Alstom: Crossing Borders with Electrical and Mechanical Connected Design

MARC PATTINSON: Hello, and a warm welcome to this industry case study Alstom crossing borders with electrical and mechanical connected design. My name is Marc, and I am today joined by Juliet, who will be leading this class presentation. But before we do the introductions, I would like to make sure you're in the right class. The class code is TR601736.

Now let's have a look at some of the class learnings. Discover gains from integrating Autodesk solutions for productivity and accuracy, explore challenges with manual processes and how Autodesk drives transformative change, discover the importance of connected workflows and the best practices for automation, and learn how to avoid delays and rework by implementing Autodesk's integrated solutions.

So now we have that out of the way, I'd like to introduce myself. My name is Marc Pattinson, and I'm a senior implementation consultant for Autodesk. I'm based in the UK. And I've only been with Autodesk now for 11 months, so it's a pretty new role for me. Although, I have been working in the Autodesk channel for over 18-plus years.

I have a great understanding of many different products in the Autodesk portfolio, but my specialties lie within Inventor, AutoCAD Electrical, and Autodesk Vault Professional.

It is great to be back in Vegas. And some in the audience may recognize me from when we were there where we were here last. Hopefully, this picture will refresh your memory. Here's me at the Autodesk party with my good friend and now colleague Bobby from Autodesk foundation team. Don't worry. The glasses were borrowed and won't be making a reappearance this year, hopefully.

Now it gives me great pleasure to introduce Juliet from Alstom, who will take you on a magical electromechanical train journey. Over to you.

JULIETTE AUBRUN: Thanks a lot, Marc. Actually, it's really a pleasure to present this project today with you. I would like to introduce myself. So I am Juliette Aubrun. And I am the electrical design manager for the installation engineering team in Alstom Denmark, since 2021. Before that, I was my third engineer in the same team department for three years. I have, as well, experience in the French railway. I worked in Method Department at the SNCF Maintenance Direction for two years.

So now let's have a look on the agenda of this presentation, I will start by introducing Alstom company. We will continue with a particular focus on the signaling part with ERTMS and how missions in Alstom Nordics. Then we will see the electrical design process in Alstom Denmark, the current and the future one. It will be of, course, the occasion to present in which extent Autodesk tools and team support this transition and project.

So first, let's have a look on Alstom. So I will start by a little video to present our company. Our company has done it's presence in more than 250 sites and 70 countries, which represents more than 70,000 employees. Through her different missions and projects, we are partners with more than 300 countries around the world.

Alstom develops and markets mobility solution that provides sustainable foundation for the future of transportation. As you can see, our comprehensive product portfolio includes high-speed trains, metros, monorail, and trams. And we are proud to count more than 150,000 vehicles in service.

The company is a leader too regarding turnkey systems, services, infrastructure, signaling, and digital mobility solutions. The value of the company is based on three main pillars agility, inclusivity, and responsibility.

So as introduced, actually, in this video, Alstom has a huge panel of expertise, products, and services to propose to different customers in function of their needs. But on this presentation, we will focus on a particular expertise of Alstom signalling. , Basically it can be all kind of system used to control the movement of highway traffic, but in our case, this system has a name, ERTMS.

So the next logical question is, what is ERTMS? So, ERTMS, those letters means European Rail Traffic Management System. It provides a better communication between the movement authority, the train, and the track. And on top of that, it is a single harmonized communication system between different countries.

ERTMS has different levels zero, one, two, and three. In Alstom Denmark, we install the level two. So let's give a little bit of extra explanation on how the system works. To do so, I would like to show you this little videos.

Basically, new equipment is installed in the train and on the track, and they communicate between each other. So when the train circulates on the track, it will pass on several balises The balise installed on the train will read them. The info related to the track and the traffic will be transmitted to the driver via the cubicle on the DMI, the driver screen.

Then the train continues his journey, and in the meantime, exchange information via the antennas and the GSMR signal to the radio block center, the movement authority. Those info concerns track data, speed info, and position report. The data are again transmitted to the driver via the antennas, the cubicle, and the DMI. The same exchange occurs with the next balises all along the train journey.

To support this technology, we will see a 3D model, actually, of a train. So as you can see, we install several pieces of equipment on existing trains. We have here the main ones the eurobalise and the radar are installed on the frame, the DMI, the driver screen, and the new loudspeaker are installed in the driver cabin.

The two antenna are fixed, obviously, on the roof. The cubicle, the brain of the system, is often installed in the passenger area or in a cabin area. And to finish, the [? wave ?] sensor are fixed on the wheel or on the axle of the wheel.

So to conclude, this system is [? going ?] to improve safety, speed, capacity, availability, and operational efficiency. Moreover, this system allows the train to circulate in other countries thanks to a common language. But now, let's focus on how in Alstom Denmark, we managed to install this new system.

