Svanehøj increased product data quality with Teamcenter PLM

“Data quality is in focus. Finding an error late in the product development process, for instance in production, is ten times more costly to fix than finding it at an earlier stage. Teamcenter helps us keep on top of that.” Svanehøj wanted to invest in a product lifecycle management system that could connect their product data and support their work processes and business goals.

The Danish deepwell pump manufacturer Svanehøj worked with Nextage to implement Teamcenter PLM that supports them in maintaining excellent customer delivery quality and streamlined work processes

Svanehøj, formerly a part of Wärtsilä group, is a Danish market-leading manufacturer of specialized deep well pumps for the marine industries within the areas of gas pumps, fuel pumps, associated products and chemicals, offshore products, as well as sales and after-sales services.

Svanehøj wanted to invest in a product lifecycle management system that could connect their product data and support their work processes and business goals. With Teamcenter, from Siemens Digital Industries, implemented by Nextage, Svanehøj found a way to unify their product information into a comprehensible digital thread.

Choosing Teamcenter with Nextage Value Package

Svanehøj chose Teamcenter implemented with Nextage Value Package (NVP). They saw the benefits of NVP, with its half pre-configured and half customer-specific setup of Teamcenter providing a data model, workflows, and reports. The package let Svanehøj get started promptly with a platform for product lifecycle management.

The result is increased data quality, and time -saving in smoother work processes.

Susannah Lund is Engineering Manager at Svanehøj:

“Tasks that earlier took days to do, are now completed in a few minutes, thanks to the workflows that interface to our ERP system. This time-saving is amongst the greatest improvements along with the increased data quality. We spend our time where we want to spend it, on innovation, not administration.”

Teamcenter implementation and deployment project

The PLM project started on December 28th, 2018. One of the risk factors was that Svanehøj only had four months to move out and export their data from Wärtsilä’s systems. In that short period, they scrutinized their work processes and decided on how they wanted to work in the future.

Svanehøj turned to Siemens partner Nextage to help implement and configure Teamcenter. As a part of being Svanehøj’s implementation partner, Nextage became an important expert discussion partner in developing and implementing new ways of working and finding solutions to data challenges.

PLM project management

Susannah Lund joined Svanehøj in March 2019 as a Design Engineer Manager and was instantly assigned project manager of implementing Teamcenter, a project that had already started. Her many years of experience working with product development processes was a big help.

Susannah Lund had several eye-openers during the pre-installation process.

“In the beginning, Nextage asked a lot of questions and challenged our way of working. I soon realized that specific solutions were suggested for a reason”, says Susannah Lund. “It was very valuable for us to have a discussion partner that dared to challenge our ways of working and suggest solutions unknown to us. This as oppose to a partner that builds what the customer asks for without questioning or urging the customer to consider future scenarios.”

The design engineers follow the same processes

Before implementing Teamcenter with NVP, Svanehøj’s designers did not have a united way of working. Now work is more streamlined which increases productivity and makes it easier to introduce new members to the team.

Time savings in the reuse of data with CAD/part separation in Teamcenter following Nextage’s advice

Svanehøj worked with 1 design: 1 part. With the new data model in NVP, one design can have any number of parts. When a design is used in multiple parts Svanehøj’s designers do not have to update as many designs as before if a change is done. This way of working is more flexible, more structured, and the engineers work as a team in order to reuse data.

The same goes for projects where instead of creating multiple drawings for different projects, one drawing can point to several projects. If a drawing is revised, all projects connected to that drawing are updated simultaneously once the drawing is amended.

The time saving for the design engineers and the project team as well as the control over revisions was significantly increased by this way of working.

Time saved also by connecting variants to parts
Svanehøj also works with separated variants to parts. From working with one drawing per variant, they now work with basic geometric design shapes to which they can add variants such as different material, color, capacity, or accessory.

“We are growing and needed to streamline ourselves to work smarter. We are not isolated but work in connection with others and the world. The world is getting more complicated and we move with it”, says Susannah Lund.

Susannah Lund’s greatest tip on working with PLM projects

  • What work processes are in place today?
  • How do we want to work in the future?
  • In what system do we wish to keep what master data?

If your company has been around for a few decades there may be a heavy load of legacy documents. There might also be miss-entries or articles where certain information is missing.

To get up and running with system support quickly, Svanehøj decided to let the system help them clean legacy data. Nextage helped implement workflows that facilitated finding and cleaning corrupted data, with them, Teamcenter finds and urges the user to correct data such as for instance, parts with missing quantities or other metrics important to the purchasing department creating the purchase orders.

“The data in Teamcenter is not yet 100 % accurate. But now we don’t have to find and amend legacy miss-entries manually, it’s automated. And we continue to make the net finer to make sure our data quality is further refined over time.”

Be open-minded to new processes. Choose a PLM-partner that challenges you and dare suggest solutions that might change your way of working.

You want to be able to develop the system as your company and the world around it changes. With customizations, updates will be difficult, and you might find yourself stuck with a system that does not evolve with your organization. Choose a system that can grow and be configured without customizations.

The PLM project does not end when the implementation project is finished. That Teamcenter can be extended and evolved as Svanehøj grows and develops, was an important factor for choosing the system.

Svanehøj vision
  • Increase data quality and enhance support for business processes.
  • Greater control and data transparency.
  • A product development platform built in a flexible manner where more PLM values and functionalities can be added as the company expands and develops.
Challenges
  • 4 months’ time frame to move out of Wärtsilä’s system into own system
  • Plenty of legacy data to be migrated from the former system to new setup of Teamcenter
Keys to success
  • Dedicated project manager and project team
  • Teamcenter NVP provided a neat data model
Results
  • Interface between Teamcenter and ERP system has reduced worktime from days to minutes.
  • Aggregated product structure makes it much easier to create new project specifications and to maintain and identify state of the art product data
  • Collaboration with digital flows between the departments has increased
  • Less manual work with information transfer between the design department and project department
  • Support for Svanehøj’s digitalization vision

“The automated workflows and the time we save on having these in place is a great benefit. Most importantly, the increased data quality helps secure customer delivery and, in the end, leads to higher profitability”, says Susannah Lund.

About Svanehøj

Svanehøj, formerly a part of Wärtsilä group, is a Danish market-leading manufacturer of specialized deep well pumps for the marine industries within the areas of gas pumps, fuel pumps, associated products and chemicals, offshore products, as well as sales and after-sales services.

www.svanehoj.com

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