Integrated Product Development in Multisite PLM Platform Stelian-Cornel Florica, George Draghici “Politehnica” University of Timisoara, Timisoara, Romania
[email protected] [email protected] Abstract: It is well known that the challenges in Automotive industry, namely reducing time to market, risks and development costs, could be reached thanks to innovative design methods supported by PLM technologies. Such methods are based on integrated design or collaborative engineering enabling close exchanges of data and information between different platforms and departments. The paper proposes a synthesis of the different programs on platforms who is leading to development issue during conception and manufacturing process. It presents also the development of a collaborative design platform, which aims to improve partners’ cooperation in the automotive supply chain. The paper also discusses how to include multiple expertise and integrated design in the collaborative platform. By integrating of the product conception, the technology processes and the manufacturing in the computer integrated manufacturing have been achieved a raise in the manufacturing flexibility, the reducing of the delivering times and the improvement of the realized products' quality. The present paper also presents the relevant items for building a multisite PLM platform for collaborative integrated product development based on the common researches developed in automotive industry. Based on these arguments, it is necessary to build a collaborative multisite platform. Who will integrate Teamcenter as the base software platform for documents and technical data management that is joining together different applications for collaborative product development methodology and the multisite PLM platform architecture: Virtual Design (Catia, Creo), for manufacturing and Virtual Prototyping (3D Via, Creo Mechanica, Creo Simulate), etc. The model of building such collaborative design environment was inspired by different solutions delivered by companies with great names: Dassault, Siemens, PTC, but these solutions are expensive and heavy to be implemented by small and medium companies. Our mission is to analyze the advancement and implementation of PLM platforms through research department in partnership with manufacturing industry. Keywords: PLM, PDM, platform, Teamcenter, Dassault, SAP, Windchill, Autodesk 1. Introduction – Definitions and overview of PLM Product development is the result of a network based collaborative design process, since most of the projects, which are usually geographically distributed for the design of a new product, require cooperation among expert groups with diverse competence.(Chryssolouris, 2006). A collaborative product design project is necessary to take into consideration issues related to the users’ integration, organization and communication, as well as to product data sharing, management and visualization. New and efficient paradigms of a web-based collaborative product design, in a global economy, will be driven by increased outsourcing and the reduction of product development time (Draghici et al., 2007). PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) provides a shared platform for product development, organization and dissemination of product related knowledge and includes product-oriented processes covering concept, design, fabrication, assembly, testing, delivery, and disposal of products. PLM extends PDM (Product Data Management) out of engineering and manufacturing into other areas like marketing, finance and after sale service and at the same time, addresses all the stakeholders of product throughout its lifecycle (Farhad and Dutta, 2004) PLM was the basic vision of the PDM for many years and this vision has turned into what today we call PLM. According to a Gartner analyst Marc Halpern, PLM has exceeded concept centering on engineering and has become a strategic initiative for businesses (Stark, 2005). Companies that are using PLM software and services to run their businesses increasingly require their suppliers and their own IT departments to provide open solutions that promote seamless interoperability and data sharing. These companies don’t want to worry about incompatible data formats and versioning problems that inhibit their ability to collaborate. They don’t want to deal with PLM suppliers whose proprietary business models prevent the implementation of a multi-vendor solution. While PLM Components help promote standardization and interoperability within your target markets, they also can help make your solutions appealing to new and/or expanded markets. The
same instant compatibility that makes implementation easier with your traditional customers also creates compatibility and opportunity in rising new markets. (Siemens documents, 2011). For Jean-Yves Mondon 3, manager of aerospace group EADS: PLM is defined as a strategic capital for the extended enterprise, in the heart of the industrial system. CIMdata, a consulting firm working in this field, defines PLM as a strategic approach, using a consistent set of practices to support the collaborative creation and organization, transmission and use of information on the product within the company among its staff information about conception to end of life, and to integrate processes and information systems organization. (CIMData, 2012) Bertil Turesson, PLM Strategist at Volvo Car Corporation associated himself with (Berkooz, 2007) nu este în referinţe the views expressed by (Stark, 2005): PLM is the activity of managing the company's products throughout their life cycle, the most efficient manner. PLM scope covers many elements such as processes, data, people and applications. According to the author, PLM can be seen as a paradigm to meet: it brings together many processes, disciplines, functions and applications previously heterogeneous and independent, that address the same product with different vocabularies, business rules, cultures or languages. (Siemens documents, 2011) PLM can