Hyundai Motor Company and Kia Develop World's First Automated Press Die Design System

Press dies for car exterior panels like trunks and hoods
Integrated entire design process into one system
Blocks errors, reduces work time by over 75%

Hyundai Motor Company and Kia announced on the 16th that they have developed an automatic press die design system. Press dies are tools used to manufacture vehicle exterior panels such as trunks, hoods, and fenders, and this company is the first to integrate the entire design process into a single system.

Depending on the structure, a single exterior panel part undergoes the press process about 3 to 5 times. Each process requires a different die. Each die has a complex structure with numerous inserted parts. Since it must be custom-made according to the range of vehicle design changes and production site requirements, the design process is complicated.

Traditionally, die designers analyzed hundreds of requirements and designed the dies for each exterior panel part individually. If interpretations differed among designers, the process of revising and verifying designs had to be repeated, which took a long time.

A Hyundai Motor employee is inspecting a mold produced by the press mold automatic design system.
[Photo by Hyundai Motor Group]

To solve this, the company standardized the technical documents and design conditions used in die design. By integrating the previously separate die design processes into one, designers can automatically generate optimal press die design drawings by simply entering the necessary values step-by-step as guided by the automatic design system.

The company explained that using this system reduced the time required for press die design by more than 75%. Another advantage is that it fundamentally prevents errors that could occur during the design process, maintaining consistent quality. It also allows selecting different options depending on parts, manufacturers, production methods, and factories, enabling timely responses even in constantly changing production environments.

The company has applied this automatic die design system in some processes since 2020. Recently, they have established a system that can be used for die design in all press processes. They plan to apply it to new vehicles to be launched in the future. Additionally, they will continue related research to utilize the automatic design system in other processes.

A company official said, "This is a unique system realized by converting decades of accumulated know-how into data," adding, "We will expand it to more diverse processes to produce high-quality vehicles and contribute to the advancement of technology across the entire manufacturing ecosystem."