Siemens Home and Office Communication Devices GmbH & Co. Choose KG CATIA V5 and SMARTEAM for Integrated Product Development Processes

“Instead of performing design activities from scratch, using CATIA V5 with a set of pre-defined product and process templates helps to quickly complete even sophisticated design tasks with a high level of accuracy.”
– Dipl.-Ing.Georg Heisterkamp, Process Innovation Mechanical Design, Siemens Home and Office Communication Devices.

The Challenge
Siemens Home and Office Communication Devices sought to increase its engineering productivity, while responding to growing demand volatility and shorter product lifecycle times.

The Solution
Siemens Home and Office Communication Devices chose CATIA V5 and SMARTEAM as new PLM-platform for their continuous product development process improvement.

The Benefit
With CATIA V5 and SMARTEAM, Siemens Home and Office Communication Devices has improved design innovation, leveraged existing know-how and tightened design-to-manufacturing processes to streamline development and reduce costs.

Staying on the Cutting Edge
Siemens Home and Office Communication Devices is a leading maker of high-quality telecommunications devices for the business and consumer markets. Its award-winning Bocholt product development and manufacturing site in Germany has been critical to this success since 1948.

But the fast-paced, customer-focused telecommunications market has become increasingly competitive over the past 20 years with frequent technological innovations (for example, wireless phones, smart phones, connected and networked devices) and customer demands for continuous advances in style and functionality of a broad range of products. As a leader in the marketplace, Siemens knew it was critical to continue streamlining its product development and manufacturing processes to improve its agility and productivity, while positioning itself to handle the increasing product complexity required to maintain its competitive advantage.

“The IT infrastructure and the processes must foster fresh ideas for product innovation, while driving high quality – an important brand value for Siemens,” says Heinrich Föcking, Head of Mechanical Design Department.

In addition, Siemens sought to better leverage the expertise and advantage of its many global suppliers and partners throughout the product development process to ensure improved overall product success.

CATIA V5 and SMARTEAM – A Winning Combination
To achieve its vision, Siemens knew it needed to leave its existing 3D CAD/CAE product development tools behind in favor of the latest technology processes. After a careful analysis of leading market applications, Siemens selected CATIA V5 and SMARTEAM as its next-generation PLM solutions.

In close collaboration with IBM, Dassault Systèmes and MDTVISION, an affiliate of IBM, some important Siemens-specific adaptations were created to further enhance the usability and productivity of the standard applications in the context of Siemens’ own specific corporate needs. The IBM PLM solutions were then implemented on a focused, project-by-project basis that allowed close control of time lines.

“We were able to map our already highly complex development processes to the new CATIA and SMARTEAM based environment,” says Georg Heisterkamp, Process Innovation Mechanical Design. “And we didn’t have to adapt our processes to the new tools because the new tools were adaptive to our processes.”

“The comprehensiveness of the IBM PLM toolset, coupled with the experience and know-how of Siemens’ own project management staff and that of IBM and MDTVISION’s presales and consulting staff, were the main success factors that ensured first-time user satisfaction and compliance with project time lines and target cost,” he adds.

A phased and carefully planned concurrent implementation of device-development, mold design and NC programming processes also was completed in conjunction with the creation of an action plan catalogue containing requirements for libraries and standards, as well as a target list of methods and automations to be implemented. This implementation included the use of SMARTEAM to manage CATIA’s hierarchical and object links to allow concurrent engineering and design in context.

Enhancements to Design and Device Engineering
Siemens’ Bocholts facility is already realizing many of the benefits of its CATIA V5 and SMARTEAM implementation.

When receiving styling data from design departments, the design data can be easily imported via standard data formats and a high-level of styling intent can be maintained with minimal effort.

To create high-quality shapes and curvatures, designers can employ tools like Generative Shape Design (GSD) and Free Style Shaper (FSS) to optimize designs. And these operations can be combined with analyses on different environmental circumstances, such as curvature or general surface attributes, keeping the process efficient and streamlined.

Using CATIA Knowledgeware for the intuitive and flexible reuse of design know-how, designs can be easily developed and tested for manufacturability and target cost.

