Engineering for Choice: Unifying Development Efforts Under a Common Architecture Framework at Volvo CE

With five product lines, 270 models, 18,000+ options, 11 factories, and the introduction of new hybrid and electrical machines, autonomous and connected solutions, Volvo CE needed to change their way of working to achieve synergies between products, sites, and projects. A common architecture, with shared technology, became critical for faster delivery of new versions at the lowest cost.

Experience, expertise, solutions

Headquartered in Gothenburg, Sweden, Volvo Construction Equipment (CE) is a leading international manufacturer of premium construction equipment. Leveraging more than 180 years of construction expertise and the knowledge of 14,000 employees, they supply products and services to more than 140 countries around the world. With innovation at the heart of their strategy and culture, Volvo CE provides the right machines and solutions for any construction job to ensure their customers succeed.

Volvo CE manages a portfolio of products and brands that together maximize the company’s market share. However, changing market conditions, shorter lifecycles, and increasing product variability required the company to change their way of working. They needed to transform from a product seller to a solution provider, which required a high level of agility and speed of execution. They also wanted to improve efficiency without compromising customer focus or quality.

Volvo CE recognized that their history of acquisitions led to a high level of complexity in their data, processes, systems, and organizational structure—resulting in high costs. Additionally, a common architecture framework was not implemented in their IT environment. Product configurations were managed in Microsoft Excel or even by paper handling. These challenges led to:

• Inconsistency of information structures: It was hard/impossible to share technical solutions between platforms, which resulted in a lack of re-use. Redundant part numbers, documentation, and solutions drove product costs higher and created inefficiencies at every stage of the product lifecycle.
• Training challenges: It was time-consuming and complicated training people in all the different structures.
• Lead time challenges: Long lead times were needed to track down the same information in multiple sources.

“We strongly believe that hardware and software dependencies need to be understood at all times. It’s critical. And PTC’s Windchill PLM software allows us to visualize those dependencies.”
Pelle Bokedal, The Vice President of Strategy, Architecture and Systems at Volvo CE

A new mindset: Common Architecture and Shared Technology (CAST)

The technology team, with their product line partners in engineering, manufacturing, supply chain, and service, embarked on an enterprise wide business transformation program, CAST, to deliver the right customer offering with reduced complexity and cost.

• Defining new processes, methodology, and tools to work efficiently with architecture.
• Embedding architecture within the existing processes, governance, organization, and IT environment to get it operational in the dayto-day business.
• Creating one consistent data model, a common architecture framework, that they implemented as the foundation for all kinds of documentation.

The program helped move the company toward a state-of-the-art architecture approach to variability management. “We strongly believe that hardware and software dependencies need to be understood at all times,” says Pelle Bokedal, Vice President of Strategy, Architecture and Systems. “It’s critical. And PTC’s Windchill PLM software allows us to visualize those dependencies.”

As part of architecture preparation, Volvo CE identified and defined common architecture framework elements that would be used throughout the business. “We spent a lot of time thinking about how we should divide our products and establish our common architecture framework,” says Ayman Mokdad, PLM Program Manager. The team identified the framework elements that would be used to define all their product designs—systems, modules, interfaces, design units, design unit variants, and parts.

A breakdown of the common architecture framework elements used throughout Volvo CE’s development processes.

As shown in the illustration, product domains are made up of the part, plus the design unit (the lower structure). The module, system, and function/interface make up the product of interest (the upper structure).

• Product of interest: Exists on the top level and varies depending on viewpoint, e.g. complete machine vs. sub-product level. The product of interest is decomposed into Systems, Modules, and Design Units.
• System: The aim of systems is to manage functionality and performance that is distributed across the product. A system consists of all parts involved in achieving a certain function/performance.
• Modules: A module is a grouping of Design Units into a physical building block.
• Interfaces: Interfaces describes the relationship and dependencies between the Design Units, Modules, or Systems within the Product of Interest.

Interfaces are always modelled as a connection between two Design Units. Interfaces from systems and modules are identified through their belonging to Design Units. “Once you are focused on the common architecture framework, you can start to see the patterns in your product line,” says Mokdad. “You can easily see all of the variations in a certain product line. For example, I can see variations for Full Haulers related to engines, transmissions, tires, etc.”

PLM enabled collaboration and alignment

After the common architecture framework was defined, Volvo CE partnered with PTC to ensure the structure was embedded in Windchill. Design and manufacturing engineers worked together directly based on the product structure and platform strategy.
“With the end-to-end PLM house, we established, we could enable CAST much more efficiently using Windchill,” says Bokedal.

The architecture provided a guideline for how to structure products to create an “overloaded” engineering bill of materials (EBOM) based on the agreed architecture definitions. Here is how it works:

• The product is designed using common architecture framework elements—systems, modules, interfaces, design units, design unit variants, and parts.
• The solution engineer is the master architect and has responsibility for the full machine (the “system of systems”)—top level.
• Mechanical, software, electrical engineers start working on individual design units.
• System engineers link functions to performance/functional requirements.

The framework allows the solution engineer to not just think about the system as a whole, but also to think about individual modules and how they’ll be manufactured and finally assembled. They use simulation models connected to requirements, to outcomes, to performance— all managed in Windchill.

PLM enabled collaboration and alignment

After the common architecture framework was defined, Volvo CE partnered with PTC to ensure the structure was embedded in Windchill. Design and manufacturing engineers worked together directly based on the product structure and platform strategy.
“With the end-to-end PLM house, we established, we could enable CAST much more efficiently using Windchill,” says Bokedal.

Embracing product diversity across the product lifecycle

Increasing efficiency
Engineers now analyze a common technical solution across products with less manual work. Before CAST, platform teams had their own structures, making applying elements from other product lines difficult and time-consuming. Now, the common framework is inherited when migrating, as is data.

Common architecture makes creating future products easier:

• Views don’t need to be created manually for a specific product.
• Component sharing can be efficiently managed across products.
• Time spent searching existing solutions is reduced.
• Comparing design consistencies between products is faster/easier.
• Managing product families is more efficient.

Product cost reductions
It’s also easier to track product costs and the impact of change on the business overall. This information is used to make decisions that result in cost reductions.

Lead time reductions
Less manual work on new products, combined with global organizational synergies, means getting to market faster. A common architecture makes comparing different products (and the different components within those products) more efficient.

Cost of poor-quality reductions
The quality and consistency of product data increases and the cost of poor quality is reduced because it takes less lead time to find the design unit that could cause (or has caused) a quality problem.

Global governance
Engineers more easily perform cross-functional work with a new mindset that begins with the customer. Here’s how the development workflow looks:

1. Develop the requirements: The cross functional team (market, product, architecture, manufacturing) works together to capture what the customer wants.
2. Establish a vision: When determining what is expected from the “end” product, the team lists requirements and then draws options.
3. Build an architecture that supports the vision: The team defines common architecture framework elements that align with the vision. They might plan out several product iterations that will be needed to eventually achieve the vision.
4. Execute: The architecture framework elements are developed, and options are executed over time.

What’s next? Deeper adoption, more reuse, and program management approach

Adoption across lines of business has been good and is increasing. Over time, the framework will be pervasive and embedded in every process and platform. Workflows will limit engineering choices through an ever-expanding set of standard libraries. The need for new supplier certifications will be curtailed as re-use and cost optimization becomes the standard way of working. Product planning will be made easier as new products are built from base product platforms that already contain many of the key features and functionality.

Volvo CE’s vision to move from platform management to portfolio management with common architecture.