PTC, the Product Development Company, announced that the French wheel cycling specialist Mavic is using PTC's product lifecycle management (PLM) software to create the wheels used by leading teams racing at the Tour de France.

Mavic's engineers and designers opted for PTC's Pro/ENGINEER as its preferred design solution, and PTC's Pro/MECHANICA as the choice for virtual simulation and optimization of the weight of moving components. In addition, PTC's ProductView is used by various Mavic departments accessing parts lists and exploded views to create catalogs and technical manuals.

Pro/ENGINEER is the optimal 3D design software for Mavic, since it perfectly answers the company's needs for a volume parametric tool. It is used to develop and constantly optimise wheels like the Tour de France winning wheel KSYRIUM, where in addition Pro/MECHANICA has been used as the structure module.

"For Mavic, making great products comes first. Our passion is to constantly develop great ideas that can make a real difference to the performance teams and cyclists who rely on our wheels. PTC's Pro/ENGINEER helps us continually bring innovative designs to market quickly," said Lionel Kamarad, Manager of the R&D Department. "It is a great advantage to have a tool that offers robust functionality combined with ease of use."

In addition, ProductView offers easy viewing possibilities to a large number of Mavic's employees outside of design engineering, such as engineers who establish patent applications. ProductView helps these employees make considerable time reductions when creating documents that include 40 drawings on average. "We established a collaboration process and infrastructure between design engineers and the departments impacted by engineering modifications and new features. This facilitates real-time interaction," explained Kamarad,"ProductView is a great tool to share and view highly diverse desktop document formats, images, plans and models without having to call on the source application."

www.ptc.com

Like most manufacturing organisations, leading shower and water control systems specialist, Kohler Mira is continually striving to improve its products and processes.

As part of its on-going programme, the company has recently completed a project which, as well as bringing its IT infrastructure up to date, paved the way for a dramatic reduction in its paper-based product data. To achieve this, 14 industrial terminals have been replaced by up-to-date industrial PCs and modern production-data management software, streamlining the transmission of manufacturing data, and speeding the overall production process. 

Based in Cheltenham, Kohler Mira is a 700-strong organisation with an annual turnover of more than 120 million Euros. It is not only the UK market leader for domestic and commercial shower and water control equipment, but has customers, wholesalers and specialist dealers of sanitary equipment throughout Europe, North America and Japan.

Prior to the implementation of its new Quadro RM system, Kohler Mira's production documents, such as tool lists and drawings or production sheets, were all created and circulated on paper. "For production efficiency - and ecological - reasons, we needed to reduce the vast amount paper in our manufacturing departments," says production engineer Derek Bradley. This basic need led to the establishment of a project aimed at modernising the company's DNC and production systems.

Bradley and his colleagues began by developing a specification for the new hardware and software.  High on their list of requirements was the need for touch screen operation of modern industrial PCs.  To reduce the volume of documents, Mira wanted a Production Data Management (PDM) system that would not only administer all NC programs, but also control tool data, set-up and fixture plans, graphics and text documents.  The management of SDRC-CAD files was another important consideration for the project team.  Equally, NC programs would need to be transferred to and from shop floor machine tools, as well as to be locked and released.  Further key requirements were faster data transmission, system reliability and user-friendliness.

"DLoG's Quadro RM PDM system convinced us at once," remembers Derek Bradley.  "We could see that it would allow us to administer all production data centrally.  It also has fully integrated data management from work preparation, right through to the machines - an essential requirement for up-to-date production data at all levels.  In addition, the powerful integrated modules for editing or comparing NC programs, plus the display program for graphics and text, provide the platform for an almost paper-free production environment."

Kohler Mira maintains all data required for manufacturing components at the parts' level, while the operations' level holds all the information needed for the individual operation.  In this way, the company also administers all NC programs, together with tool lists and tool pre-setting data, parts drawings and production sheets, quality control information and photos of complex fixtures.

"The IPC's touch-screen interface allows machine operators to retrieve a job folder instantly," explains Bradley, "and, unlike before, the complete job is always available.  Searching for individual, scattered documents is now a thing of the past." 
 
www.dlog.co.uk

Del Equipment UK, a rapidly expanding manufacturer of vehicle tailifts is about to solve a key management issue that many design-orientated producers face following the implementation of an integrated CAD/ERP solution.

The Oxford-based company is increasingly working on innovative new tailift designs and variations of its standard range to meet demanding customer requirements. Customised tailift designs can differ in terms of platform size, depth, width and with optional items such as ramps and gates.

Whereas previously, Del Equipment had to manually generate its Bill of Materials (BOM) data from 2D drawings and 3D model configurations, the company is now introducing a PLM (product life cycle management) product from Pulse Technology Systems, which utilises e.NET architecture, to provide direct and seamless integration between its SolidWorks CAD application and a SYSPRO manufacturing, financial and distribution system.

Recently, ERP solution provider, K3 and Pulse Technology Systems joined forces to provide a complete product life cycle management solution for design-orientated businesses with reduced time to manufacturing and product design benefits.

In the case of Del Equipment, the fully integrated solution will enable the firm's designers to transfer accurate BOM information directly into its ERP system. Furthermore, by pulling the data directly into SYSPRO, the company can link individual customers requirements with production costs to produce faster and more accurate quotations.

Del Equipment's Engineering Manager, Steve Carew-Gibson, commented: "The CAD/ERP integration path will enable us to look at our SolidWorks CAD data and individually transfer it into SYSPRO for company wide use. It will give us greater accuracy of BOM information and will avoid having to manually check and re-key in data, especially SolidWorks model configuration and revision level data."

In addition, the Pulse system has a built in change note system that speeds up change procedures and is able to make the changes available for viewing on a company wide basis.

www.pulseplm.com
www.k3scs.com

In the first half of 2005, SSA Global announced SSA PLM 8.0 , a new product lifecycle management solution designed to help customers achieve lower total cost of ownership through integration with other enterprise systems. The solution also provides the capability to more easily meet regulatory compliance and accelerate the time to market for new products.

The new version builds on the core functionality of SSA PLM that provides manufacturing companies the ability to leverage product information across the enterprise and throughout the entire product lifecycle.

"In too many manufacturing companies, the high-value product information is confined to the engineering function," said Cory Eaves, Chief Technology Officer, SSA Global. "With SSA PLM we've tackled this business problem directly. SSA PLM allows manufacturers to close the gap between engineering and other departments so product data is converted to product information that has enterprise-wide business benefit."

"The enhanced functionality in SSA PLM is playing an instrumental role in helping us achieve new levels of product customisation," said Tony Williams, Director of Engineering, Rodgers Instruments. "The integration between our PLM product and core enterprise system significantly enhances the availability of product information across the enterprise and gives us much more flexibility to quickly respond to specific customer requests for configure-to-order products." 

Key focus areas of the enhancements to SSA PLM are: 
 
Integration: The new SSA PLM solution offers tight integration with SSA ERP, in addition to seamless integration with various CAD  solutions. This enables manufacturers to manage design variants and implement mass customisation at a lower cost of ownership.

Regulatory compliance: SSA PLM addresses specific requirements established by the European Commission (EC), U.S. government, and international standards-setting organisations by enabling manufacturers to more efficiently implement compliance measures.  Among the requirements specifically addressed by SSA PLM are the EC directives for Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) and Restriction of the Use of Hazardous Substances (RoHS). 

Workflow: With SSA PLM, detailed product information is easily accessible throughout the enterprise so employees from purchasing to production can use it for improved decision-making. Automated, paperless transactions have reduced internal approval process time at some companies by as much as 50 percent.

www.ssaglobal.com