SIMULATION AND MODELLING 2016:

60 Seconds with Akin Keskin of Rolls-Royce and Andy Richardson of Jaguar Land Rover

Akin Keskin: Chief of Virtual Engine Design Systems, Rolls-Royce

Akin Keskin is a Rolls-Royce Engineering Associate Fellow in Design Systems and Methodologies. Akin has an Aerospace Engineering degree with a focus on Turbomachinery Design from the Berlin University of Technology in Germany and PhD in Mechanical Engineering with a focus on Process Automation and Design Optimisation from the Cottbus University in Germany.

He started his professional career 15 years ago at Rolls-Royce Deutschland and is now based in Derby working for Rolls-Royce plc. Throughout his entire career he has been developing improved simulation methods and integrated design systems to help the Engineering community with better and faster tools.

Andy Richardson: Head of Simulation, Vehicle Engineering, Jaguar Land Rover

Andy Richardson is “Head of Simulation” and responsible for Jaguar Land Rover’s simulation strategy building leading edge capability across engineering.

Andy started in 1985 joining Jaguar’s Body Development department. In 1995 he was made senior manager of Vehicle Packaging and Analysis, moving to Ford’s headquarters, Detroit in 1999 to lead Jaguars engineering team.

Ahead of Simulation And Modelling 2016, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers recently spoke to presenters; Akin Keskin, Chief of Virtual Engine Design Systems at Rolls-Royce and Andy Richardson, Head of Simulation, Vehicle Engineering at Jaguar Land Rover about what attendees will take away from the event.

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Q: What is your role and involvement in simulation and modelling?

Akin Keskin (AK): I’m leading a big project in Rolls-Royce dealing with improvements in simulation capability and automation of simulation model creation, solve and post-processing.

Andy Richardson (AR): I am responsible for Jaguar Land Rover’s simulation strategy, building leading edge capability in Virtual Engineering aligned across all the engineering groups. My goal is to help engineer more great products faster by creating an effective and capable virtual engineering organisation by providing robust virtual methods, aligned capable tools, efficient processes, effective modelling, and skilled people.

Q: What are you most looking forward to by attending and presenting at Simulation and Modelling 2016?

AK: I am looking forward to discussing challenges around simulation and modelling with peers and other industry in order to share best practices and experiences. This is an opportunity to build a network and to drive technology together.

AR: This is a great opportunity to meet with engineering leaders and experts from other automotive businesses and across industry to discuss how we are developing and using simulation and modelling to address our engineering challenges and deliver technically advanced and highly complex products. I always find it enormously valuable to listen to and talk with engineers from other companies and industries. Even when we are delivering very different end products, we find we face the same challenges in virtual engineering, and there is therefore significant opportunity to learn from each other.

Q: How important is simulation and modelling to the industry for reducing costs, prototypes and testing?

AK: Very important. It is a big driver to reduce cost and improve product understanding. There is no chance to do this without simulation.

AR: Simulation and Modelling is enormously important to the automotive industry today. The industry is already incredibly competitive, and new entrants are emerging from all directions. The pace of change and complexity of introduction of new technology is relentless. To compete and thrive, businesses have to deliver more advanced products at an ever increasing pace, whilst minimising development costs, and at the same time ensuring the very highest standards of product quality are maintained. This enormous engineering challenge can only be achieved by great engineers using the best simulation and modelling methods and tools to enable them to develop optimised and robust designs.

Q: CAE is now an indispensable part of vehicle engineering but what do you see as the number one challenge holding it back?

AK: Simply speed and accuracy. Most simulation results can be created quickly but they might not be accurate enough to answer design questions properly, whereas good results need more or better simulation capability which means longer or more expensive simulations. We need to get out of this dilemma and need to develop improved simulation capability which is fast and accurate.

AR: Over the last 25 years simulation and modelling has been the domain of engineering analysis specialists using specialist tools to solve specific engineering problems. But, today a vehicle is a technically advanced and highly complex system of interacting systems. So, to engineer tomorrow’s vehicles we depend on using the best virtual engineering capability, but ensuring these tools will work together. Equally we must have an organisation and processes that enable us to model fully integrated engineering solutions, getting these virtual tools into the hands of all our engineers, not just the specialists.

Akin Keskin and Andy Richardson will both be speaking at Simulation and Modelling 2016. This must attend event will bring together Automotive and Aerospace experts and provide a unique opportunity to discuss the latest developments being made with computer aided and virtual engineering.

Attendees will learn from Automotive OEMs including Lamborghini, Renault, Jaguar Land Rover, Scania, Changan, Ford and Aston Martin as well as Aerospace OEMs including Boeing, Rolls-Royce, Airbus and Cobham.

For further information, please visit: http://www.imeche.org/simulationandmodelling