Automotive and transportation Hendrick Motorsports

Using Teamcenter helps enhance the reliability of elite racing team’s engines and chassis

Product Siemens PLM Software solution critical task. Additionally, the physical Teamcenter, NX facilitates identification of issues parts must be tracked at all times to maxi- mize the performance of each component and failures for Hendrick individually and as part of a system, and Business challenges Motorsports avoid part failure due to overuse.

Track an enormous amount of Utilizing MRO data for multiple cars, engines “Using Teamcenter to manage all this data Hendrick Motorsports fields between and teams has been crucial to our success over the 10 and 20 race engines a week in the years,” says Jim McKenzie, engineering Provide the fastest, most NASCAR® Sprint Cup, Nationwide and applications manager at Hendrick reliable engines to the teams Camping World Truck racing series. The Motorsports. “It isn’t just one or two things Maximize the of company supports multiple engine config- that the software offers to highlight; it’s decisions based on historical urations for each series, and each engine everything from the 55 custom business evidence and traceable configuration is used by multiple teams objects we created using the Business information each week. Modeler Integrated Development Environment to the out-of-the-box prob- Tracking bills of materials (BOMs), options lem reports and issue management func- Keys to success and variants for computer-aided design tionality that make it so easy to document Commit to formalized (CAD), and then translating that to physi- and find issues and failures. MRO is very data/structure models and cal parts and assemblies is a daunting and important to our business, and gets more standardized business practices Manage engines and cars like production assets Expand failure investigations from beyond just design Fully leverage MRO practices and technologies

Results Improved reliability by replacing parts that had exceeded reliable limit before they failed

www.siemens.com/plm Results (continued) Enhanced ease of document- ing and finding issues and failures Maximized value of parts by using them up until their safe limit Improved management of physical configuration of engines and cars

so every day as we continue to leverage its Hendrick Motorsports’ four Sprint Cup capabilities. The Teamcenter service lifecy- teams are supported by a staff of 500 cle management solution and service asset and a wide array of technologically sophis- management module are a critical part ticated tools, including Teamcenter® of that.” software and NX™ software from product lifecycle management (PLM) specialist Hendrick Motorsports is a critically Siemens PLM Software. acclaimed and immensely successful NASCAR racing outfit. Operating out of a Effectively tracking failures 430,000 square foot campus in Concord, Hendrick Motorsports aims to provide the , the team represents an fastest, most reliable engines to its own important part of NASCAR history, having teams as well as the teams that lease won 10 championships in the premier engines from them. The objective is to win Sprint Cup Series. Its roster of stock-car races and championships for Hendrick drivers includes , , Motorsports, and maximize customer and Jr. satisfaction for the external teams. “MRO is very important to our business, and gets more so every day as we continue to leverage its capabilities. The Teamcenter service lifecycle management solution and service asset management module are a critical part of that.”

Jim McKenzie Engineering Applications Manager Hendrick Motorsports “Teamcenter service lifecycle management technology has played a critical role in enabling us to track all this information and put a more reliable car on the starting grid.”

Tad Merriman Engine Engineering Manager Hendrick Motorsports

To achieve that goal, they must structure, and races. With Teamcenter, failures can organize and search an enormous amount be traced by session type and propagated of data, including tracking configurations through appropriate BOM structures and of cars and engines, multiple configura- related to configurations that have been tions within a series, and multiple series used (prototypes, production, options and and teams for supported vehicles. variants within those areas).

