ISMR April 2024 | Page 85

PRODUCT REVIEWS

Swapnil Jain , Co-Founder and CTO of Ather Energy .
Ather Energy , one of India ’ s foremost electric motorcycle brands , has expanded its adoption of the Siemens Xcelerator portfolio of industry software to help the company reduce its design and engineering cycle time , improve product quality and achieve faster time to market .
Ather Energy was founded in 2013 by Indian institute of Technology ( IIT ) Madras alumni , Tarun Mehta , and Swapnil Jain . In 2018 , it launched India ’ s first truly intelligent electric scooter ; the Ather 450 . This was followed by the new flagship offering Ather 450X in 2020 , the 450S in 2023 and Ather ’ s special edition scooter , the Ather 450 Apex , in January 2024 .
Ather has also installed a comprehensive public charging network , Ather Grid , designed and built in India . With 1600 + charging points across India , Ather Grid is one of the country ’ s largest fast-charging networks for electric scooters . The company currently has 175 + Experience Centres across India and plans to add a total of 250 outlets by March 2024 . Ather recently forayed into the international market with two Experience Centres in Nepal .
Speed to market
“ In the fast-evolving EV industry , speed to market is an important lever to succeed . Siemens ’ expanded PLM management enables parallel processing of engineering deliverables , a departure from the sequential approach , thereby reducing the lead time for introducing new products and features ,” said Swapnil Jain , Co-Founder & CTO , Ather Energy .
Ather Energy adopted Siemens ’ Teamcenter ® software for Product Lifecycle Management ( PLM ) in 2018 to help it achieve its critical key performance indicators ( KPIs ) including faster time to market , reducing its design and engineering cycle time with the removal of design iterations and adopting a ‘ right-first-time ’ approach .
Since then , the Ather Energy team has

Digital transformation

also taken advantage of Simcenter™ STAR- CCM + software for Computational Fluid Dynamics ( CFD ) and Simcenter™ physical testing solutions to help with its in-house testing regime for durability and noise , vibration and harness ( NVH ). Most recently , the Ather Energy vehicle engineering team has moved to Siemens ’ NX™ software for new product development and engineering from its legacy system for all existing and new vehicle platforms .
“ The simulations and virtual testing that we perform using Siemens ’ tools enable us to crush timing and provide us with great savings in resources and money spent on repeating testing . The stack-up analysis enables us to get the design right the first time and avoids engineering changes . We are looking at expanding the Siemens tools into controlling the manufacturing processes by introducing the management of ‘ Bill of Processes ’,” added Swapnil Jain .
Siemens Digital Industries Software helps organisations to digitally transform using software , hardware and services from the Siemens Xcelerator business platform . Siemens ’ software and the digital twin enable companies to optimise their design , engineering and manufacturing processes . For further details , see : www . sw . siemens . com / en-US / digital-transformation / n
www . siemens . com
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