Satven made an indelible impression on the large audience that was part of CII’s 2nd edition of the “Conference on the Future of Automotive Design” held at the Grand Chola in Chennai on the 19thof August 2016. Our stall saw a lot of footfall throughout this day-long event that was attended by over 200 senior management and auto industry personnel from India & abroad.

Added to this, Sridhar Lakshminarayanan, VP & Simulation Delivery Head, enthralled the dignitaries with his short but yet highly informative talk on “Upcoming Crashworthiness & Safety Regulations”. His talk was supplemented by videos and more info on upcoming regulations such as:

• Oblique crash, which is quite severe when it comes to meeting Brain Risk Injury Criteria (BRIC)
• Mobile Offset Progreesive Deformable Barrier (MPDB) test which is meant to better reproduce the energy balance of a vehicle-to-vehicle crash and the possible influence of the mass ratio on crash severity for the assessed vehicle & to minimize intrusions in the partner/mating vehicle.

Details related to the Small Overlap Rigid Barrier (SORB) test as well as trend-setting advances in rear-seat occupant protection & “Bag in Roof” technologies were also shared.

Satven was a special invitee to the Altair Technology conference – 2016, that was held at Hotel Novotel Hyderabad Convention Centre towards the end of July 2016. This forum brought together several technical experts & engineering leaders from abroad range of industry verticals including aerospace, automotive, energy (O&G), consumer products, and heavy equipment, to share advancements & next practices in simulation technology.

The conference provided users a forum to present their work and discuss the practical challenges and solutions in various aspects of Virtual Prototyping and Simulation.

Joel Aranha, Project Manager – CAE, enthralled the dignitaries with his presentation titled, “Model robustness and productivity enhancements in airbag simulations using Altair’s HyperWorks tools”.

Joel’spresentation focused on the challenges faced by simulation engineers while producing stable &numerically accurate models of airbags as well as automation of certain manual tasks to enhance productivity.

Satven was the prime sponsor of the 10th Annual Automotive Seating Innovators Summit held from July 25 to 27 2016 in Novi, Michigan. Senior representatives from some of the top automotive companies from NA & Europe, consultants, and several other key stakeholders were an integral part of this event. Satven garnered much attention & mileage during this 3-day event.

Sreedhar Thippireddy, AVP – Sales & Marketing and Venkat Yenduri, AVP – OEM Simulation, spoke in depth on Satven’s overall capabilities and our rich experience & expertise in Seating Systems engineering.

Pam Pothen, AGM – HR, enthralled the dignitaries with her comments & humor as the Chairperson of the final day’s proceedings.

Birla Institute of Technology and Sciences, Pilani (BITS – Pilani), Hyderabad campus invited us to be part of their workshop on ‘Analysis of Engineering Systems using FEM’ which was held between the 14th & 16thof July, 2016. One of our project managers from CAE, Janardhan T, represented Satven in this workshop on the 15th of July 2016.

Jana made a presentation on the evolution & role of CAE in automotive engineering & the challenges faced by the auto industry in view of statutory requirements related to passenger safety and GHG emissions. The focus of his presentation was on the evolution of CAE from being an uncertain companion to a front runner when it comes to problem-solving and innovation.

The factors that are driving the automotive industry’s research and innovation initiatives and related topics were covered. This included:

• Strict safety &emission regulations
• Need for lighter and quieter vehicles (as the new norms on noise levels are expected to commence very soon)
• Development of frontal crash protection systems
• Role of CAE in bringing innovation to often-overlooked domains of the vehicle (innovative tires from Michelin and Goodyear)
• Quest for new materials and novel structures to build light-weight vehicles

Jana’s presentation was intently followed by a large number of students and the faculty of Mechanical Engineering at BITS – Hyderabad as well as pupils from other colleges.

We had another amazing Family Picnic in Detroit! The event was held at Kensington Park on 19th June 2016. Amidst the fun and frolic during the memorable day, there was a delicious spread of food including the Barbecue corn on the cob and the juicy chicken and the masala vada, pavbhaji, mango lassi, biryani … and the list goes on. It was an amazing feast all day long.

An event management company was hired for organizing games and other activities for the kids & adults. All of them enjoyed the variety of games organized during the day.

Even though it was father’s day, the men had to take the responsibility to do all the cooking and cleaning. Our CEO and few of the Sr Management team represented Satven India for the picnic!

