Solutions from the Siemens Xcelerator portfolio have been chosen by Helixx to help realise its goal of supporting sustainable economic development by facilitating rapid manufacture of affordable zero-emission urban mobility solutions worldwide.
In a world-first, the Helixx manufacturing system will empower customers to operate licensed factories, known as Helixx Mobility Hubs, producing a range of mini commercial electric vehicles (EVs) virtually anywhere in the world.
The Helixx vehicle range will comprise CARGO commercial delivery van, TRUCK pick-up for construction sites, and open-body TUK and closed-body RIDE for ride-hailing.
Helixx is responsible for engineering the vehicles and the manufacturing system by which they are produced.
Helixx will make the first vehicles at its concept hub in Oxfordshire and in further pilot hubs in the UK and Singapore producing 10,000 Helixx vehicles a year by 2025.
“Helixx has created the world’s first commercially viable system for a factory of the future," said Helixx CEO and co-founder Steve Pegg.
"But Helixx is not manufacturing a product; it’s a process that can be handed over via a licence to customers anywhere in the world. It enables Helixx partners not just to make a much-needed zero-emission commercial vehicle, but to also run the entire manufacturing system and supply chain autonomously with minimal complexity."
The Siemens Xcelerator portfolio supports automotive and aerospace OEMs across the globe, and its technology can be seen across major industries from food, energy, transport and marine.
A key advantage of Siemens Xcelerator is the system’s ability to offer a "Digital Twin" for every single element of the Helixx manufacturing ecosystem.
Many businesses use digital twins for individual or one-time applications.
Creating a digital twin of everything, which entails creating a digital representation of each physical process, component, facility, and environment, will give Helixx a unique advantage through the ability to design, realise and optimise, right from first principles.
Every stage of the process, from each initial customer factory site survey, equipment installation, operator training, supply chain management and manufacturing to retail, productivity, service and maintenance and vehicle end-of-life recycling can be modelled via Siemens’ digital twin technologies and validated "in the cloud" prior to realisation.
Once each customer factory, or Helixx Mobility Hub is operational, it will be fully integrated into the Helixx ecosystem and digitally monitored and managed in real-time at Helixx Mission Control in the UK.
While Siemens Xcelerator will enable Helixx to capture thousands of digital touchpoints from every mobility hub, all of which will be fed in real-time into the control centre in the UK, the highlight of the Helixx ecosystem is that it removes any element of complexity from the customers and operators in each individual mobility hub.
According to Helixx, information sent to the factories and operators will be kept to a functional level via a personalised subscriber experience. Clear, jargon-free instructions will ensure optimum ease and efficiency of production, it said.
It also said data received in real-time from each Mobility Hub will feed into Mission Control and enable Helixx to instantly spot any quality or production issues, which in traditional automotive manufacturing are only spotted in "batch testing" when it is effectively already too late to resolve, leading to significant cost implications.
In addition to using Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning controls to predict and prevent issues, Helixx said it would be able to quickly spot efficiency trends and share the knowledge with all the other hubs to optimise performance and profitability across the network as easily as updating the software of an app.
