MetaKON Provides
Siemens Transportation Systems

Nowadays many companies consider the Engineering and Product Data Management of being the key technology for optimizing the product development and project processing. From the using of leading-edge EDM/PDM-System one expects reduced costs and times for processing development and improved involvement of supplier and customer as well as a reliable document and data management. These and other aims are also pursued by Siemens, Transportation Systems, in Braunschweig, who has productively been working with MetaKON, the EDM/PDM-solution based on Metaphase, of the company ECS GmbH in Neumarkt since the mid of September of this year.

At present, MetaKON is applied by Siemens Transportation Systems in its  business unit TS 1, the operational management systems for long-distance transport. TS 1 develops and produces plants and systems for the long-distance rail transport and offers protection and control systems as for example train control systems. The product range of the business unit  also covers components like power switch machines and signals, electronic train controlling devices as well as complex electronic signaling  devices.

Among other things, presently Siemens TS equips the new ICE 3* with an electronic control status, first train of which are leaving the factories. This provides the ICE-train leader for example with information about distances, it monitors the speed or stops the train on time and automatically, if it is operationally required.

In the beginning of the 90‘s, Siemens TS 1 in Braunschweig has already planned to introduce the ERP/PPS-Software „SAP R/3“ in parallel, in order to support sales, purchasing, production  planning, project  controlling and accounting as well as to introduce EDM/PDM-systems of Metaphase for supporting the Engineering Process. After careful consideration, these plans, however, were turned down again, since in the expert’s opinion the introduction of two parallel systems at the same time could largely influence work processes as well as organization, thus leading to high expenditures and causing lot of problems.

SAP R/3 was introduced before EDM-System

That’s why the introduction of SAP/3 was initially tackled. The R/3 has productively been used at Siemens TS 1, since the end of 1996. At that time also the theme EDM/PDM was taken up and an according EDM/PDM-Project was initiated. The primary aims were clearly put into words: An EDM/PDM-System should support the process of technical business activities, should help to considerably improve the Configuration-Management and finally ensure the document and data consistancy. A reduction in costs of at least 15% was planned in the section of Engineering as a monetary aim.

Jens Haller, appointed as head of the EDM-project in the beginning of 1997, explained the initial situation: „From the beginning the EDM-project had a very big strategic importance“. It had a very positive effect that the aims were clearly defined and that the project-team got a strong backing  from the management. Not only meetings within the project-team were held, but also greater in-house-information  events and discussion groups of users were held. „From the start, thus, the project and the team meet with a great acceptance of the users“, underlines Jens Haller. Alone tree members of the team could exclusively look after the preparation, system choice and working hours. Moreover, representatives of the affected departments and later the user were integrated into the team, so that, as a result of intensive meetings and extensive analysis the demand were determined carefully and a step-by-step plan for the introduction of the system was worked out. The latter included to find at first a solution for the document-management and afterwards, to start with the themes Workflow- and Product-Data-Management.

In the selection of the system, the project team acted systematically. Initially, publications of the professional journals as well as frequentations of fairs and companies of system suppliers were analyzed. Then the number of systems, which should be examined more exactly, were limited to four systems. Afterwards, a detailed analysis of the products followed, at which not only the functionality buts also strategic points of view were of immediate importance.

Examples for  this were the position of the supplier on the market situation, extent of the developing team, a certain security that the respective company will still exist after five to 10 years as well as the list of the reference customers.

At first sight, all criterions seemed to be fulfilled by Metaphase. The system has a high market share, the producer Metaphase Technology is acting world-wide – for us also an important factor, as we do business on international markets with local presence and with local value-added. The enterprise Metaphase Technologies offer security for the future as a 100%-subsidiary of SDRC. Moreover, the developing team consists of about 300 developers. This is by the way of comparison a very high number if you look at other suppliers.

However, the final ideal solution was still not found with Metaphase. „Metaphase is a system, which offers a large functionality and is very flexible for adapting“, continues Haller. „It is a kind of construction kit, by which every demanded solution for applying can be practically built up specific to the company. As a rule, however, his requires quite high efforts in adapting and programming, which we wanted to avoid as far as possible.“

These were the reasons why the employees at Siemens had a good nose for the Turnkey Application of MetaKON of ECS and came to the conclusion that this would be the best solution. „Among other things we especially liked very much the new DoMS-Module of MetaKON, which comes up with graphical file structures“, says Haller. „They ease the change over to the system, the finding of documents and the respectively systematical structuring of projects and documents, as we need them. (Fig. 1)

For MetaKON the deciding factors were, moreover, the variety of available linkage or possibilities of integration with CAD and ERP/PPS-Systems. Thus, for the EDM/PDM-System are among other things, interface for R/3 as well as for I-DEAS, Pro/Engineer, CATIA, AutoCAD, Medusa, ME10, Solid Designer, Solid Edge, ObjectD and Unigraphics available. Moreover, a specific module named „Global Interface“ (GIF) will be offered, by which the most varying systems can be tied up.