The SAE 2016 World Congress assembled the best talent in the automotive industry for the global event held during 12th ~ 14th April 2016 at Cobo Hall in Detroit. Experts, management teams, engineers and executives alike gathered to collaborate and address current challenges, sought new windows for discovery and exploration and promote the multitude of opportunities fundamental for a successful future. This year’s theme – Powering Possibilities, represented a world of untapped discoveries in the automotive industry.

Once again Satven had a prominent presence in the 2016 SAE World Congress and also set up a booth to exhibit the engineering capabilities to the automotive world. This exclusive opportunity to exhibit was limited to companies who accept the “Innovators Only” challenge and have proven to be top industry innovators and solution providers.

Several of our employees attended different training and education sessions offered by SAE. Our executives attended World Congress Annual Banquet on 14thApril.

The main speakers for the event were Takeshi Uchiyamada San, Chairman of the Board, Toyota Motor Corporation and Mr. Paul W. Smith, host of “The Paul W. Smith Show” on News Talk 760, WJR Radio, Detroit.

Sridhar Lakshminarayanan, VP & Global Delivery Head – Simulation, delivered the Keynote address at the Dassault organised SIMULIA Seminar titled “Simulation Powers Innovation”, held in Taj Vivanta, Hyderabad, on June 03 2016. Sridhar’s talk was titled “Transformation of CAE from an Uninvited Guest to an Innovation Partner”. He dwelt on how simulation has become the vanguard for product innovations & how it is driving new product development processes in virtually every industry.

Some examples of ‘Simulation Driving Innovation’ cited by Sridhar: Advancements in small overlap frontal crash, development of tweels (portmanteau of Tire & Wheel), usage of multi-physics to design HEV battery packs, light-weighting breakthrough in a pickup truck by a leading OEM, and the design of the crush can cross-section for this same vehicle.

This keynote address was well appreciated by the SIMULIA team and the dignitaries present.

The talk by Sridhar also dovetailed well with the speech delivered by the SIMULIA Brand Director immediately after his address.

Satven exhibited at the Global Automotive Components & Supplier Expo (GACS), at Stuttgart exhibition center in Germany during 31st May – 2nd June 2016. Our BDMs in Germany along with the offshore project managers & corporate communications team contributed to make this event worth an experience.

This event exclusively focused on the automotive interior suppliers and offered a platform to attract visitors from Auto OEMs and major Tier-I suppliers to explore the state of the art technologies and to connect with new vendors offering better solutions.

Among the several visitors to Satven booth were teams from Italian supplier, Auto Certification Institute, Czech & German based Engineering services companies.

Satven was an active participant in the India Automotive Forum held at the Le Meridien Hotel in Delhi towards the end of July 2016. This forum brought together several industry leaders & experts from India & abroad representing top automotive companies, technology solution providers, consultants, Government & Regulatory agencies and other key stake holders to share valuable insights and global best practices.

The theme of the forum, which was organized by Messe Frankfurt, was “Transforming from “Build-to-Print” to “Build-to-Intent”.

Sridhar Lakshminarayanan, VP & Global Delivery Head – Simulation, captivated the august audience with his talk on how virtual simulation is powering innovation in the automotive industry. Examples of several design concepts that are first studied in the virtual world were cited with explanations on how automotive OEMs and Tier-1 suppliers saved time & money in developing new products such as trucks with all-aluminum bodies, airbags that deploy from the roof and the rear of the front seat, tires that recharge batteries during braking and a few more.

Balasubramanyam J, Project Manager – Design, enthralled the dignitaries with his presentation on competitive benchmarking. The section on virtual benchmarking was especially appreciated by the delegates.

Sridhar was also part of a thought-provoking panel discussion on “Innovation in an automotive company”. His comments on customer discovery, how to bring about innovation culture in an organization by empowering the rank & file and balancing culture cohesion & creative dissent were all attention-grabbing. He also advised organizations to always set aside some time to think about strategies for the future even while focusing on improving operational excellence.

How the Ford Mustang was created was cited as a glowing example of how innovation came about based on people’s “lifestyle” and not “income groups”. Much emphasis was laid by Sridhar on how it is not going to be “business as usual” and why companies must continuously innovate to stay relevant in the marketplace.