. It believes this will achieve product design that has a high design quality. This paper focuses on the issues in product development. As an approach to solving them, it introduces Fujitsu's Engineering Cloud, a tool that Fujitsu is working on now. ---[Mitsuru Yasuda]
5. Electrical Design Platform on Engineering Cloud (1.45 MB )
The conventional requirements of monozukuri (manufacturing) included needs for high performance, miniaturization, low costs and fast development. In addition to these, product development has come to require businesses to fulfill their social responsibilities in areas such as business continuity and consideration for the environment and safety. In order to respond to these changes in technologies and the business environment, it is essential to introduce development processes and a development environment that allow for effective governance of development overall. Fujitsu has integrated the know-how of monozukuri cultivated over many years, and built Flexible Technical Computing Platform (FTCP) as the integrated design development environment. It has provided it to customers in development sections, manufacturing sections and repair sections as "Engineering Cloud." This paper describes an overview of FTCP. It also covers the features of and linkage between CAD for designing printed circuit boards, a key component of the electrical design platform; a simulation environment for analyzing noise and such like; and a standard component database which supports them. Moreover, it also describes the merits of providing FTCP in a cloud environment by using Engineering Cloud, and the shift of customers' existing development environments to the cloud. ---[Takeo Nakamura, Kiyokazu Moriizumi, Toshiro Sato, Shuichiro Yamada]
6. Mechanical Design Platform on Engineering Cloud (1.20 MB )
The Fujitsu Group is always using leading-edge information and communications technology (ICT) and building an integrated design environment that is important for product design. Engineering Cloud is part of that process. It consists of many software and hardware components. In this paper, we concentrate on the mechanical design platform software in Engineering Cloud that is used particularly in product development. This mechanical design platform software is based on virtual product simulator (VPS) technology. VPS technology allows the user to quickly and easily use 3D data throughout the overall life cycle of a product. The platform combines the equivalent functions of conventional VPS and the functions necessary for preprocessing and postprocessing in the analysis and simulation fields. This paper introduces the platform's concept and its basic configuration. Then it describes the benefits that can be obtained by using a platform on Engineering Cloud and the future issues. It does this from the three viewpoints of resources for use in calculations, handling large amounts of data, and resources for use in visualization. ---[Yuichi Arita, Naoyuki Nozaki, Koji Demizu]
7. SaaS and PaaS of Engineering Cloud (945 KB)
Fujitsu will provide Desktop as a Service (DaaS) (offers remote access from a thin client) as a cloud service that is specialized for engineering work. This service will allow engineers to manage and operate engineering data on the cloud. In addition, it will let them conduct 2D and 3D modeling and simulations using digital mock-up tools and help engineers that are geographically distant to communicate. It will offer these benefits for a fixed monthly fee. These services will greatly improve the efficiency of global engineering, in ways including improving the linkage between our customers' global bases. At the same time, it is a solution that will help prevent information leaks when sharing data with collaborative partners. It will make it possible to start collaborative work faster. ---[Yoshifumi Yoshida, Yusuke Fujita]
8. General Design Information Management System: PLEMIA (1.05 MB )
PLEMIA is a tool that realizes a management solution concept for Fujitsu's product lifecycle management (PLM). A PLM solution is a general strategic solution to build a next-generation development design and fabrication environment from the planning stage of a product to its design, development, manufacturing spot, sale, support, disposal and recycling. PLEMIA collectively manages product-related information of the whole lifecycle of a product by using information and communications technology (ICT). It is a strong tool realizing a flexible manufacturing system which can adapt to changes in the market environment via support from the upstream areas of the design process. PLEMIA makes it possible to have design support from a product's concept phase via engineering data management, product configuration management via a bill of materials (BOM) system, and efficient process management. In addition, introducing PLEMIA brings the following merits: safe team design, a general BOM system, and visibility of the processes conducted by designers and managers, effective use of information assets through diversified search functions and document data that can be shared in the process flow. This paper describes PLEMIA's development policy and a plan to enhance it. ---[Yoshitaka Iida, Hideto Murata, Seiichi Kamata]
9. Virtual Production Line Simulator: GP4 (1.40 MB )
GP4 (Global Protocol for...) is a tool which helps companies prepare for production by showing them a virtual production line that utilizes 3D data. Recently in various manufacturing industries in Japan, companies have been rebuilding their business strategies in a global market. Developed markets are maturing, emerging markets are expanding and there is increased competitiveness in manufacturing in Asian countries like South Korea and China. Therefore, in recent years, there have been rapid changes in the business environment surrounding the domestic manufacturing industry, and the situation is adverse. One of the major drivers of change in the manufacturing industry is the rapid localization of production bases with the globalization of markets. Furthermore, the strong yen and the Great East Japan Earthquake have added fuel to the fire, and the manufacturing industry has been forced to shift its production bases overseas from Japan at a faster pace. This rapid localization is leading to local personnel who have insufficient experience, and this in turn is causing delays in the start of mass production and higher costs in preparing for production. This major change and issues are concentrating on production preparation work that links design work and mass production. There is a pressing need for reform in this area. This paper describes the method of investigating the optimum production line without actual products, by utilizing GP4, because of the issues with global manufacturing, and the effects of GP4. ---[Atsuyuki Tanaka, Takashi Ogami, Toru Ueda]
10. Project Propulsion Platform: P3 (1.16 MB )