be considered (Ameri and Dutta, 2005): "A solution that supports information management throughout the product life cycle process in the extended context of an enterprise." "Product life cycle management or PLM is an all-encompassing approach for innovation, new product development and introduction (NPDI) and product information management from ideation to end of life. PLM Systems as an enabling technology for PLM integrate people, data, processes, and business systems and provide a product information backbone for companies and their extended enterprise." (PLM Technology Guide: http://plmtechnologyguide.com/site/). The definition with the widest spread and accepted by all users is (Dassault Systèmes, 2012): „Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) is an integrated business approach based on information made up of people, processes / practices and technology that covers all aspects of the life of a product, from design to production, use and maintenance, culminating in decommissioning and recycling in order to increase efficiency and productivity”
2. PLM Platforms for product development PLM is based on a concept related to information management in the company more efficient targeting of resources through proper planning. Fierce competition on the market today, involves the need for rapid and efficient management while the volumes of data that classical works are huge and seem to be outdated systems, so solutions are needed to enable rapid retrieval of knowledge required in the background intelligent decisions. Designing a single product to meet the needs both technical department personnel, financial, as well as those from human resources or those of the production is not easy, because each department has its own systems specialized and optimized for their particular needs. But PLM / PDM platforms combine them all in one software connected to a common database so that interdepartmental communication is much easier.
Figure 1: PLM components (Voskuil, 2010) Structuring and decomposing each department and activity, may be seen in greater detail the components of a system PLM / PDM.
Figure 2: PLM process (Siemens PLM solution Partner: http://www.itsplm.co.rs/) On numerous occasions companies, having already invested in ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) systems with high levels of integration and customization, are unsure how an additional investment in a PLM solution would be beneficial. The following matrix of functionalities help understand the operational requirements in a much better manner.
Figure 3: Differences between PLM and PDM A closer look at the matrix helps us understand the differentiation between PLM and PDM. It is common to find a PLM solution being used predominantly for the PDM functionalities since the other facets of PLM have either already been developed on an ERP/ MRP system or a home-grown specialized toolset addresses most of the other aspects of the PLM. (Manage Critical Design Knowledge, 2008) The main advantage of PLM, in this case, is that it allows the integration of all information about a product or service and it can organize all this information in order to improve efficiency between different departments within the company. Dividing the activities of a company of a several departments such as design, manufacture, sales and service, it can reduce the complexity. Increasing the effectiveness of each department, result is the increase of productivity throughout the company. Currently, most of companies use PLM / PDM platforms from the same developer. This has the major disadvantage because some platforms are difficult to be understood, manage and to use. This situation can be improved by testing and implementing various platforms from various developers, reducing the disadvantages mentioned, because some platforms PDM are much easier to use and to manage and the search of any document is made much easier. Existing standardized market structures do not allow the introduction of other resources or software, or their cooperation with individual structures. To solve these problems, it is necessary to create a platform for integrated product design and manufacturing, using different systems for effective management as the product life cycle.
Increasing efficiency for software and hardware, this will change the user's working habits. In particular, increased memory capacity gives the result of a huge volume of stored data. On the other hand, however, modern user is highly concentrated to use backup data. Consequently, a large number of versions are recorded and stored in a project in order to ensure continuous data availability, in case if this information is needed again. In addition, identical data are often stored redundantly on different servers. A unified PLM architecture eliminates problems associated with these integration methods for all applications that are delivered as components of the overall framework. Within the application suite delivered as part of unified architecture solutions, information created in one module or function is immediately visible and available in all other modules without additional data entry or transformation. (Paviot, 2010) The main elements of PLM concept are: people, technology, processes and practices, all combined in Virtual Design, Virtual Prototyping, Virtual Manufacturing, etc. Virtual Design – refers to design and graphical representation of physical objects with computer in a virtual environment. Using existing CAD applications, it can help to develop new products, according to the requirements imposed by the client or by the market. These applications allow real-time collaborative development of products, by project teams with experts from various fields and locations, the communication between team members for the rapid determination of the errors, design problems and also to decrease the time for launching a product. Main advantages are: easy modeling of complex shapes; cost reduction for repetitive redesign; increasing model quality.
