CAE Digital Transformation in Wheel Design:
Achieving an 82% Reduction in Analysis Report
Creation Workload Across Development

Yamaha Motor Co., Ltd.

Yamaha Motor Co., Ltd. operates across a wide range of business domains that support people’s lives, including motorcycles, where it holds a world-leading market share, as well as marine products, electric-assist bicycles, and robotics products.

As one of its key initiatives from FY2025 to FY2027, the company is working to strengthen the competitiveness of its core businesses. In addition, it is promoting the simplification and transformation of its business structure by utilizing IT, digital technologies, and data to achieve sustainable growth.

Under this policy, the Wheel Group has been required to pursue initiatives aimed at improving operational efficiency, enhancing quality, and creating new value. Although analysis work had already been completed, development was delayed due to report creation. This initiative was implemented to resolve that issue.

Within design and development operations, which range from design to analysis and drafting, efficiency improvements had progressed in some 3D model creation processes. However, automation in the analysis domain remained difficult, and securing time to work on efficiency improvements continued to be a challenge.

In particular, creating analysis reports required many processes to be carried out manually, placing a significant burden on the field. Furthermore, when analysis tasks were assigned to other personnel, it was necessary to confirm whether analysis conditions, such as load values in the analysis model, had been set correctly. This manual work was not limited to the Wheel Group; it was a common challenge across other development departments as well.

Additionally, wheel analysis involves various types of analysis, such as stress, displacement, and eigenvalue analysis, making it suitable for application to other components. Therefore, wheel analysis was selected as the subject for efficiency improvement activities aimed at horizontal deployment across development. The initiative was carried out together with SOLIZE PARTNERS, which could provide support from requirements definition through tool development based on its expertise in design and analysis.

As a preliminary phase before full-scale tool development, the current processes were first visualized, and the workload for each step was clarified. Next, from a technical perspective, the feasibility of automation was examined, and the scope of efficiency improvements and the concrete image of the tool were organized. Based on this, the initiative was started with the goal of achieving an 82% reduction in the workload required for analysis report creation.

In the requirements definition phase, thorough interviews and confirmation of the usual workflow were conducted, with emphasis placed on deeply understanding the essential aspects of “what kind of work was being performed and for what purpose.”

When considering the tool specifications, the aim was to reduce the burden on operators and create a user interface (UI) that anyone could use without hesitation. At the same time, importance was placed on maintaining compatibility with current workflows while ensuring that the system remained intuitive and easy to use. This allowed the tool to integrate seamlessly with existing processes.

Specifically, a system was defined to obtain maximum stress values for each generated mesh without changing the current analysis model creation procedures or adding additional burden. In addition, to improve usability, a system was defined that allows the UI and analysis model to be linked simply by inputting the model specifications in advance.

Through these processes, careful consideration was carried out from the early stages to ensure that the existing workflow could be maintained without increasing the on-site workload. As a result, a requirements definition document was created with the aim of improving operational efficiency and achieving an easy-to-use UI.

The creation of analysis reports required many manual processes, and was a common challenge not only for the Wheel Group but also for other development departments.

Therefore, to solve this company-wide development issue, this initiative focused on building a highly versatile analysis integration system that can support various components and operations. Unlike typical tools, which tend to have fixed specifications for specific parts, this system allows those fixed parts to be flexibly modified.

From the beginning of the initiative, the system was designed with future expansion across development in mind. Reports from each department were compared and analyzed, and requirements and specifications were systematically organized to meet diverse needs while accounting for differences in formats and workflows. Furthermore, trials were conducted before the tool specifications were fully finalized, and feedback was incorporated not only on wheel-specific functions but also from analysts responsible for other components, allowing on-site feedback to be reflected quickly.

Specifically, mechanisms were designed to flexibly configure the output conditions and display items required for report creation. These included stress values, capture image names, display directions, magnification, cross-sectional positions, and displacement and animation display settings. These mechanisms were designed not only for wheels but also for other components, enabling the system to adapt to different operational environments and additional requests. In addition, analysis result output tables that can be semi-automatically generated through the flexible UI were made linkable with analysis models. This established a foundation that can be expanded to various analysis models across other development departments.

Through these initiatives, a foundation was established for deploying an analysis report creation tool across development. The tool is capable of achieving a 78% workload reduction and enables flexible support not only for wheel components but also for other components.

An automated analysis report tool was developed to significantly reduce the workload required for creating analysis reports. Previous manual tasks related to analysis conditions were automated, including the entry of weight, moment of inertia, and load values. The tool also automated the transcription of analysis results, such as stress and displacement values, as well as the creation of contour image captures for each analysis result and the output of eigenvalue animations. In addition, the complex series of processes from selecting excitation and response points to generating response analysis graphs was automated. Functions such as report cover creation support, capture correction support, and report generation in new files were also implemented. By enabling the automatic acquisition of load setting values, the tool made it possible to reduce the workload of verification tasks within the analysis model and prevent quality non-conformities caused by human error.

In particular, the processes for creating response analysis graphs and freely modifying captured images involved high technical difficulty, and their feasibility remained unclear until midway through the project. However, by applying agile development methods to address these challenges, it was ultimately possible to automate response analysis graph creation and recreate the state at the time of capture on CAD with result labels. This enabled users to flexibly modify or reacquire the captured images. In addition, the tool was designed to align with actual business processes, allowing preparation before tool execution to be completed within several tens of seconds. Together with a thorough pursuit of automation for manual work, the initiative ultimately achieved an 82% reduction in the workload required for analysis report creation.

The automated analysis reporting tool has delivered significant effects in all aspects of Quality (Q), Delivery (D), and Cost (C).

Q: Quality Assurance
The tool eliminates human error by preventing extraction and transcription mistakes caused by manual work. It also improves report consistency by standardizing report layouts.

D: Workload Reduction
The tool improves work speed by automating report creation and shortening lead time. It also reduces the risk of delivery delays by eliminating dependence on individual work.

C: Reduction of Dependency on Individuals
The resources created through efficiency improvements can be reallocated to higher value-added work. In addition, standardization reduces the burden of training new employees and handing over tasks.

As a result, bottlenecks in analysis operations were resolved, contributing to the shortening of overall development lead time.

Through the development of the automated analysis report tool, the Wheel Group has become able to create analysis reports almost instantly, resulting in significant QDC improvements within product development. Going forward, the company aims to establish a system that enables designers to focus on higher value-added work.

These results have been actively communicated through internal presentations and company-wide technical exhibitions, receiving high recognition. As a result, the initiative has begun to expand horizontally into additional departments, and efforts to improve development efficiency are now underway in areas and components beyond wheels.

Moving forward, the expansion of this initiative across development is expected to further promote efficiency and standardization, contributing to improved productivity and competitiveness across the entire organization.