CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive

31 October 2007

Implementation Investments

Optima Group Roll-Out E³.series Globally for Electrical and Pneumatics Product Development

Specialist packaging machinery manufacturer, the Optima Group, recently chose the E³.series software to globally integrate their complete design operations for electrical and pneumatics product development. The beginning of this implementation has already begun in Germany and will soon be rolled out to subsidiaries in the USA, Italy, France and Brazil.

The rapid growth of the Optima Group following recent company acquisitions resulted in a fragmented design environment with multiple departments using different software for the electrical and pneumatic design of their manufacturing, filling and packaging machinery. This was impairing the company's overall productivity, quality and customer service. In 2005, Optima set out on a search to find a software environment that would meet the demands of their expanding business, increase productivity and service reliability, while cutting costs of product development and maintenance. They turned to the well-establish modular system for electro technical, wiring, wire harness, pneumatic and hydraulic engineering design, the E³.series.

"We needed a solution that would synchronize the entire process of electrical and pneumatics product development; specifically combining electrical connection, pneumatics, single-pole presentation and the structure of switchgear in a cabinet project for our machinery applications. We also needed this to work on a global scale and to have the flexibility to integrate with other environments, in particular SAP/R3, to allow us to directly control materials stock, parts lists and document administration," said Gerhard Munz, electrical project team leader at the Optima Group.

The E³.series solution features multiple modules that perform specific specialized design functions. As these are all connected in one object-oriented structure using the same database, no data transfer is required between disciplines, i.e., between the electrical cabinet schematic layout and the pneumatic systems. The ease of use and familiar Windows-based set up of the E³.series also means that it can be used as more than just a design tool - design data can be adapted to create documentation for service maintenance and the manufacturing automation process.

Gerhard Munz comments on why the E³.series integration with SAP PLM was so important for the Optima Group: "This added functionality has really opened up new opportunities for us. We can now align our SAP/R3 operations automatically, which allows us to further optimize our product lifecycle management strategy. With the E³.series, we are able to overcome our historical structure and lifecycle management issues, and with the modular structured approach, we are confident that we will be well tooled to overcome future mechatronics technology challenges."

To find out more about the E³.series visit http://www.cim-team.de/e3 or http://www.zuken.com/e3 .

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