So her mission in Astronautics. Astronautics groups has different projects, mostly on board and trackside. Her different offices and sites are based in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Finland. At Alstom Denmark, we are the experience engineering center for ERTMS. We are split in two main departments on board the new equipment installed on the train, and trackside the new equipment installed on the track. Let's focus on the onboard part.

So as mentioned before, new devices are installed in different locations of existing trains. The equipment installed is the same for all the train, so it means that each solution needs to be designed to make it fit.

To reach this target, we have three teams. Mechanical team will take the challenge to define how to fix the equipment. Electrical team will define how to connect the equipment. And finally, method department, they define how to install the equipment. Let's have a deeper look on the electrical department.

So I will do a quick explanation actually on our current process in Alstom Denmark for the electrical design. So for each train, we start with two main inputs. A survey, we have access to the train for one week to define the design. And the principles, it is basically the main structure of the electrical diagram. It shows how the system and equipment interact with each other.

To create those principles, the system team is using Visio. After that, we can provide the electrical schematic here [INAUDIBLE]. It is a real overview of the system implemented in the train on how the design will be defined. We have an overview of the terminal, the harnesses, and so on. We can automatically extract the wire list from [INAUDIBLE].

The two main documents after are the terminal board architecture, and if we go on the next slide, we have as well, the harnesses. And both documents are done in Excel.

Following it, we enter the industrialization phase. For each harness, each terminal board we provide a specification to the supplier for the manufacturing material configuration, lens, internal wiring, and so on. Each specification is done manually with [? world. ?] To finish the test documents, continuity and dielectric test are done manually with Excel.

I think you understand now the main concern about this process. All the documents are linked between each other but tools like [INAUDIBLE], Word, Excel, or Visio are not at all adapted.

So to sum up why do we need to change? First, our tools are not adapted to the quality of work we want to achieve. The data are connected, but documents and tools are not. This lack of smart connection results a lack of agility. A small modification in one document can be a real challenge for us. We don't share a common environment with mechanical or metal team. So even the share of data internally is difficult. And to finish, the designer, installation team, and the customer haven't a clear view on the final design before starting the first installation.

So now, we will present the new tools we are using to support our change AutoCAD Electrical and inventor. And then I'll let the floor to Marc for more explanation.

MARC PATTINSON: Thank you, Juliette. It's now time for the technical part of the presentation. I've only three videos and just a little over six minutes to show them. So unfortunately we don't have enough time to show the full implemented solution. But hopefully, you'll gain enough insight in the great features that are taking place at Alstom.

We'll start the first video inside AutoCAD Electrical to show the complex schematics drawn inside the Alstom electrical team. And for this demo, I'd like to focus on a small part of the schematic and show just a few of the tools available inside AutoCAD Electrical.

So we start off using the multi-wire bus tool. OK, this is a fantastic tool. And it makes job a whole lot easier. After this, we will then do the multi-wire tools, and we'll add wire types to our designated wire layer. OK, it's a repeatable task, but as you know, within AutoCAD, a lot of tasks are repeatable, but it's a lot easier doing it like this than having to do it the manual way within AutoCAD. So once we add a few more different wire layers, we're now ready to add our designated wire numbers.

So from the wire numbers, we can either add normal wire numbers or the three-phase option. And this is built up with a generic number sequence, which we now in one final swoop, be able to just swift across the wires and place down the wire numbers.

Could you imagine doing this in vanilla AutoCAD or another third party application? It's just so quick and easy to do. And the reason we're applying these numbers, is so that when we bring it into our 3D model, Inventor can recognize the wire names and the wire layers. So once we've synced this up to our 3D model, we can now jump across to Inventor to see the next video.

We start our second video of presentation inside Autodesk Inventor. In that case, we're going to open up this 3D model. Now, inside the 3D model, we'll have a cable and harness assembly. And in this cable and harness assembly, we can quite easily see firsthand, how the link between AutoCAD Electrical, Inventor is working.

So if we look in the similar location box, which we had within inside AutoCAD Electrical, you'll see now it's picked up our components nicely. As a designer, this is really useful for me because I'm not an electrical engineer. So being able to see these in the location box is great. And then just to be able to click a button and connect those wires into already certified model and certified by the electrical engineer.

So we'll pick up these wires now, and we'll add these wires into the segment. We can use the Autoroute function, but I want to be more specific in routing my wires along the placed components. So once we've done this, we can now take the last segment of our wires and place them nicely within our assembly.

And once we selected this, you could see now all the wires have nicely routed, and we can put the render display on to make them look more like wires. Let's jump across now into the Location View because you may be asking, what is the purpose of creating the wires inside AutoCAD Electrical and then bringing it into Autodesk Cable and Harness.

It's so we can get the wire lengths. And the wire lengths is really important to Alstom because without the wire lengths, they're guessing the length of the cables making those cables longer than they should be or having to order additional cables from manufacturer if they're wrong.

