Recent sales successes for Tecnomatix demonstrate increasing awareness of the vital role of computer modelling in product planning

Citation

(2005), "Recent sales successes for Tecnomatix demonstrate increasing awareness of the vital role of computer modelling in product planning", Assembly Automation, Vol. 25 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/aa.2005.03325aab.002

Recent sales successes for Tecnomatix demonstrate increasing awareness of the vital role of computer modelling in product planning

Recent sales successes for Tecnomatix demonstrate increasing awareness of the vital role of computer modelling in product planning

Keywords: Planning, Assembly manufacturing

From trucks to SUVs, applications in the USA and UK demonstrate the cost and efficiency benefits of Tecnomatix' eM-Plant production planning software.

A series of sales successes in the UK, Europe and the United States demonstrates the increasing awareness among manufacturers of the cost and efficiency benefits of computer modelling in product and process design. Tecnomatix' products are particularly applicable for companies producing high volume, non-complex products or low volume, highly complex products such as custom built plant and equipment.

Over the past few months, orders for Tecnomatix' eM-Plant and eM- Sequencer software products have come from aerospace and automotive OEMs and suppliers, heavy engineering companies and electronics manufacturers. Some examples are given in Table I.

Table I

Company	Subsidiary of	Products	Country	Products used	Application
Freightliner	Daimler-Chrysler	Trucks	USA	eM-Sequencer	Optimisation of the assignmentof production orders to multipleassembly lines
Èolane	S.A.S. Financièrede l'Ombrée	Subcontract electronicproduct design andmanufacture	France	eMPowerPCB Assembly and    Test suite	Process design, visualisation,simulation and optimisation tospeed up new product introduction
Hella KG Hueck & Co		Lighting and electronicsfor the automotive industryas well as parts suppliesto the aftermarket	Germany	eM-Planner	Process planning, processanalysis manufacturing processmanagement
				eM-Engineer	Support for parts assembly,human modeling and offline robotics
Magellan Aerospace		Tier one supplier to theaerospace industry	UK	eM-Quality	Development of CMM programs
				eM-Measure	Off-line programming of CMMs
				eM-Insight	Sharing of CAD and inspection dataacross the extended enterprise
Swindon Pressings	BMW	Sheet metal body panels and    fabricated sub-assemblies forthe automotive industry	UK	eM-Plant	Simulation, verification andoptimisation of manufacturingprocesses and machine utilisation
Webasto AG		Sunroofs, roof systems andthermal comfort devices forthe automotive industry	Germany	eM-Planner	Improved enterprise-widecollaboration Manufacturingprocess management in earlyconcept planning
				eM-Engineer	Increased optimisation of planning,simulation, and design of theproduction and manufacturingprocesses and applications

Two examples of users achieving particular success with the Tecnomatix products are Freightliner, the leading US truck manufacturer, and Swindon Pressings, part of BMW. According to Curtis Rhodes, Industrial Engineering Manager at Freightliner LLC, his company introduced Tecnomatix' eM- Sequencer to optimise the assignment of production orders to multiple assembly lines. The aim was to achieve a constant product mix over time and a balanced workload throughout the day. The results were significant time- savings and faster product turnaround. “With eM-Sequencer we have better and more reliable parameters for optimising production planning and an overall better scheduling quality,” he says. Using it in our planning environment, “we have reduced the time to schedule a production sequence from three days to around 30 minutes”

Peter Jones, simulation engineer at Swindon Pressings, explains that simulation is now part of the daily routine in the company's site strategy and capacity planning department. “We mix and match machines as a flexible manufacturing system,” he explains. “Each production cell comprises several machines through which a batch of components is routed via various combinations of operations. With this level of complexity, simulation is crucial to our production planning, providing a good understanding of how the machines work in practice and permitting a certain amount of line balancing.” By using Tecnomatix products to model, simulate and optimse the design for a sub-assembly production line for a new generation luxury SUV, Swindon Pressings achieved a 15 per cent saving in throughput, equating to an annual saving of about £57,000. The simulation identified a bottleneck caused by material flow, which was resolved by introducing a new method of pallet changeover, increasing the batch size and therefore increasing production output.

Particularly successful products have included eM-Plant, eM-Engineer, eM- Planner and eM-Sequencer, which help in the design, visualisation, simulation and optimisation of processes and plant. Besides enabling new lines to be installed quickly, these products can be used to modify or optimise throughput in existing facilities. This work can be done offline and without interfering with current production. eM-Plant allows users to model and simulate production facilities so as to optimise material flow, resource utilisation and logistics. It can be used for all levels of plant planning from international production facilities to local plants and individual lines. eM-Engineer enables users to plan, model, visualise, simulate and optimise their manufacturing processes. eM-Sequencer creates schedules by setting priorities based on the availability of resources and capacity needed to fulfil the customer order commitments.

For further information, please contact: Tecnomatix Europe; Isabelle Pellerey; Tecnomatix Europe; 15 Avenue du Granier; 38240 Meylan, France. Tel: 00 33 4 76 41 81 04; E-mail: isabelle.pellerey@tecnomatix.com; Web site: www.tecnomatix.com