Jaguar Land Rover, NPL lead UK seminar discussions

November 6, 2008

UK National Motorcycle Museum, Nov 6, 2008 The UK’s National Motorcycle Museum was a perfect site for Granta to rev-up interest in materials information management, with a well-attended seminar in early November.

Attendees included automotive OEMs and suppliers, aerospace and defense organizations, government laboratories, and manufacturers of industrial equipment. They were a mixture of current Granta customers and other leading engineering organizations with a strong interest in materials information and its management. An example of this latter group was Jaguar Land Rover. Granta invited Simon Buckingham of Jaguar Land Rover to begin the seminar with a presentation designed to stimulate a discussion of materials information requirements in engineering organizations. He provided an excellent overview of some of the key strategic materials issues facing the automotive industry, and the data and practical information technology needed to address them.

This kicked off a discussion in which attendees reviewed twelve top materials information issues and highlighted those that were relevant to their organizations, identifying the most important problems. Many of the problems recurred across the organizations and industries represented. The three highest priority issues for action in the organizations present were:

• Consolidating materials data (especially materials test data)—getting it all in one place and making it easy to find, analyze, and apply
• Integration of materials information into CAE, FEA, and other applications, making it easy and risk-free for designers and engineers to find and use approved materials data
• Compliance with eco regulations, particuarly REACH

Following the introductory discussions, Granta experts demonstrated software designed to address such issues. There were three ‘case study’ sessions, each highlighting how materials information technology could be used to approach a particular area of industrial interest:

1. Materials data management for structural materials applications
2. Systematic approaches to materials selection and materials strategy
3. Eco design and eco regulations

The last point was supported by a presentation from Dr Graham Sims of the UK National Physical Laboratory (NPL), who discussed the materials data needs of environmental applications and introduced the work of the Environmental Materials Information Technology (EMIT) Consortium which, among other issues, addresses compliance with REACH.

Acknowledgements

Granta would like to thank Simon Buckingham and Graham Sims for speaking at the seminar.