CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive

12 June 2013

Implementation Investments

Multi-CAD and Multi-Site: SaarGummi Goes Online with CIM DATABASE

SaarGummi, a specialist in car body seals and global supplier to the automotive industry, has replaced its previous PDM system with CIM DATABASE. This change was necessary because the older system could not support other CAD systems alongside CATIA nor the company's distributed network of sites. The company is now running the new platform for product data management as well as to control its development processes in Germany and China. CIM DATABASE is currently being used by the enterprise's product developers and project managers; the next deployment step will see its introduction in Toolmaking and the Center of Competence for Industrialization.

For SaarGummi, it was vital to switch over from a team data management system for CATIA to a new PDM/PLM solution: The group of companies needs reliable support for its cross-site development processes and, more recently, also for the administration of NX data. The former system could not help in either case. A test installation provided by CONTACT Software, on the other hand, performed impressively and convinced the customer during a benchmark involving leading system vendors, not least through its multi-CAD data management capabilities.

Now, CAD data management and collaboration with the site in China is organized using CONTACT's Workspaces technology. This includes 3DXML as a viewing format for the engineers. For fast data synchronization between Asia and Germany, SaarGummi benefits from CONTACT’s EdgeServer technology, which is able to significantly accelerate transmission in wide area networks. The company also uses the DCS document conversion service through which CIM DATABASE provides an infrastructure for the automatic background derivation of secondary and neutral formats. 

Released components are made available as 3D documents throughout the entire company. This solution was implemented by the automotive supplier itself. As Stefan Harig, Head of Strategic Group IT & Business Processes at SaarGummi, explained: "Both for users and for the organization of the enterprise as a whole, it is a great advantage that CIM DATABASE can be easily adapted to meet individual requirements."

As a global full service supplier for car body seals and molded parts, SaarGummi counts all the major automobile manufacturers among its customers. These are supported by a global network of branch offices in Europe, the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China) and North America. In fiscal year 2012, the group of companies, which employs approximately 4,800 people, achieved sales of 390 million euros. As of mid-2011, this automotive supplier, which is headquartered in Wadern-Büschfeld in Germany's Saarland region, has been part of CQLT Chongqing Light Industry & Textile Holding, one of the 500 leading companies in China.

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