Oct 9, 2015
About the Customer
Engineering is currently working with a world leader in the Energy & Utilities industry. The customer is involved in the production of world-class gas turbine, steam turbine and electrical generators as part of an advanced manufacturing initiative.
The Customer's Need
The customer came to Engineering looking to streamline their processes from engineering design all the way through shop floor production. At the time, the customer was managing their engineering data in one system (PLM) and their manufacturing data in a different system (ERP). And like in many of the organizations Engineering works with, the manufacturing and engineering groups within the company did not have a standardized procedure or reliable system in place to help them communicate and share data with each other. This broken link in the customer’s value chain led to the use of outdated and/or inaccurate data, which resulted in high levels of rework and scrapped parts, constant delays in production, and significantly higher than average production costs.
Engineering's Approach
To help the customer streamline and simplify their processes, Engineering decided to leverage one solution to cover their entire manufacturing workflow, from eBOM (engineering Bill of Materials) to mBOP (manufacturing Bill of Process) to mBOM (manufacturing Bill of Materials), all within a single managed environment – Siemens Teamcenter. By consolidating systems, the solution would help the customer alleviate the costly issues related to managing their engineering data and manufacturing data in different IT environments.
About the Project
As a first step towards this long-term vision, Engineering is currently supporting a Teamcenter Manufacturing and Shop Floor Connect pilot at a customer site. Engineering’s team is working with the customer to define a standard CAM data management process from engineering release through manufacturing release to shop floor execution, with Direct Numerical Control (DNC) and Electronic Work Instructions (EWI) as part of Teamcenter.
Teamcenter Part Planner is being leveraged to create and manage all the aspects of a routing: revision controls, workflow releases, statuses, etc. Being part of Siemens Teamcenter, Shop Floor Connect will be utilized for DNC (direct NC machine connection) as well as direct access to EWI on the shop floor.
Engineering has already rolled out these modules of Teamcenter to a small group of the customer’s NC machines. Engineering’s team has also provided custom training to the customer’s personnel related to the new solution and system, covering Shop Floor Connect, Teamcenter Manufacturing Part Planner, Structure Manager, NX CAM’s integration to Teamcenter, Time Studies in Teamcenter, and Electronic Work Instruction creation and management. If the solution meets the customer’s needs and production requirements, Engineering hopes to expand the system to include the entire production environment in order to help the customer fully realize both their production and business goals.
