Toyota Motor picks Nutanix to evolve design work

Toyota Motor has adopted the Nutanix cloud platform to build a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) environment that can run 3D CAD software, and to deliver a new way of working for its Engineering Design Group (EDG).

The automobile manufacturer has introduced a work-from-home program for about 13,000 employees, but there were varying degrees of adoption among different departments. 

For example, the EDG was not able to support a remote-work model for all employees. Team members had to work from their physical workstations in the office whenever working on design projects using 3D CAD software. 

Also, the DX Promotion Division was facing challenges with workstation maintenance and procurement costs.

To address this, Toyota decided to leverage hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) to build a VDI environment that can support high-performance applications and run 3D CAD software. 

The Nutanix cloud platform enabled a VDI environment for approximately 1,000-devices and was up-and-running far ahead of Toyota’s initial schedule to expand its VDI environment. 

Employees in the EDG also said the move enabled them to work in a new way, and this became even more important when they were forced to work from home due to the spread of COVID-19, but were able to continue performing design work without interruptions.

“Moving forward, our plan is to roll out similar systems not only to Toyota Motor but also to Toyota group companies,” said Masanobu Takahisa, who is with the DX Promotion Division.

“In the future, we hope to also support CAE software on the VDI environment, and continue to promote work-style reform in the Engineering Design Group,” said Takahisa.

Further, the move to Nutanix helped enabled Toyota to consolidate shared and underused workstations into its VDI environment. The aim is to eventually cut the number of workstations to about half, which would also result in significant cost reductions.