Current Market Scenario – Heavy Equipment Industry

Impact of COVID – 19:

The COVID-19 crisis has catastrophic effect on the heavy equipment manufacturers all around the world. Furthermore, restrictions on the movement of people and goods have disrupted global supply networks, exacerbating the problem for many industries, including manufacturing and heavy equipment. However, the expected demand for heavy equipment is likely to increase again.

Path Forward

According to research reports, the market is expected to be worth USD 251.9 billion by 2027, growing at a CAGR of 5.1 percent from 2021 to 2027. The market was valued at USD 175.2 billion in 2020. Newly emerging trends such as automation, electrification and so on are the major reason that assists in the growth of the sector irrespective of the COVID – 19 restrains. OEMs are consistently looking for ways to enhance the performance and dependability of their machines, deliver products rapidly, and develop novel solutions to meet market demand and remain competitive.

The main reason why design engineers are progressively using reverse engineering is that its hardware and software have become far more reasonable, allowing tech firms, particularly small businesses, to accelerate development and reduce the cost of production. Its software can also be seamlessly integrated with computer-aided design programmers.

General Challenges in Heavy Equipment Industry

The major challenges of the Heavy Equipment industry are product and part complexity, and the need to meet regulatory standards for safety and emissions. Due to an increase in competitive manufacturing, OEMs are progressively searching for newer ways to transform their product development processes as the Global manufacturing demand increases.

Heavy Equipment manufacturers must strengthen their production and engineering collaboration processes to move process planning and simulation upstream in order to remain competitive. As a result, they can remove possible problems sooner (lowering costs) and provide more configuration options to demanding buyers.

  • Increased emphasis on environmental
  • The first is the growing number of international environmental legislation. Sustainable construction techniques, improved air quality, and lower emissions have all become priorities, resulting in a greater emphasis on the creation of cleaner, greener automobiles. Heavy equipment manufacturers must grasp these tough demands in order to remain competitive, and build machines that meet the new laws.

  • Enhancing Product Quality
  • One of the aspects that ensure increased customer happiness and market reach is product quality. Heavy engineering product quality is determined by the product’s performance, durability, dependability, and level of service. Profitability, market share, and a gain in new clients are all ensured by continuous quality improvement. Quality is the continuous improvement of a product to meet the needs of customers. Enhancing job effectiveness and flexibility can increase product quality. The product must meet the needs of the client, society’s expectations, and the organization’s objectives. As a result, improving product quality is a constant problem for heavy engineering.

  • Reducing Production Cost
  • Heavy engineering industries must run and maintain product development equipment at a cheap cost. This puts a lot of financial pressure on high-engineering production units to generate high throughput and profits. As a result, industries find it difficult to reduce production costs through controlling operations and maintenance.

  • An effective lightweighting strategy
  • Due to the inherent relationship between mass and fuel consumption, holistic concept of lightweighting has evolved from improving vehicle performance to single cost-effective alternative for handling fuel efficiency, emission, amenities, etc. Combinations of design, materials, and manufacturing processes have to be considered and the heavy engineering sector looks at lightweight construction as a key factor for success. Today’s heavy industry market is working on production of load adapted designs and using high strength materials in manufacturing. Lightweighting various components, such as the powertrain, axles and suspensions, wheel ends, frames, and others, are logical opportunities to keep enhancing operational efficiencies in this rough & tough terrain.

Simulation & Heavy Equipment Industry

Simulation provides for quick study and analysis of product performance, including fatigue and impact loads, as well as improvement countermeasures, which is particularly useful as it is done at the design stage itself.

  • Structural Analysis for Heavy Equipment:
  • Given that operating conditions are major performance influencers for heavy machineries, end users rely on strong & safe equipment to accomplish their work. Engineers use structural analysis to design and evaluate structures ensuring that they are efficient and stable. Structural analysis is a thorough examination that verifies if the types of deformations caused in a structure are acceptable and within permissible limits, and that the structure will never fail. Vehicle weight can also be reduced and performance can be improved using structural design optimization technology.

  • CFD Analysis in Heavy Machinery Components:
  • The strength & performance of the machine is decided by better design & analysis of each component for various load case scenarios. To ensure safety at component and machine level, CFD packages for the heavy machine category are designed efficiently to study the distinct challenges. CFD simulation results enable the early visualization of the effect of velocity, pressure, temperature, density, viscosity and chemical compositions. With details of endurance under different load conditions, CFD simulation helps engineers comprehend variety of designs and provide the platform to analyze the potential performance of the products.

  • Powertrain Thermal Management in Heavy Industry:
  • Accounting all the crucial analysis, thermal management is one of the vital engineering steps that consider all the attributes impacting machine performance to design a reliable system. Cooling performance are improvised based on thermal loads within a range, weather scenarios, operation cycle etc. Basic nature of work being towing, pushing, hauling, trudging and so on, heat generated to and from the engine components additionally & adversely impacts the machine. Advanced thermal management systems for engines can help in reducing the fuel consumption, pollutant emissions, warm up time, noise level as well as improving comfort and engine durability.

DEP – Solutions Suite for Heavy Engineering

DEP is part of various projects in the Heavy Equipment sector and has provided product engineering solutions and support to various companies in the heavy industry sector. Engineering Design, Product Design & Development, Engineering Analysis, Re-engineering, and Automation Services are all areas where our expert product engineering teams excel. We provide robust engineering support to handle mesh modeling, analysis, and optimization of fabricated metallic structures across heavy machinery segments using our integrated CAE platform, MeshWorks.

Heavy Equipment Solutions Suite from DEP includes:

    Design Services

  • CAD Support Solutions – Development of structural design from concepts, Fabrication Engineering, Manufacturing engineering support, etc.
  • Layout and sketches for machinery

    Engineering Services

  • System-level validation and optimization of heavy vehicle design
  • Structural recommendations for weight reduction and optimization
  • Safety and standards analyses

    Simulation Services

  • Structures & Exteriors – Weldment designs, Styling, Component analysis, etc.
  • Cab Structures – Ergonomic study, Design of deck, Seating, etc.
  • Powertrain – Concept design, System & Sub-system analysis, Hydraulics, etc.
  • Vehicle Engineering – NVH, Durability, CFD, Optimization, etc.

Conclusion

Despite the fact that the sector has been hampered by COVID-19, the industry is projected to thrive with the support of new trends and practices. Simulation, along with other features such as IoT, automation, and electrification of processes, are paving the way for modern transformations in heavy engineering sector. OEMs in this industry are planning to adopt technology solutions to drive efficiency in maintenance, optimize productivity, and maximize product uptime. Recent industry outlooks and present trends factors are reassuring accelerated growth in Heavy Equipment Industry.

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