Figure 4: Virtual Design process Virtual Prototyping – Digital simulation of product behavior occurs in a controlled environment, mainly using finite element analysis methods, but the product can be analyzed for other various applications, such as: static, dynamic, modal (vibration ), nonlinear analysis, high-speed impact, thermal analysis, fluid flow, etc. Product Data Management (PDM) – PDM applications have developed a new way to organize information in different formats, CAD and EDM in a single database. PDM has proposed a new way to organize different types of CAD formats that an organization produces a relatively small time. In the first phase of development, PDM allowed companies to capture CAD information realized by users and turn them into the company’s intellectual capital. This was possible by adding the old database records created before implementation of PDM. While some PDM systems began to incorporate some form of workflow processes (information flows), other PDM systems only managed the products information. A first step, with the implementation of PDM in a company, was to replace the old archive data with an electronic format. During PDM systems development was needed the ability to configure these systems, to enable the implementation in different companies with different areas of activity, but also to enable the implementation of processes and practices within the company.
3. Main advantages and disadvantages of PLM platforms The main advantages are listed below: considerable reduction in processing time of an order or of a new development process. Since going through the automatic route, it is clear that time is greatly reduced. Employees in each department have access to any information, they can view and / or modify it if it is necessary. When the department completes the work on a specific command, it is automatically directed by the PLM / PDM platform to the next department. Using appropriate PLM application can enhance company performance. it is easier to manage complex structures, marketing channels and business scenarios accelerates the time to launch the product on market and also the recovery time improve services offered to the employees and customers and their satisfaction. Although the benefits brought to the company are large, at the same time the disadvantages can be greater than advantages when a PLM platform is not well implemented, especially when it is accompanied by changes in the organization of the company. The main disadvantages of PLM platforms are: Cost of PLM systems / PDM can be considerable; Implementation can be difficult and lengthy, although many sellers have the ads that implementation is achieved in 3-6 months, often real time can be 1-3 years on average On first steps the company may halt the work because employees were familiar with the old process and the new integrated computer programs not only introduce new programs but also can introduce many changes in their work; Implementation involves many changes in the working of company departments. Furthermore, the implementation of PLM / PDM platforms have some hidden costs that are difficult to predict and measurable. Researchers and those who implement these platforms consider that the following factors are often responsible for underestimating the budget: Training of employees - Usually this is the most important factor which is underestimated by creating the budget for implementation. Preparation costs are very high because workers almost always have to learn new procedures and new processes, not just to become familiar with the new interface. Integration and testing - Creating and testing package links between PLM / PDM and other software that has implemented in the company before is also one of the most underestimated costs. Creating links is quite difficult, especially when the existing software components from company are older and the company who created is not offering support or it is no more on the market. Pay the consultants - PLM implementation requires calling on consulting and training of employees that tend to grow without limits. To prevent this, after signing the contract with consulting firm that provides quantitative data, it must be established the needs of company employees to be able to promote some tests at the end the training. Replacement of top employees - The market of these PLM / PDM platforms is very competitive, so when the company PLM system implementation is complete, in-house are formed some specialists for PLM / PDM. This is likely to attract competitors giving them higher salaries and bonuses than the parent company is prepared to offer. If that can’t be prevented from leaving their employees, the companies will pay double or triple amounts to the same people to return as consultants on similar positions. Expect immediate benefits - One of the most common mistakes is that the business is pending immediately benefits after PLM implementation. In fact, a recent survey by Deloitte revealed that more than a quarter of companies surveyed have suffered declines of performance immediately after PLM / PDM implementation, due to of numerous changes that it entails. Benefits are felt only after using for some time these platforms and after making some changes in production.
4. Comparison of some virtual team collaboration tools Most widely platforms used by big companies are: Teamcenter - Siemens PLM’s Teamcenter product suite has a long history. Its roots were founded in the 1980s with technology and products from Control Data, SDRC, and UGS such as Metaphase and iMan. Those products became the original Teamcenter applications called Teamcenter Enterprise and Teamcenter Engineering respectively. Siemens PLM also both acquired and developed additional PLM functional applications that expanded the overall Teamcenter suite over the years, with many of these solution expansions built on different architectures (Teamcenter, 2012).
