Faced with rising fuel costs and the urgent need to lower emissions, manufacturers scrambling to make savings are overlooking a major hack in product design. André Wilmes, CEO and founder of Luxembourg engineering SaaS firm Rafinex, explains.
Manufacturers are missing a trick when it comes to contributing to making financial savings. Given that 70-80% of all product lifecycle costs are locked in during the idea and design phase, they would be wise to go back to the drawing board and optimise their designs.
“A good or bad design has so many implications for how that product is used. A bad design will take more materials to produce, it will take more energy to produce, it will take more energy to ship, and it will need more energy to be used every day of its life,” company founder Andre Wilmes told Silicon.
Wilmes’ studies involved the development of advanced numerical methods in engineering simulation tools. When he entered the world of work, however, he found that commercial simulation software in use was woefully behind what they knew was possible. “I came up with Rafinex out of that frustration,” he said.
Safety first
Wilmes founded Rafinex at the end of 2018 and within three years, the company launched its computer-aided engineering solution. Möbius allows users to optimise designs without compromising on safety.
“The problem with the existing system is that the computer does not acknowledge that people use products in different ways. A simple example is if somebody crashes or drives into a pothole or kerbside. That is not necessarily something that the engineer can anticipate precisely,” the CEO said. The Rafinex solution considers what would happen to the component if used outside of what it was designed for.
Rafinex, which is currently raising Seed + funding, is working in the automotive, aerospace and consumer products industries, as well as tooling for machines and industry. Here, Wilmes reckons that cutting as little as five grams of any one part could result in millions of savings.
“If you really, really optimise the design, we’re not talking 1-2% We’re talking 20-30-40% easy,” he said, adding: “With material prices and energy prices going up, people are suddenly waking up to the fact that we can’t build a VW Golf version 17 incrementally on the back of Golf version 16. We really need to go after designs!”
“A bad design will take more materials to produce, it will take more energy to produce, it will take more energy to ship, and it will need more energy to be used every day of its life”
Rafinex founder Andre Wilmes
Rafinex targets customers that have produced the designs for which they are permitted to work on. Potential entries for the technology include electric aviation and electric vehicles.
Wilmes said: “Whenever there is a massive redesign going on, that’s when the design is up for grabs and where we can come in.”
Currently, the firm’s main customers are located in Germany and the UK, but in future, the founder hopes to expand sales to the US.
The CEO said: “So what I’m interested in the US is the fact they have quicker turnaround times, plus the US is looking at reshoring its engineering capabilities. The White House has dedicated white papers on manufacturing and composite materials. So they are really trying to do mandated innovation in the US.”
Rafinex demonstrates its optimisation technology in the industrial robot gripper below
