Login
iscover
Hanwha Defense Australia and LEAP Australia are set to boost the Redback IFV life cycle via Hanwha’s PTC Windchill product life cycle management software with LEAP Australia’s technology support.
To continue reading the rest of this article, please log in.
Create free account to get unlimited news articles and more!
Data is key to keep large fleets of IFVs operational in top condition for decades. With support from LEAP, Hanwha’s integrated the PTC Windchill product life cycle management (PLM) software can progressively create a digital twin for each vehicle in the fleet, with a digital data-based version precisely matching with the physical vehicle asset.
Hanwha Defense Australia’s managing director, Richard Cho, believes the new offering Is the ‘holy grail’ of breakthroughs. To date, complete, accurate and easy to understand vehicle data has proven to be difficult to achieve in a real-world situation.
“Having a digital twin that effectively mirrors every vehicle in a large complex fleet has been the ‘holy grail’ for engineers, maintainers and logisticians for quite a while,” Cho said.
“What the digital twin delivers in the real world is more efficient maintenance and support with less down time, and greater reliability and availability across the entire fleet. This saves money while increasing the battle readiness of military vehicles.
“I am proud that our partnership between Hanwha and LEAP Australia has been able to make that breakthrough.”
Maintainance personnel can benefit from critical information to predict what each IFV in the fleet will require ahead of time, with accessible, accurate data that provides an analysis of emerging wear patterns or component failures.
LEAP Australia’s PTC business manager, Paul O’Shaughnessy, said that joining forces with Hanwha has been a rewarding project.
“To apply the Windchill PLM software using a combination of the efficient out-of-the-box functionality and the highly configurable role and task-based apps to help Hanwha create a single and unified digital picture for the IFV program,” he said.
“The amount of useful information available to enhance fleet maintenance via the digital twin is invaluable to the defence industry.
“This PLM solution also simplifies configuration management and lays a solid foundation for any future vehicle upgrade programs.”
The Commonwealth is currently considering acquiring up to 450 Redback units for the Australian Defence Force in Phase 3 of the $27 billion project, Project LAND 400. If the Redback is selected for LAND 400 Phase 3, Hanwha’s PLM solution will be updating the new IFV fleet’s data securely in the cloud.
[Related: Rheinmetall to supply Portuguese Army with LM-LowProfile laser modules]