“This is an area where Siemens Bocholt’s guideline of ‘avoid, standardize and automate as much as possible’ comes well into play,” says Heisterkamp. “Instead of performing design activities from scratch, using CATIA V5 with a set of pre-defined product and process templates helps to quickly complete even sophisticated design tasks with a high-level of accuracy.”

For example, he points out, all of the relevant geometrical engineering know-how for creating a new key pad is ‘conserved’ in the form of a ‘PowerCopy’, which is then simply applied to a new phone housing with a few mouse clicks. This way, many cumbersome and time-consuming tasks can be eliminated through a higher level of automation.

Design efficiencies also are gained with the use of CATIA’s DMU space analysis tool. It is used for collision checks of sub-components in the design phase, and for dynamic section-based analyses.

Gains in Mold and Tool Design
One of the success factors of Siemens Bocholt’s PLM implementation and operation is the ability to maintain end-to-end control of its processes.

“CATIA is employed throughout the design and mold manufacturing departments, and the complete mechanical development process, can be overseen by one organizational entity, maintaining visibility of all product development stages end-to-end and bridging departments and tasks,” adds Föcking.

By implementing productivity accelerators in the form of special applications on top of CATIA V5, Siemens is able to consider several aspects of manufacturing – like the tooling and mold technology or even the injection technology – used in the product build. The high level logic afforded by these applications allows for higher productivity through the automation of recurring tasks.

With the help of other applications, which work in association with CATIA V5, engineers can even simulate the mold flow and the cooling behavior of the mold tools. This helps to make them ‘right the first time’ and leads to an optimal design of their complex geometries, optimized for cost and durability.

With the advantages of concurrent engineering afforded by IBM PLM solutions, even the design of complex housing can be streamlined by automatically extracting the fixtures required for molding any time, during the detailed design process, or by automatically calculating the configuration, or adaptation of the mold ejectors. And thanks to streamlining the mold design process, time is freed up for other value adding tasks.

Another example for the value of concurrent engineering is the way how designers can simulate the milling process in the production phase. By checking how the material is handled by the NC tools, engineers can address any potential manufacturing issues before the molds are produced, which helps avoiding costly errors and saving time.

The implementation of libraries containing standard parts, as well as standard geometries for all product development stages, aids in the cost-effective reuse of corporate know-how and ensures new products adhere to corporate design standards. And because the same dataset is used throughout the complete mechanical process chain, integrating mold cavity and computer-aided manufacturing, just a few simple assisting drawings are required. These drawings can be created automatically, ensuring consistency and time savings.

“To be competitive in a global marketplace, Siemens, like all other consumer electronics original equipment manufacturers (OEMS), has an extensive number of suppliers and partners to include in the development process, who provide parts and components like displays, battery covers, belt clips and capacity tools,” says Föcking. “Data transfers are being done via standard interface formats, and wherever possible, the design collaboration is done through native CATIA-based data exchange.”

According to Siemens engineers, the propagation of the same data-set from design to manufacturing reduces errors and increases design and engineering speed through the use of concurrent engineering and design-in-context practices.

Today, Siemens Bocholt is satisfied with both the quantitative and qualitative results coming from the latest PLM Business Process improvements. The contribution of CATIA V5 and SMARTEAM they say, have been critical in achieving these goals and they will continue to be important enablers for the future improvements already in plan.

For more information, contact our IBM Representative, IBM Business Partner, or visit the IBM PLM Web site at: www.ibm.com/solutions/plm.

Tokyu Car to Streamline Design Processes Using PLM Solutions from IBM and Dassault Systèmes
Railway rolling stock manufacturer aims for greater business efficiency and improved quality with 3D product development from basic concept to detailed design

IBM and Dassault Systèmes announced that Tokyu Car Corporation, a manufacturer of railway rolling stock and specially-equipped cars, is streamlining its vehicle development process using CATIA V5 and ENOVIA SMARTEAM, developed by Dassault Systèmes and part of IBM’s PLM solutions portfolio.

“We have selected a PLM solution with an extensive proven track record that reflects IBM’s and Dassault Systèmes’ expertise in the heavy industries to help us increase our efficiency and enhance safety, an absolutely essential prerequisite for railway rolling stock,” said Kunihiko Koiwa, Engineering Department General Manager, Tokyu Car. “The solution will help us be more competitive by cutting costs via an accelerated time-to-market, and at the same time enhancing the quality of our products.”