Figure 5: Teamcenter structure Autodesk PLM 360 – Autodesk PLM 360 is the next-generation cloud-based alternative, providing a powerful, affordable and easy-to-implement solution at a fraction of the cost of traditional product lifecycle management (PLM) systems. [7]. Autodesk is transforming product lifecycle management with an affordable, easy-to-use, and simple-to-deploy PLM solution that makes the benefits of PLM available to anyone, anytime, anywhere. Autodesk® PLM 360 is a total PLM solution for the entire enterprise and includes engineering, business process management (BPM), program and project management, new product introduction (NPI), and quality and compliance capabilities. (http://usa.autodesk.com/360-lifecycle-management-software/plm/)
Figure 6: Autodesk PLM 360 structure The main advantages of this PLM platform are: PLM for everyone—Extend the reach of PLM to your entire organization, PLM instantly—Product lifecycle management in the cloud means that the teams can get up and running in minutes to days, not months to years, Easy to use—The Autodesk PLM 360 experience is just like browsing a website, whether from any desktop or on a mobile device. Dassault PLM: Enovia - Fully integrated with design, engineering and analysis solutions from Dassault Systems, and other software vendors, ENOVIA’s intuitive user interface delivers powerful capabilities via a standard web browser. ENOVIA has proven and ready-to-use business processes, so you can rapidly benefit from the true rewards of effective collaboration. ENOVIA is committed to providing products and solutions individuals at organizations of all sizes – from small businesses to the largest global enterprises – to participate in effective and rewarding collaborative innovation. The power of ENOVIA lies in its capability to deploy and enforce business processes, workflows and deliverables throughout the enterprise. Whether it’s managing a product portfolio, a program, a costing scenario or a design-to-production cycle, the focus is on streamlining the delivery of critical information and enabling better decisions to be made. Although mid-sized enterprises share similar needs as larger companies and understand the importance of PLM, they have certain concerns about implementing PLM, including limited IT resources for services and training; resistance to changes to standard operating procedures (SOPs), unknown total costs and disruption to users’ daily work. For several years, ENOVIA has been targeting their solutions to mid-sized enterprises by:
Taking into account your financial and capability needs – with out-of-the-box Express offerings that are quick to implement and easy to learn– not a scaled-down version of a larger solution. Growing as you go – with an unmatched breadth of solutions with our robust PLM product portfolio for Auto and Aero, to High-Tech, Medical devices and more. Addressing all PLM needs at all stages – with core SmarTeam products for collaborative Product Data Management (PDM) and full PLM, from concept to manufacturing, ideal for design, engineering and enterprise scopes. Enabling rapid ROI, low TCO – with full flexibility for adapting to an organization’s way of doing business and enabling a low total cost of ownership. Delivering worldwide distribution & support network – contact us for a representative in your geographical area. The biggest Dassault’s challenge remains V6 adoption and finding a way for companies to optimize their transition in this platform. (http://www.3ds.com/products/enovia/mid-market/) SAP PDM - SAP supports an integrated distributed implementation of various applications including PDM. This fills the requirement set by users for cost effective concepts for distributed application systems that offer a high degree of integration and can be detached for local use. SAP’s technological innovation for distributed application systems is Application Link Enabling (ALE). ALE makes business process controlled communication between technically independent applications possible. You can use ALE to distribute data such as materials, BOMs, documents and original files, change master records, revision levels, and classification data from one R/3 System to another. Computer-aided design (CAD) data plays a very important role in the overall product development process. SAP PLM offers a leading CAD authoring tool embedded into its product development process. You can use this authoring tool to develop and prepare CAD files, leveraging design information seamlessly – including three-dimensional geometry, drawings, and bills of material (BOM) for such processes as costing, sourcing, manufacturing, and more. The tool helps ensure data consistency by providing direct CAD-tool integration – beneficial for managing changes, documents, BOM, material masters, and reuse of components. Through this direct embedding of CAD data into the product development process, all follow-up processes receive data much faster and with higher quality, while CAD engineers work in a familiar CAD environment. SAP PLM supports required actions that include versioning, check-in, check-out, and creation of master data such as material masters and documents. Main benefits of a seamless CAD integration in SAP PLM include: Integrated processes Integrated into change and release process Integrated into SAP Business Suite Integrated viewing solution Simultaneous design collaboration throughout your organization "Single source of truth" for all participants Location-spanning access to information Role-based authorization and real-time access to all relevant information Same integration process for different CAD systems Verifiably lower total cost of ownership and investment No additional data management system necessary No additional system interfaces or CAD-centric team data management solution necessary No data redundancy and synchronization necessary One central user management and use of SAP classification system Sold and supported by SAP – reduces TCO and TCI by leveraging existing SAP infrastructure and knowledge. (SAP Product Lifecycle Management) PTC Windchill - Windchill is a Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) solution that was designed from the ground up to work in an Internet-based, distributed design environment. Windchill technology forms the foundation of the packages PTC offers to address data, change, configuration, and process management; product development collaboration; project management and execution; and the release of product information to manufacturing management systems. Windchill PDMLink consolidates scattered islands of information into a single information source, which can help bring order to chaotic change processes and speed the development of new product configurations. Windchill ProjectLink creates a virtual workspace that becomes the central access point for a project, which helps provide team members with access to information. By automating project management activities, Windchill ProjectLink can help PTC customers better manage all of their programs, project schedules, information, and processes.
