Simulation software steers Nissan towards £8.6m in savings

Nissan has told Computing that its use of simulation software will save it €10m (£8.6m) worldwide.

The firm is using the Witness solution from simulation software provider Lanner to support the battery production for the world's first mass-produced electric car.

The electric car, called LEAF, represents unchartered territory for Nissan, and required a new plant for production of the batteries, which is being set up in Sunderland.

Before building the plant, Nissan's team of 10 engineers needed to create a business case to demonstrate that the facility could cope with the expected volumes and prove beyond doubt that substantial investment cost savings would be possible.

The team concluded that the level of complexity involved in scoping out the best layout for battery production was impossible to determine without deploying modelling software.

Once set up, the Witness model mapped and analysed the entire spectrum of production variables, facilitated an understanding of the relationship between processes at multiple stages, and tested different layouts to find the best one. Having processed a number of scenarios, the Witness software demonstrated the optimum plant layout to achieve the required 60,000 annual throughput of lithium-ion batteries.

The model also showed that through using this layout, the throughput could be achieved with an investment cost saving of €2.5m (£2.15m) for the Sunderland plant alone, when compared with the firm's pilot plant in Japan.

It also highlighted that if the optimised layout was extended to three additional battery plants planned for Portugal, France and the US, it would increase savings to over €10m.