CASE STUDY

The anodic plant model was being incorporated into other wider simulations months before the real plant was commissioned. Airbus’ use of WITNESS dates back to 1988 when the package was chosen as the standard for use within the then Civil Aircraft Division of British Aerospace. Jim Cruise's involvement dates back to this period also. He regards this particular exercise as noteworthy on two counts: the use of a simulation tool as first draft CAD with a time dimension and the concurrent development of the control system. “We’re not taking objects that have already been designed and simulating their movements in space to see how they will work,” he says. “We're creating the first draft design within the simulated world, then passing it to the CAD guys and saying, ‘we know this will work, now go and flesh it out to produce the working drawings.’ “Similarly with the control system: we’re passing our simulated controls to the programmers and saying, ‘we know this logic will drive the plant to best advantage, now put it into your computers.’ WITNESS is powerful technology and we’re driving it to the limits.”

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