CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
7 July 2009
Implementation Investments
Fujigiken Achieves Lean Product Development Objectives With PTC® Product Development System
PTC announced that Fujigiken Inc., a leading Japanese automotive component manufacturer has been using Pro/ENGINEER® and Windchill®, key components of the PTC® Product Development System, to help streamline its product development processes in support of its lean product development initiative.
Based in Mie Prefecture, Japan, Fujigiken has staked out a unique position in the automotive metal component manufacturing industry by providing its customers with technical support for precision automotive components and other products that must conform to strict advanced technology standards, leveraging its engineering and management capabilities to meet customer requirements for quality, cost-efficient products. Fujigiken adopted Pro/ENGINEER in 1996 to create a 3D engineering environment and transition to a full 3D CAD/CAM-based process. At the same time, it developed a methodology for using engineering and NC data for mold machining. Today, the company uses the Pro/ENGINEER 3D design system for engineering and geometry simulation all the way through NC data creation, centrally managing all data to provide engineers with comprehensive process support.
In 2007, Fujigiken deployed Pro/Coordinate Measuring Machines (Pro/CMMTM) to automate its 3D measurement process. Pro/CMM, an optional module for Pro/ENGINEER, allows customers to automate their inspection processes by using Pro/ENGINEER design data to generate programs for coordinate measuring machines. Automated coordinate measuring eliminates the inconsistencies inherent with manual measurement, which relies heavily on operator skill and results in time-consuming dimensional adjustments. Pro/CMM and automatic inspection programs generated with the tool make it possible for Fujigiken to perform real-time measurements, improve machine use efficiency, reduce inspection cycles, and enhance measurement quality. As a result, the company was able to reduce the coordinate measuring cycle from 5 - 6 days to 1 day, an 80% improvement.
Fujigiken has been using Windchill to manage a variety of data and enhance process levels and efficiency, achievements that followed a comprehensive evaluation and review of its systems based on usability, maintainability and cost factors. During the first phase of its Windchill deployment, the Fujigiken team realized improvements in component and BOM management and reduced approval processes. As a next step, the team plans to leverage on improvements in project status management and multi-CAD data management to raise process efficiency.
"Our primary focus has been on building an organization capable of identifying market needs before anyone else does," said Shigeru Sato, Executive Managing Director, Fujigiken. "We've been successful in doing so, and able to cut costs while improving quality and reducing time-to-market. We believed PTC offered the best solution to support these initiatives, and plan to enhance our competitiveness by accelerating our engineering process and improving efficiency."
"Even though the automotive industry is facing an increasingly tough market environment, customers like Fujigiken can benefit from adopting lean product development techniques at this difficult time by accelerating PTC's Windchill and Pro/ENGINEER deployment" said Sin Min Yap, director, product and market strategy, PTC. "PTC is committed to providing best-in-class, easy-to-use and scalable solutions that help customers to leverage their technology investment to gain competitive advantage."
Fujigiken works with Hitachi System and Services, LTD. a PTC channel partner, to deploy PTC solutions.
About Fujigiken Inc
Founded in 1988 as an automotive metal component manufacturer, Fujigiken considers itself a product development support company that helps customers with product development activities from the perspectives of modeling and manufacturing engineering. The company's engineering foundation, developed through accumulation of 3D CAD/CAM-based modeling techniques and two decades of experience, are the basis for its product development expertise. In 1999, Fujigiken set up a subsidiary, Fujigiken Kagoshima Inc., in Kagoshima, Japan.
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