Rolls-Royce Germany To Use Altair Computing Solutions To Improve Engineering And Business Values

Altair, a technology company that provides solutions in data analytics, simulation, and high-performance computing (HPC), has signed a memo of understanding (MoU) with Rolls-Royce Germany. The MoU is intended for a partnership to collaboratively connect artificial intelligence (AI) and engineering to derive business value across Rolls-Royce’s engineering, testing, and design of aerospace engines.

As industries globally are looking for ways to leverage data analytics and AI to significantly increase revenues, cut costs, and reduce risks, Altair sees opportunity to grow partnerships in this area. Forward-thinking organisations like Rolls-Royce Germany are undergoing groundbreaking digital transformations and have identified engineering as a key area for improvement. The collaboration with Altair will address structural analysis and testing, bringing together vast amounts of historical product and in-service data from disparate sources to unlock new AI-driven engineering to improve business value.

“As a pioneer of the convergence of data analytics and engineering, it’s a natural fit for Altair to collaborate with Rolls-Royce Germany, an organization that sees the power of technology and the potential of AI to unlock game-changing business value,” said James R. Scapa, founder and chief executive officer, Altair. “The demand for easy-to-use, low/no code, yet flexible AI and machine learning tools has never been greater. It is an honor to be the technology provider of choice to help Rolls-Royce Germany boost its business while also further evolving our data analytics solutions.”

The collaboration between Altair and Rolls-Royce Germany will address a wide variety of use cases, including applying data science to the vast amounts of engineering testing data, which can lead to a significantly reduced number of sensors needed. This single use case alone has the potential to reduce recurring costs by millions of Euros.

“We share a common vision on the convergence of AI and engineering to drive significant positive business outcomes. Altair has unique domain expertise and best-in-class, low-code data analytics technology. This collaboration will enable us to bridge the gap between engineering and data science, and empower our engineers to truly be engineers, focused on extracting the benefits of machine learning and AI from our data,” said Dr. Peter Wehle, Head of Innovation and R&T, Rolls-Royce Deutschland. “Ultimately this collaboration will help to democratize our data analytics, enabling our engineers to make better daily data-driven decisions, and transform our business and products.”

Rolls-Royce has been using AI and advanced data analytics at the heart of its business for more than 20 years, including in its world-leading engine health monitoring service, as well as manufacturing. It has recently announced two breakthroughs in AI ethics and trustworthiness, which it will publish for free on its website later this year.

Initially, Rolls-Royce Germany will leverage Altair Knowledge Works™ – a collaborative end-to-end data analytics platform – to enable engineers to apply machine learning (ML) methods utilizing simulation data, test data, manufacturing data, and operational data. Knowledge Works is designed so users can easily and efficiently access disparate data sources and formats in a low code/no code environment, transform the data, use it to build ML models, and share knowledge discovery across the business.