CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
19 May 2009
Implementation Investments
SolidEdge Benefits Emerging Leader in Construction Machinery
Everdigm produces a wide range of construction machinery as well as equipment for fighting fires and responding to other natural disasters. The company began in 1994 trading second-hand construction machinery. Through constant R&D into the production of attachments, concrete pump trucks and tower trucks, Everdigm made the leap into producing its own machinery. Today Everdigm sells its products locally as well as outside South Korea. Its equipment is exported to more than 60 countries around the world including the Americas and Europe.
As Everdigm’s business areas were expanding and product variety increasing, management realized the limitations of the company’s 2D design software. It was difficult to create complex shapes with the 2D program, and difficult to reduce defects caused by design errors. In addition, it was getting harder to meet customers’ demands for quicker delivery with the 2D approach. As a result, the company decided to implement a 3D design system.
Wide range of functionality
In choosing the new system, Everdigm was hoping to reduce design time, automate repetitive processes and maintain high-level security of design data. After thorough benchmarking of various 3D CAD systems, Everdigm chose the Solid Edge solution from Siemens PLM Software. Other factors in Solid Edge’s favor were the ease of maintenance, good support, the software’s ability to handle large assemblies and its short learning curve.
Solid Edge provides Everdigm with a robust drafting tool and supports the use of existing 2D data. Solid Edge facilitates the generation of bills of material, exploded views and animations. It also includes a simple macro function for increasing efficiency. Furthermore, Solid Edge will allow the company to expand in the future to product lifecycle management (PLM), another major reason behind Everdigm’s choice.
Along with its deployment of Solid Edge, Everdigm also implemented the Femap finite element analysis pre and postprocessor from Siemens. Everdigm tested the two programs at its ATT R&D center, and then rolled them out to the product development team of each department. The company also provided internal and external training according to the needs of each business area, covering areas such as the use of existing 2D drawings, and 3D modeling and assembly processes. The upgrade to 3D took six months.
Reaping the benefits
Using Solid Edge, Everdigm has increased efficiency by automating repetitive design tasks. For example, Solid Edge permits sequences of material numbers to be transmitted to the ERP system. It allows drawings to become templates, standardizes file properties and user-entered data, automatically creates the BOM, and permits fast searches of product and BOM data.
With 3D design, Everdigm has been able to decrease the number of defects. The company has also been able to manage product-related data (including design, manufacturing, sales and marketing information) using an integrated database to achieve its main business challenge of working more efficiently.
Since deploying Solid Edge and Femap to create a highly automated 3D design process, Everdigm has achieved outstanding benefits. These include a greater than 15 percent reduction in design time for a first prototype and a 30 to 50 percent reduction for design changes and for the production of a model for mass production. In addition, Solid Edge has helped the company determine areas that will be difficult for manufacturing. Having a 3D model and design database connection, the company has achieved 100 percent data consistency between BOM data and drawings, enhancing product and inventory management.
In addition to shrinking the design cycle, Everdigm has been able to enhance design quality and prevent downtime. Solid Edge 3D data is used to create images for use in external marketing, achieving the effect of “killing two birds with one stone.” In the future, Everdigm plans to systemize its overall processes and implement PLM to further increase its efficiency and productivity and significantly reduce time to market for its products.
As the level of product complexity increased the amount of CAD data being produced, Everdigm realized that it also needed a more effective data management system. For this the company started using the Teamcenter Express solution, also from Siemens. Teamcenter Express allows Everdigm to integrate and manage all of the data created across its product lifecycle. It also enables more effective collaboration further reducing design times. Everdigm expects Teamcenter Express to increase work efficiency by 15 percent.
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