The University of Sheffield Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre’s Integrated Manufacturing Group (IMG) and its aerospace partner Boeing have been working with Destaco — a global supplier of high-performance automation, work-holding and containment fixturing solutions with a UK HQ in Wolverhampton — to create a ‘virtual workshop’ to help with pre-production and factory-planning processes.

The IMG has been using data-driven technologies to give Destaco a “complete digital press-shop virtual environment to develop automation and fixturing tooling for manufacturers”.

Fixturing tooling to hold automotive body panels in a press line is currently built around the physical components, which are usually only available shortly before production begins.

CAD models may be available earlier, but it is difficult to develop fixturing solutions from CAD models that avoid clashes with equipment during production.

To give Destaco a way to develop new tooling fixtures and automation processes without being reliant on the physical components, the IMG has developed packages of work using a head-mounted virtual-reality system to create simulations of a press line and die press.

Michael Lewis, augmented-reality developer for IMG, said: “The simulations allow engineers to customise fixturing tooling and adapt them to the press-shop environment in the pre-production stages, to allow design revisions before physical models are built.

“Uniquely within the automotive industry, the digital press shop allows operators to see unused space in the die-press environment and reduce the working volume of the die press before production starts.

“This is significant, as it will lead to Destaco moving towards accurately predicting how many panels it can produce in a set time.”