inpro has delivered key pioneering breakthroughs in industrial-grade metal forming. The development work started in 1985, with the aim of reducing the time and expense involved in tool development for sheet thermoforming processes. At that time, there was no industrially applicable program to simulate sheet metal forming. In fact, the prevailing opinion was that sheet metal forming could not be simulated at all. inpro rose to the challenge and developed INDEED, the thermoforming simulation program. Upon successful completion of the pilot phase, a first productive usable prototype was delivered in 1991 and it helped to firmly establish thermoforming simulation. In 1992, Volkswagen started using INDEED in method planning and later also in tool design. With INDEED 5.0 in December 1995, the prototype expansion was completed. Essential algorithms in the fields of kinematics/element, contact/friction, and material modelling were developed and implemented by inpro for the first time.
Thanks to the permanent increase in forecasting quality, forming simulation was introduced across the board as a standard process in production planning. Today, leading providers of advanced simulation software, e.g., AutoForm and ESI, are long-standing development partners of inpro.
„inpro’s innovative work has had a decisive and broad influence in the last three decades of production engineering progress in the automotive industry. Thyssenkrupp, for example, particularly appreciates the developments in forming simulation, knowledge management, material flow simulation, and testing technology. Indeed, inpro has identified new ways to reduce production costs and increase product quality which have been successfully implemented.“