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PepsiCo virtual product testing

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CASE STUDY Rocky DEM helps PepsiCo cut costs with virtual product testing More and more companies rely upon simulation tools to help develop high-quality products and reduce costs. PepsiCo, Inc., one of largest multinational food, snack, and beverage corporations in the world, is using these simulation technologies to analyze and improve products and processes. "We have leveraged Rocky DEM to help our engineers understand and resolve a number of material handling challenges," says Chris Koh, Director and Global R&D Fellow at PepsiCo. "When the challenge is too complex for theoretical or experimental approaches, we turn to simulation to virtually perform experiments. Virtually testing the feasibility of the new product or process allows us to signifi cantly streamline our innovation workstream." CUSTOM CONCAVE PARTICLE SHAPES DEM (Discrete Element Method) is a useful method of simulating how particle-based interactions perform at the bulk solids level of a production line. A primary limitation of legacy DEM solvers is the lack of realistic particle shapes. These DEM packages would limit usefulness in PepsiCo's application, but the company solved this problem by using Rocky DEM, the only DEM package capable of simulating truly non-round particles and concave shapes. At PepsiCo, when new processes are developed, much of the product produced cannot be sold and must be scrapped. By having the capability to do a large number of the developmental experiments virtually, the amount of waste produced can be minimized. To run physical trials in our pilot or production facilities can be quite expensive, due to labor and material costs, especially when large numbers of runs are needed to complete a DOE. Having the ability to do many of these experiments virtually can save both money and time. Depending on the situation, we have realized up to a 50% cost reduction when leveraging Rocky DEM simulations." Chris Koh, Ph.D. Director and Global R&D Fellow at PepsiCo Simulating realistic concave shapes enables the company to solve several materials handling challenges Snack Chip Extruded Corn Snack Real-World Concave Shape Physical Representation in Rocky DEM simulations CASE STUDY PepsiCo uses custom concave particle shapes to represent their various food products

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