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News Release from: SmarTeam Europe | Subject: Buhler and PLM
Edited by the Processingtalk Editorial Team on 25 February 2003

International data exchange

Buhler machinery processes chocolate, pasta, flour and bulk materials: SmarTeam enables worldwide exchange of information electronically for system design and project management for engineering teams

Buhler Group is also a major competitor in the chemical process engineering, bulk solids handling and die casting industries With such a diverse business model, one of the major challenge for the company is trying to manage the vast amount of product development data that it generates

The scale of the Buhler business is impressive, with over 1.4 million parts in over 700 product lines installed in thousands of plants around the world.

Traditionally, like many companies, separate groups managed the design information on all these parts.

Buhler used a variety of manual methods to keep track of product development, while automated systems ran independently from one another with little consistency, continuity, or connection.

In this environment, employees often did not know where data resided and wasted considerable time hunting for information, working with non-concurrent revisions and recreating existing but misplaced documents.

To add to the problem, the Buhler global operations require the sharing of data with 40 affiliated companies and more than 80 subsidiaries worldwide.

Bottle-necks occurred in trying to work long-distance with subcontractors supplying parts for Buhler equipment and with the engineering consultants, architectural firms and construction companies designing and building the large plants where Buhler machines are installed.

For the most part, information was shared via 2D drawings, reports and other paper documents, with all the usual delays and confusion of finding, copying, mailing, faxing, and distributing hard copies.

Aware that the lack of efficient data exchange was hampering the company efficiency and potential development, Buhler decided to overhaul and stream-line its business operations.

Instead of trying to manage information through separate and disjointed systems, the company chose to consolidate its data into a single product lifecycle management (PLM) system from SmarTeam.

The system enables CAD files and a wide range of project information to be archived and readily exchanged, not only among different groups, departments and facilities, but also with outside companies.

"PLM is a strategic component of our enterprise IT infrastructure," explains Karlheinz Ribar, the project manager at Buhler overseeing the PLM implementation.

"Buhler is building a worldwide collaborative product development system that extends into the supply chain and tracks critical information throughout the product lifecycle".

Ribar has set a tough aim for the system - to reduce the time to market of new products by 30 percent, increasing the speed of delivery to customers and strengthening the Buhler position as a market leader.

The system connects all of the Buhler subsidiaries via data replication and web servers, with over 1,000 people worldwide using SmarTeam for system design and project management.

Because SmarTeam is available online, employees can access information remotely via the Internet.

Different divisions within Buhler, subcontractors, outside consultants and process plant architects can exchange information electronically without the delay of handling paper documents.

Buhler has plans to link SmarTeam to the company SAP financial system as well as to process planning and computer numerical control (CNC) programming systems in manufacturing.

Data from areas such as engineering, manufacturing, sales and service will all be included in a directory for each job, tracking the course of each customer installation from concept development through detailed design, engineering change, field maintenance and eventually decommissioning.

With its far-reaching plans, Buhler has put itself at the forefront of companies that are broadening the scope of PLM.

Historically most at home within engineering departments where it was used to manage drawings and CAD files, PLM has reached other areas of business that are now waking up to the benefits of this enterprise-wide access to information.

For Buhler, PLM means the difference between being one of a crowd and having a real, measurable competitive advantage.

"In this sense, the most valuable benefit PLM brings to Buhler is that it serves as an enabling technology for greater collaboration," explains Ribar, "not only among separate groups, departments, and facilities within the company, but also in the supply chain and among the partner companies that make up our extended enterprise.

In that respect, PLM is absolutely essential for us to compete effectively in the world of e-commerce".

According to Ribar, a number of reasons favoured the selection of SmarTeam.

The software is widely used and supported internationally, so Buhler facilities around the world can implement it.

The scalability and economy of the software guaranteed that small subsidiaries and individual groups could easily implement the solution.

In addition, SmarTeam could be easily customised for the Buhler specific processes and procedures.

Because it is based on Microsoft Windows, SmarTeam uses familiar features such as drag-and-drop, cut-and-paste and intuitive menus with which users are already familiar and so can become productive in a matter of days rather than months.

Also, SmarTeam operates within AutoCAD, Mechanical Desktop and other leading midrange CAD solutions, so users can access data and perform PLM operations without exiting their CAD system.

The web technology provided by SmarTeam enables Buhler to implement its plans for distributed facilities to gain access to product data.

Ribar says that Buhler also needed a system that could handle different types of documents created in Microsoft Office applications such as Word and Excel, in addition to CAD files.

Moreover, the PLM system had to have the capability of interfacing with different application programs in manufacturing, sales, and other areas.

Following a pilot phase, SmarTeam went into operation with 50 users in the pasta, chocolate, and thermal processes departments at company headquarters in Uzwil, Switzerland.

Users consisted of designers managing their CAD files as well as non-CAD users, including managers and others in the design approval process who use the system to view drawings in the review cycle.

"Project leaders, department supervisors and other managers who have no AutoCAD knowledge whatsoever are able to view and release designs quickly through the use of viewer technology built into SmarTeam," notes Ribar.

Initial results in the pilot and roll-out phases of the implementation demonstrate significant savings in time and costs for information and document retrieval and in the elimination of redundant efforts by re-using existing data.

"We have now implemented the system into two of our affiliated companies in Germany: Buhler-Bindler and Buhler-Frisse," Ribar explains.

"Additionally, we are in the planning phase for two big European sites: Buhler-Braunschweig and Buhler-Madrid.

" Eventually, the PLM system will co-ordinate the flow of information to and from subcontractors providing parts and subsystems, as well as to outside consultants performing engineering services.

Buhler also hopes that PLM will facilitate the exchange of information with large architectural, engineering, and construction firms to help determine plant layouts and how these large facilities will be built.

Using a module within SmarTeam, a link has been established between PLM and the Buhler SAP financial system to track man-hours, project costs, invoices and other information.

This capability gives managers on-line access to up-to-date information on each project and eliminates the need to recreate data for the financial system, that already exists in the PLM.

Buhler also plans to link SmarTeam with production process planning and CNC programming systems in manufacturing.

In this way, part geometry stored in SmarTeam CAD files can be used by these systems as an input for machining parts and fabricating assemblies on the shop floor.

In addition to CAD files and engineering drawings, a wide range of other types of information will be archived in the PLM database, including documents created in Microsoft Office applications such as Word and Excel as well as photos, videos, and other types of graphical information.

"In this way, the system will handle design data as well as engineering changes, correspondence, bids, quotes, proposals, service histories and other relevant information for each project, giving engineers, managers, and others a complete history of each project from start to finish," says Ribar.

"PLM enables us to manage projects throughout the complete lifecycle".

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