This can obviously add delays to the project. So by having these efficient and accurate wire lengths, no longer do we need to guess those cable widths at Alstom. We can then bring that same information back from Inventor and place it directly into AutoCAD Electrical with a little hit of the Synchronization button.

What else can you do in Inventor? So you may be used to this or used this feature before, but we can use Nail Board Views so we can take that existing cable and harness assembly that we've created, and create our old fashioned nail boarders like we used to do a long time ago.

OK, so in the nail board, we want to add things like components, wire pin lists, et cetera. And we do this quite easily and fluently because Inventor knows where these components need to sit. So we place in these components side the Nail Board View. And we have a detailed measure.

Now, what we need to do now is just add a 3D model into this drawing, and as you can see, it's as easy as that. Now, quickly going back to AutoCAD Electrical, we also have many features in there. If you're not familiar with these, then things it's really powerful to do reports in those lists that Alstom require.

Now with these building materials, wire lists cable to and from it gives them full control and power because they have the actual lengths and dimensions of the cables brought in from the Inventor cable and harness model. Then when we check the drawing with back into fault, OK, so now we're jumping into the fault application. You can use the power of Inventor, Vault, Electrical all in one collaboration tool, OK.

So we're going to view that recently created Nail Board View with our 3D view. And then we're going to look now for the electrical project. And once we go into the electrical project, we can now see that we have all of our electrical drawings in there with our electrical project file. But not only that, Vault has the power to extract from the electrical project file a full bill of materials.

So that what this means to Alstom is, they can get a bill of materials from the 3D model, a full schematic bill of materials, and combine those into one system and then integrate those into third-party business systems. Well, that's enough from me. So let's get back to the main presentation with Juliette. So back to you Juliette.

JULIETTE AUBRUN: Thanks a lot. So thanks a lot here, Marc, for this explanation on the above software. So to submit, actually, we will use only two tools in the future. So AutoCAD Electrical will help us, basically, to build our electrical schematic, to design our terminal boards and harnesses in the same environment. It will help us, as well, to extract the wiring list.

Vault/Inventor will be a great help for us to include all the 3D model, all the electrical components in the 3D model, Thanks. To the work of mechanical design before. We will be able to perform the laying of the harnesses and the fixation on the length of the harnesses inside the 3D models.

It's as well a great place for us to anticipate some constraints regarding EMC, for example, or simply installation constraints or even fire constraints. And thanks to the internal wiring, we will be able to link those two tools.

So the main key point, actually, for this new process is to have two tools which are communicated between each other. Let's have a look a little bit more on the new process. So how we'll be half process in the future.

The main step will be the construction of high environments with hard templates, hard generic components, and parts. The principles will be done via AutoCAD in order to finally share a common environment with system two. The design of the electrical schematic, the harnesses and the terminal board will be done in the same tool in the same environment. Everything will be set up at the same place.

Then we will have, I'll say, the second part of the process. So we will continue with Inventor. The 3D model of the train will be done by mechanical team, and all the 3D elements of the electrical design will be implemented by electrical teams. We will set up the link between Inventor and AutoCAD Electrical via the internal wiring. To finish all the design extract we need actually for the manufacturing of the parts will be performed on the same for the test documents.

So what we will achieve with these new tools or new way of working? Our data and deliverables will be finally connected, which will give us a better quality in our design and a better agility. It will be a better protection for the designer, installation team, and customer, and a better anticipation on critical constraints. To finish, we will share a common environment with mechanical design and in the future, with metal team.

Of course, this project will come with obvious benefits, especially regarding our cost of non-quality. We will reduce the time spent on the harness rework, as Marc mentioned during his presentation. The support we provide to suppliers and/or installation team regarding our design will decrease too.

Then a higher quality in the design before the first installation, will involve a reduction of the correction needed after this installation. To finish, a higher agility will help to reduce the time spent on extra rework for the design documents.

So in term of planning, here are the main steps for the coming months. We have started in August 2023 with all the trainings provided by Marc. In September of the same year, the electrical team has performed a first demonstration on a simple of the design for Norwegian Train.

The next targets are in first quarter 2024 having most of the environments set up and the new process deployed on new fleet. In quarter and second quarter 2024, we should gather the return of experience and the proof of work on our new process.

The mechanical and electrical team will work in a common environment. The method team will follow the same path. The target for this team is to develop the digital installation procedure as a next step.

So I would like to say a big thank you to the Autodesk team and particularly, Marc Pattinson for their support. And of course, congratulation to my team for the work and dedication to this project.

On behalf of Marc and myself, I hope you enjoyed this presentation. We hope to see you in the Autodesk seminar in November 2023 in Las Vegas, to discover together more projects and technologies. Thanks a lot, and we wish you a good day.