The use of Teamcenter service lifecycle Resolving problems quickly management and its MRO (maintenance, Traditionally, has shunned repair and overhaul) applications enable formalized processes and taken a much Hendrick Motorsports to capture and man- more seat-of-the-pants approach, so age the physical configuration of every the philosophical leap that Hendrick engine and vehicle, along with test and Motorsports has made to support its race results, to determine what works underlying infrastructure needs, while best. Knowing the exact configuration of concurrently embracing a multi-year pro- every engine and vehicle helps trace prob- gram to evolve into a full user of MRO lems when they occur. practices and technologies, is quite impressive. For instance, the team has used Teamcenter MRO technology to expand its They are focused on completing full digital failure investigations from just digital models of the engines and chassis, defin- design evaluation to a more comprehen- ing the neutral structure and moving sive review, including data related to part toward serialization usage in the part life- sourcing, physical part usage and events cycle models, and bringing it all together such as cycles experienced at test sessions using Teamcenter. This has required Hendrick Motorsports to make a commit- Since wrist pins are mission-critical ment to a formalized structure/data model components, they are serialized for batch and recognize that standardized business tracking and cycle counting. Hendrick practices need to exist throughout the Motorsports was able to work with the organization. supplier of the part and determine the exact heat of material that was used to Putting engines and chassis together over make the pins. Once the heat was deter- 36 weekends a year for multiple teams mined, part batches containing material requires rapid action and turnaround. made from that heat could then be Problems identified on Sunday may liter- flagged. ally have to be investigated, analyzed, resolved, fixed and deployed to the proper “Since the wrist pin is a cycle-counted part, assemblies in weeks, if not days. we could use Teamcenter and its part usage history functionality to investigate Further, the fact that the team is dealing the parts from these batches to establish a with different tracks, series and events reliable cycle limit,” says Tad Merriman, (track testing, dynamometer testing, race engine engineering manager at Hendrick events, etc.) means that there are a multi- Motorsports. “This reliable limit was critical tude of configurations and variants being as the number of affected parts was great used in the fleet. All-in-all, this represents enough that a wholesale change wasn’t a fairly complicated set of issues to struc- possible due to a lack of availability of ture a solution around. Additionally, the replacement parts. Knowing the safe limit solution has to be vetted, training has to allowed us to continue to use affected be developed and the technical tools and parts up until their limit, maximizing the processes have to be rolled out to more value of the parts as well as allowing time than 300 users of the systems without for replacements to be produced.” affecting the team’s need to be consis- tently successful on the track. Armed with this information, Hendrick Motorsports could relate these batches to The ultimate goal is to have a one-stop the serial numbers of the parts in the field shop in which the engineering team can and remove them from service at the get all of the information in one place, be appropriate cycle count. This included it from the track or the manufacturing removing engines already installed in race floor. vehicles and replacing the wrist pins as there were parts in service that exceeded Wrist pin failure the reliable limit. During the June 30, 2012 race event at , Hendrick Motorsports Valve spring failure experienced a catastrophic engine failure During the August 19, 2012 race event at in the number 39 car. Upon diagnosis of Michigan Speedway, the team experienced the failure, a fractured wrist pin was dis- multiple valve spring failures across multi- covered in the debris. The wrist pin is typi- ple engines. Valve spring failures are cally a part that survives intact through among the most common failures that even the most severe failures. Because of racing teams see as it is one of the most this abnormality, the wrist pin was submit- highly stressed components in the engine. ted to an independent metallurgical labo- This high stress makes these parts much ratory for failure analysis. The laboratory more susceptible to variations in materials, determined that the material used in the processes and usage. wrist pin had defects that caused inconsis- tent mechanical properties within the pin. As is customary for failed valve springs, As a result of these defects, the life expec- these parts were sent to an independent tancy of this part was diminished. metallurgical laboratory for failure analy- Solutions/Services “Using Teamcenter to manage all Teamcenter www.siemens.com/teamcenter NX this data has been crucial to our www.siemens.com/nx success over the years.” Customer’s primary business Since 1984, Hendrick Motors- sis. The results of the analysis showed fresh pavement led to an elevated amount ports has earned a record 10 high-cycle fatigue as the failure method, of grip on the tires. The additional grip championships in NASCAR’s which is typical for this part. While the allowed for higher corner speeds and, as a premier division, the Sprint failure method was considered normal, result, a significantly increased duty cycle Cup Series. The organization the quantity of the failed springs was on the engine and valve springs. fields four full-time abnormal, especially considering this part teams on the Sprint Cup cir- had been in service for an extended “This additional duty cycle created the cuit with drivers Kasey Kahne, period with minimal issues. conditions necessary to exacerbate an Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson already compromised valve spring,” says and Dale Earnhardt Jr. As these failures were uncommon McKenzie. “This was an ideal situation for www.hendrickmotorsports.com with this particular spring, Hendrick us to implement the Teamcenter service Motorsports began an investigation discrepancy’s different severity levels. into possible causes. Customer location “While these failures weren’t ideal, they Charlotte, North Carolina “By using the Teamcenter service lifecycle have provided the opportunity to improve United States management solution and its applications our analytical and physical testing tools to capabilities, we were able to track the better predict and prevent these types of batch codes of the springs that had failed, failures. As a direct result of these failures, “Using Teamcenter to man- and were able to work with the manufac- we have been able to develop dynamic age all this data has been turer to determine that the finishing analyses of the valve spring and can repli- crucial to our success over processes of these batches had, in fact, cate the location of the failure within the the years.” differed from what was desired,” says spring with great accuracy. Jim McKenzie Merriman. Engineering Applications “We have also used the track data from a Manager These differences caused the fatigue qualifying lap at the Michigan race event Hendrick Motorsports strength of the springs to be reduced, to drive our firing and non-firing test which led to premature failure. As a result, equipment. This allows us to use a real- the manufacturer has implemented new world worst case for testing the durability methods of quality control for its pro- of not only valve springs, but other com- cesses, as well as new processes that have ponents of the engine as well. increased the fatigue strength beyond the original levels. “Teamcenter service lifecycle management technology has played a critical role in A second factor in the failure of the enabling us to track all this information and springs was an increase in duty cycle at put a more reliable car on the starting grid.” the race track. Michigan Speedway had been re-paved prior to the race and the

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