All Windchill solutions include visualization capabilities that allow individuals anywhere in the organization to review complex product information in meaningful terms. (Technology Evaluation Center, http://vs.technologyevaluation.com/software/221-16916/Product-Lifecycle-ManagementPLM/PTC-Windchill.html) Features and Benefits: Reduced cycle time -- ensures on-schedule product launches and first-mover market-share advantages; Improved quality -- boosts brand value and customer loyalty, and enables premium pricing; Increased efficiency and process optimization -- drives team productivity and enhances breadth of portfolio; Improved regulatory compliance for market segments such as consumer products -- ensures adherence to mandates such as REACH and the Consumer Products Safety Act; Reduced direct material cost -- improves margins and profit contribution. Table 1 show a brief analysis of the presented software for collaborative work, communication that are most used in virtual teams. This comparison was made using information from the vendors and users, but from our experiences gain in different projects when such software was available for use. The differentiations between: Teamcenter, Autodesk 360 PLM, Enovia 3D, SAP, Windchill has been done by considering criteria related to their efficiency and effectiveness to support, development process, manufacturing, project management and entire product lifecycle process.
Table 1: Comparison between PLM / PDM platforms
X X
Autodesk PLM 360 X X
Dassault Enovia X X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
Functionality
Teamcenter
Easy Access Easy to use Specialized advanced trainings needed Different servers access Product visualization Show / edit BOM (Bill of material) Multiple modification at the same time Securized data Cloud computing accessibility Mobile devices access Integration of other CAD software Possibility of direct collaboration between project teams Easy integration Personalization possibility CAD integration
SAP X
PTC Windchill X X
X X X
X
X
X
X
X X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
5. Conclusions Experts have shown that in general, for small and medium companies these platforms can get cheaper significant performance improvement for projects. The organization and synchronization of the design process tend to be collaborative and this process is facilitated by PLM solutions delivered by various renowned companies that strive to ease the development and production work. A future challenge is the need of management of specific know-how from companies to prevent losses in an appropriate manner. The workflow and the experience must be recorded so it is needed to be
available and useful to all employees. Especially in collaborative development, special requirements are imposed for data maintenance and version management. Companies must ensure that updates are continuous and can offer immediate results to all stakeholders, especially in case of changes. Large amounts of data and the high volumes of data formats is one of the main problems in big companies. Therefore, it must be concluded that it is inherently necessary the creation of networking standards, which is not feasible, because structures do not allow encoding with other modules or applications, in the best case can be done some adaptation between different environments. In addition, the issues of translation in different formats and data management have not yet been resolved. These factors could increase the multitude of software solutions in various departments in the company. Whatever of the decision who will be taken in favor of a general supplier, particularly for some PDM software, from this choice will always result some advantages and disadvantages for each company.
6. Acknowledgment “This work was partially supported by the strategic grant POSDRU 107/1.5/S/77265 (2010) of the Ministry of Labor, Family and Social Protection, Romania, co-financed by the European Social Fund – Investing in people.”
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