Problem-Solving by Immersive Virtual Reality: Towards a More Efficient Product Emergence Process in Automotive

The Automotive Industry has been actively investigating how Virtual Reality (VR) hardware and software platforms could provide new enhanced design tools since the end of the nineties, when DaimslerChrysler AG produced DBView, one the first software platforms for immersive visualisation and manufacturing simulations used in Automotive, featuring higher interaction with virtual objects through physics simulation. Since then, VR technologies have evolved further. Today interactive 3D immersive environments can be used to provide more efficient ways to solve problems and improve design choices at very early stages of new product developments. This paper analyses how Automotive (and Manufacturing in general) can benefit from the adoption of VR tools when they are examined from a problem-solving perspective in the context of the Product Emergence Process (PEP). Two areas of product development have been considered for this purpose: Quality Assessment and Process Planning. Related demonstration scenarios have been developed at the Virtual Engineering Centre of the University of Liverpool with the purpose of carrying out an exhaustive evaluation of benefits gained by the adoption of VR technologies in new product developments