The interfaces are very important to us, as our system environment is very heterogeneous“, says Haller. „We have besides Office –Applications a huge number of different Mechanical-EDA- and Electronic-CAD-Solutions like AutoCAD, Mentor, ELCAD and also self-developed special software, for example for the projecting of signaling devices. These systems have to be integrated as best as possible. MetaKON, offers a large number of connections to Mechanical-CAD-Systems on the basis of the „Global Interface“-Interface. At present, the interfaces to CAD-Systems for electrical engineering and electronics at ECS are also realized on the basis of GIF-Tools.

The experts were aware of the fact that also the introduction of a turnkey EDM/PDM-System will take up quite several months. The provision of hardware and software, installation and configuration, the scanning of documents, the deposit into the EDM/PDM-database as well as the linking of already existing software are also taking long time if hardly a customizing must be realized.

Nevertheless, only less than six months passed from the decision of purchasing in April 1998 up to the completion of the first project phase and this system has been productively applied since the mid-September of this year.

„As system supplier and system integrator, Siemens Nixdorf Business Services (SBS) became a partner of ours. From our point of view, this project size is the most effective way“ says Haller.

Nearly 500 users, nevertheless, apply the Siemens‘ EDM/PDM-system. Further 500 users are firmly expected. The decisive factor favoring SBS has also consist in the readiness to accept the short period of six months. „Moreover, the company could offer us the takeover of the main contractor for the software and hardware, so that only and solely SBS is responsible for the elimination of problems and errors“, adds Haller.

Linking to SAP R/3 within the scope of the second project phase

By using the SBS-method „Chestra“ in system conception and adaptation, the team made extremely rapid progresses. Whereas usually in the first instance all requirements are detailed put together in set books and the system is consequently configured based on it, the definition of requirement and the configuration or adaptation of the software is interactively refined by using „Chestra“. Other system integrators and consulting companies e.g. CDS Ploenzke also decide to make user similar procedure.

As the productivity switch coming out in September, documents, as well as software could now be administrated e.g. for monitoring equipments using the EDM/PDM system. AutoCAD was integrated so far, among the applied CAD-systems, additionally the office-applications. During second project phase, the EDA-system is expected to be integrated by Mentor and the Electrical Engineering-CAD-package ELCAD by Aucotec.

Furthermore, by means of the second project phase it is intended that the product data be managed via MetaKON. This is to say enabling to exactly understand all modifications and components for every project. In this connection, the system shows that the modification’s history is completed: Within the scope of this phase it is supposed to integrate SAP R/3, too, so that material stems, parts‘ lists and modifications can be automatically transmitted to the ERP/PPS-system.

„Metaphase/MetaKON renders extremely efficient workings for part’s administration and parts‘ lists“, realizes Haller. Any parts‘ lists approaches e.g. could be defined. Connectors can be built-up between the separate approaches as for example construction, manufacturing and marketing parts‘ list. By this way it can be determined, which components of the parts list e.g. appears in the manufacturing part’s list are transmitted to other approaches. In case of orders, the respective parts‘ lists will be electronically transmitted to the SAP-system.

The third project phase makes use of the workflow-functionality in such a way that the business processes of individual part sections of VT 1 can be developed in an automatic and pictured manner. For this purpose, for the time being, the respective business processes are analyzed and documented, and the implementation in the EDM/PDM-software is prepared. 

For having access to the EDM/PDM-database, Windows-NT and Unix-clients are applied dependent on the respective workstation. The server-hardware-platform for MetaKON is forming two Unix-Server of the type „Enterprise 3500“ of Sun Microsystems, of which the most important components are redundantly  laid-out. Should a machine fail, the second server is changing in few minutes from Stand-by-mode to the operation mode, and the user is again on the EDM/PDM-system. Besides, the servers are equipped with a RAID-system, which allows to add or exchange fixed discs e.g. during the operation of the server.

Consideration of economic efficiency projects high savings

In many respects Siemens VT’s staff promises themselves advantages through the EDM/PDM-solution. On the one hand, the system helps to ensure the consistency of data and documents, on the other hand it helps to reduce the additional time caused in advance by missing or not finding information and documents. Moreover, the illustration of the modification-management in the system will present important advantages and will enable a strong rationalization of the engineering-processes. „We estimate that we will save about 15 to 20% of the costs in the affected fields. During an average project, within its scope roughly 15.000 documents must be provided and administered. Thus according to our calculations savings at the rate of approximately 800.000 marks should be achieved every year.

In the long-term it is planned to make the EDM/PDM-system useful also for the different national places of business, for the partners co-operating with TS as well as for customer and suppliers. Consequently, the number of the users reaching at the same time the software and data, can require a further expansion of the hardware. As the Unix-Server-system as well as the EDM/PDM-software are scaleable and for this case we are extremely prepared.

Concerning this matter, finally Jens Haller means: “By MetaKON we use an EDM/PDM-system allowing also the divided data management. Above all, this is very important for the system order with companies situated abroad”.

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