Date: 27/01/2009

Model-Based design reduces the development time of control system by more than 50%

Modern printing systems developer, Manroland has used MathWorks tools for Model-Based Design to develop, test and implement a production-ready control system for its state-of-the-art printing press. By adopting Model-Based Design, manroland reduced the development time of its control system by more than 50 percent, saving the company a year off its estimated project time and helping take the new press to market sooner.

The alignment of Model-Based Design with mechatronic system development helped manroland engineers produce a final, high-quality controller that mirrored the performance simulated during the development process.

During development, manroland completed design iterations in minutes as opposed to the weeks it would have taken using traditional processes. Furthermore, The MathWorks tools enabled manroland engineers to simulate abnormal press behavior and test the control system under various error conditions they would have not otherwise been able to test. This approach allowed manroland to meet customer expectations of reduced error rates, higher accuracy and faster response time. In beta customer testing, error analysis was more streamlined since manroland was able to collect data from the production press and then simulate the error condition in-house, enabling a faster time to resolution for the customer.

"We had reached the limit of what we could achieve with our existing design processes and software. We needed a solution that would help us to achieve new levels of quality," said Thomas Debes, lead software engineer at manroland. "By using MathWorks software, we could quickly change the structure of the controller and see immediate results. The ability to perform rapid iterations allowed us to optimize quality and functionality in the development process, while shortening the development cycle. Even with a very complex model, we completed design and debug iterations in about 10 minutes. This typically took a week. The final result was project completion in just 10 months, well within our estimated timeline."