As technologies supporting the information technology (IT) society continue to advance on an almost daily basis, demands for greater diversity and higher performance in functions are driving up the level and scale of design technologies used in IT device development. Compared to the situation just a few years ago, an extensive number of requirements must now be examined, creating an increasingly complicated development environment. Nowadays, many developers are needed to achieve early development and shipment as demanded by the market, but such a high number of project participants can increase the cost of information and knowledge sharing, thereby increasing the risk of project delays. We have constructed an environment that visualizes development status, problems, and countermeasures within a project, applies the know-how accumulated through development work, and supports improvements in development efficiency and productivity. This paper introduces the Project Propulsion Platform (P3), which facilitates the sharing of information and knowledge among developers. It reports the results obtained from applying this platform to actual design and development projects and discusses remaining issues and future plans. ---[Tomonori Yamashita, Kimio Saito, Masaru Kameda]
11. Simulation of Electrical Characteristics Using SignalAdviser Environment (1.41 MB )
As the operating frequencies of the printed circuit boards (PCBs), multichip modules (MCMs), and systems in packages (SiPs) used in digital devices have increased while the operating voltage of the large-scale integration (LSI) chips in these devices has decreased, two problems regarding electrical devices have arisen: first, design time has become longer owing to noise problems such as signal integrity (i.e., signal noise), power integrity (power-supply noise), and electromagnetic compatibility (EMC); and second, costs have increased. These problems have been solved by establishing an electrical-characteristics simulation environment in which simulation is used to optimize the design of a broad range of digital devices. In this report, Fujitsu's efforts in establishing such an environment are described, and examples of using the latest environment, called SignalAdviser, for signal-integrity analysis and power-integrity analysis are presented. ---[Shogo Fujimori, Toshiro Sato, Kayoko Kawano, Tomoyuki Suzuki]
12. Virtual Desktop Display Acceleration Technology: RVEC (1.01 MB )
Virtual desktop services have been attracting attention due to their ability to improve data security and reduce the operation and management costs of personal computers. A virtual desktop is a desktop environment virtualized in a cloud that can be accessed remotely and used in the same way as a conventional desktop environment. It thereby eliminates the need to store information on a client terminal. As smartphones grow in sophistication and popularity, the need for using virtual desktop services in a mobile environment is increasing, and smooth operability is required as well. Fujitsu Laboratories has developed Remote Virtual Environment Computing (RVEC) technology, which improves the operational responsiveness of user terminals. It works by decreasing the amount of data transfer for videos and high-definition images. It reduces the amount of data transferred to one-tenth that with conventional techniques. This technology supports virtual desktop services for handling graphics processing of computer-aided design (CAD) as well as other such applications in a mobile environment with smartphones and other devices. ---[Kazuki Matsui, Kenichi Horio, Yuichi Sato, Shinichi Sazawa]
13. Application Examples of Electromagnetic Field Analysis at Fujitsu (1.38 MB )
As the operating frequency of printed circuit boards (PCBs), multichip modules (MCMs), and systems-in-packages (SiPs) used in digital devices such as high-performance, high-end servers has been increased and as the operating voltage of large-scale integration (LSI) chips has been lowered, it has become difficult to implement countermeasures against electromagnetic interference (EMI)—which is attributed to various noise sources such as signal-transmission noise, ground-bounce noise in power supplies, and simultaneous switching noise—and degradation of antenna receiver sensitivity. Fujitsu Group has developed a large-scale electromagnetic field analysis system and incorporated it in the equipment-design process so that countermeasures against such noise sources can be implemented in the design stage. Utilizing this system has made it possible to eliminate instances in which designs have to be redone because of noise problems for various Fujitsu products, ranging from the K computer to cell phones. This paper describes the features of the developed analysis system and gives examples of its application to equipment design. ---[Toshiro Sato, Takashi Matsunaga, Hideki Maeda, Masahide Watanabe]
14. Structural and Thermal Fluid Simulation and CAD System Linking (1.56 MB )
High-accuracy simulation techniques and prompt presentation of simulation results are essential to improving quality, cost, and delivery (QCD) in product development. Fujitsu is constantly working to shorten the time required to create a model, perform computations, and analyze results in the simulation process and is promoting the application of simulations in a technical computing environment. These efforts have helped to accelerate product development and design, to improve quality within the manufacturing process, and to improve product use on the customer side. This paper describes simulation schemes in a technical computing environment and the linking of simulation with computer-aided design (CAD) systems. It also presents examples of structural and thermal fluid simulations as applied to the design of structures and cooling systems and discusses their effects. ---[Nobuyoshi Yamaoka, Hidehisa Sakai, Shigeo Ishikawa, Tamon Suwa]
15. Application of Flexible Technical Computing Platform to Electrification of Automotive Products (1.27 MB )
JTEKT CORPORATION is an automobile parts and machine tools manufacturer that sells steering systems, bearings, and driveline components worldwide that help to improve fuel efficiency. Electrification of these products has been accelerating, and JTEKT has focused on developing technologies to further contribute to compact, lightweight, and high-efficiency vehicles that are even more energy efficient. Electrification of automotive products is also steadily expanding in emerging markets. In particular, there are urgent demands to overcome such technical challenges as developing low-cost and ultra-lightweight electronic components that can operate in harsh conditions. Thus, while ensuring greater reliability in products than that conventionally achieved, JTEKT is working to quickly develop high-performance, highly functional car electronics. To achieve this, it has introduced the Flexible Technical Computing Platform (FTCP), a general design and development environment that utilizes Fujitsu's Engineering Cloud, and is using it to construct its own development platform. This paper introduces the steps taken by JTEKT to construct this platform for use in developing car electronics. ---[Masaya Segawa, Shigeki Nagase]