Tokyu Car needed to realize a collaborative environment for design and assembly, as well as simulating railcar operating conditions. It selected CATIA V5 and ENOVIA SMARTEAM, enabling its engineers to design efficiently and with precision, while ensuring compliance with various railcar lifecycle requirements.

“Innovation and collaboration are key for product differentiation,” said Chris Bahr, director, PLM Solutions, IBM Asia Pacific Services. “By leveraging the power of our PLM solutions and streamlining its product development processes, Tokyu car is able to focus on its core business, adding value to their products and better responding to their customers’ expectations.”

“Improving design and manufacturing processes by using PLM solutions is extremely meaningful in the manufacture of large-scale, complex products such as railway rolling stock,” said Christian Nardin, managing director, Dassault Systèmes Asia. “Using CATIA V5 with ENOVIA SMARTEAM, Tokyu Car will be able to perform advanced simulations to confirm the safety of its products, and the resulting streamlining of its business processes will provide tremendous value to the company.”

Using the IBM PLM solutions developed by Dassault Systèmes, Tokyu Car can check for design interference among structural components in 3D, including spaces between complex design elements such as pipes and wiring, and prepare designs using digital mock-ups (DMUs). ENOVIA SMARTEAM also enables Tokyu Car to accumulate expertise, and reuse its data. In the future, Tokyu Car plans to further expand its PLM implementation to foster collaboration in 3D among its design and manufacturing divisions.

About Tokyu Car

Tokyu Car Corporation, a leading member of the Tokyu Group. Its main products include railway rolling stock and specially-equipped cars (trailers, yard carriers, tanker trucks, etc.) manufactured for domestic and foreign markets, as well as multi-level parking facilities, which have recently become common throughout Japan. The company also manufactures, sells, and provides services for various environmental system products and mechatronic system products. In addition, based on this extensive core product lineup, Tokyu Car engages in an engineering and solution businesses to address and propose solutions to the issues and problems faced by its global customers, through the incorporation of the latest information technologies in existing products (i.e., railway rolling stock and specially-equipped cars). Thus the company is working to further gain trust from a wider range of sectors within society. http://www.tokyu-car.co.jp/eng (English), http://www.tokyu-car.co.jp (Japanese)

Toyota Manufacturing UK Uses DELMIA to Optimize Design-for-Manufacture Process
Digital technology enables Toyota’s strategy for global information sharing across the extended enterprise.

DELMIA digital manufacturing software is being deployed by Toyota Manufacturing UK as part of a strategy that is altering the way in which its cars are built by enabling the sharing of common real-time information throughout the enterprise. This is a continuation of Toyota’s strategy, announced in 2002, to employ Dassault Systèmes’ 3D PLM solutions.

“Toyota Motor Corporation has always maintained a centralized manufacturing design function in Japan,” explains John Grainger, project specialist, Production Planning and Control Division at Toyota Manufacturing UK. “Teams of engineers and team leaders would travel to Japan and spend several weeks understanding the designs for a new model and how to build it. Now, through development of a tailored manufacturing environment involving software from DELMIA and other suppliers, design data is stored in a common repository and accessible throughout the enterprise, allowing Toyota Manufacturing in locations outside Japan to share in the design-for-manufacture process.”

With access to DELMIA V5 DPM Assembly, Toyota Manufacturing UK engineers were able to optimize an assembly manufacturing process concurrently during the design phase. In addition, by implementing a DELMIA V5 Human add-on to examine reach and motion, the UK group has been able to analyze the manufacturing feasibility of each and every different variant of its models.

Thanks partially to digital technology; the design-for-manufacture of some future models will take place entirely outside Japan. These models will be designed digitally and will also have all their processes, tooling and even employee training completed using advanced simulation, which then can be shared with Japan. Although the management of all the data will be controlled through Japan, each manufacturing department, from welding to plastics, will have access to the engineering data within the same DELMIA V5 environment.

Grainger adds “In the UK, we have currently only hosted one digital design review, but as they increase in frequency, we expect our total expenditure to have paid for itself within the year. Trips to Japan will become less common thanks to the power of digital technology in shrinking the distance between global teams working towards a common goal.”