Transportation LEITNER Alpine technology/urban mobility leader streamlines global operations using Siemens PLM Software solutions Products NX, Teamcenter, Femap Business challenges Consolidate design and development operations across global sites Integrate the management of mechanical and electrical design, structural analysis and NC programming Reduce cycle time from order to delivery Keys to success NX for the development of full 3D models Teamcenter for the integrated management of all design information Femap for structural analysis associated to the 3D model NX CAM for the generation of NC programs directly from the 3D model Results Implementation of a four-tier architecture with a single data repository Rope systems specialist utilizes real-time release process to reduce costs Promoting innovation For 125 years, LEITNER has been a syn- onym for high performance in cable car technology. Over more than one century, the company has grown into a world-class organization with its core business in installations for winter resorts – cable cars, gondola lifts, chairlifts, funiculars, cliff rail- ways and button lifts. The company also manufactures snow groomers and tracked vehicles (PRINOTH), snowmaking systems (DEMACLENKO), urban ropeways (MINIMETRO) and wind turbines (LEITWIND). The resulting group has seven brands, including AGUDIO, with longstand- ing experience in material transportation. “Today, we are leaders in the winter busi- ness because we can deliver a full package to ski resorts, providing an essential com- petitive benefit, especially in new markets where operators setting up new ski resorts from scratch prefer to have a single sup- plier for all equipment,” says Alois Sparber, chief information officer (CIO) at LEITNER. “We are also growing fast in the wind power industry. Direct-drive wind genera- www.siemens.com/plm
Transcript
Transportation
LEITNERAlpine technology/urban mobility leader streamlines global operations using Siemens PLM Software solutions
ProductsNX, Teamcenter, Femap
Business challengesConsolidate design and development operations across global sitesIntegrate the management of mechanical and electrical design, structural analysis and NC programmingReduce cycle time from order to delivery
Keys to successNX for the development of full 3D modelsTeamcenter for the integrated management of all design informationFemap for structural analysis associated to the 3D modelNX CAM for the generation of NC programs directly from the 3D model
ResultsImplementation of a four-tier architecture with a single data repository
Rope systems specialist utilizes real-time release process to reduce costs
Promoting innovationFor 125 years, LEITNER has been a syn-onym for high performance in cable car technology. Over more than one century, the company has grown into a world-class organization with its core business in installations for winter resorts – cable cars, gondola lifts, chairlifts, funiculars, cliff rail-ways and button lifts. The company also manufactures snow groomers and tracked vehicles (PRINOTH), snowmaking systems
(DEMACLENKO), urban ropeways (MINIMETRO) and wind turbines (LEITWIND). The resulting group has seven brands, including AGUDIO, with longstand-ing experience in material transportation.
“Today, we are leaders in the winter busi-ness because we can deliver a full package to ski resorts, providing an essential com-petitive benefit, especially in new markets where operators setting up new ski resorts from scratch prefer to have a single sup-plier for all equipment,” says Alois Sparber, chief information officer (CIO) at LEITNER. “We are also growing fast in the wind power industry. Direct-drive wind genera-
tors are based on a working principle similar to our ski lifts.”
With 3,300 employees and approaching its one billion euro revenue target, LEITNER Group (LEITNER) invests consistently in research and development (R&D) to pro-mote innovation.
Distributed design, reduced costsThe group’s product portfolio is very large, with design and manufacturing operations distributed among different integrated companies. Concept and initial offer are often based on simple 2D drawings show-ing the layout of stations and gondolas. The technical department team then develops parts in 3D, re-using a significant number of components and assemblies from previous projects.
Well-managed standardization and classifi-cation systems are critical to the success of LEITNER and its strategic partner, POMA. LEITNER is the majority owner of POMA. While the businesses operate indepen-dently, they collaborate on such activities as the purchase of raw materials.
To add value to the design of cable cars, gondolas and utility vehicles, whose suc-cess no longer depends almost entirely on functionality but now also on visual impact, the company collaborates with famous designers. Some snow groomers were designed by Pininfarina, and LEITNER’s designers are now creating new top-class gondolas with interiors by BMW.
Results (continued)Real-time release process, eliminating synchronization delays among different sitesReduction of costs due to the re-creation of existing objects
“ We don’t yet have exact figures for the economic benefits resulting from deploying Teamcenter, but we have no doubts about significant savings and potential savings. Already, we have minimized the number of servers, elimi-nated overtime hours and cut costs for the production of parts that already exist.”
Alois Sparber CIO LEITNER
“ …direct integration between NX CAM, NX CAD and Teamcenter provides us with a single-model source, eliminating data conversion.”Christian Allegrini Research and Development LEITNER
Until 2012, design was scattered across multiple sites, with five main centers in Sterzing, Bozen, Vienna, Telfs and Turin, as well as two additional sites in France for the POMA and SIGMA brands. There is also a central hub that synchronizes project information across all sites. LEITNER addressed this issue with the implementa-tion of product lifecycle management (PLM) technology, deploying Siemens PLM Software’s Teamcenter® software. The use of Teamcenter enabled LEITNER to reduce the number of active sites and laid the foundation for creating a unified organiza-tion, with a single hub, three main sites in Europe and one site in North America.
Sparber explains that there were a number of compelling reasons to streamline infor-mation exchange and data synchronization across all sites. Moreover, the resulting large-scale deployment of the Teamcenter solution delivered significant benefits rela-tive to a distributed, collaborative design team. “We have different units working for the rope technology division,” says Sparber. “Therefore, integration is a key factor for efficiency. Until 2010, updates and synchronizations had a rigid time schedule, with possible risks of misalign-ment and obsolete data. Now, with the four-tier architecture of Teamcenter, all information is released in real time.”
Sparber notes, “We wanted to simplify, streamline and cut costs without impacting quality. Having decreased the number of servers to manage, we are reducing costs dramatically. Conversely, we needed to expand bandwidth; however, this is avail-able at affordable prices today, so it is a
natural step. We don’t yet have exact figures for the economic benefits resulting from deploying Teamcenter, but we have no doubts about significant savings and potential savings. Already, we have mini-mized the number of servers, eliminated overtime hours and cut costs for the production of parts that already exist.”
Integration across sitesThe dissemination of Teamcenter at all levels of the LEITNER Group is clearly indi-cated by the number of installed licenses: 213 at LEITNER’s Vipiteno, Italy site and 25 at its Granby (Québec), Canada site, which represents the access point to America, as well as 90 for server management at the POMA facility in France. The integration project was supported by the availability of faster networking infrastructures and the continuous evolution of Siemens PLM Software solutions. “Siemens PLM Software technology has been an essential part of enabling us to reduce the number of servers we support and related costs,” notes Sparber. “Exceptional PLM advance-ments have enabled us to centralize and streamline all management and configura-tion tasks.”
Today, Teamcenter is utilized for data management by approximately 85 engi-neers who use Siemens PLM Software’s NX™ software as well as other mechanical and electrical computer-aided design (CAD) packages. That covers 210 users, 70 of which are design-based. “With Teamcenter, we manage all engineering activities in the technical department – including bills of materials (BOMs), all mod- els and drawings, technical specifications
“ Our goal is to harmonize all processes in the technical area to reduce the number of components as well as increase the re-use of compo-nents, drawings and part programs. In this way, we will cut both time-to-market and costs. Already, lead time for a plant, from order to delivery of the manufacturing bill, has shrunk to six months. If you don’t have ready-to-use key components, it is impossible to meet such strict deadlines.”
Luca Caspani PLM Manager LEITNER
“ …minimized the number of servers, eliminated overtime hours and cut costs for the production of parts that already exist.”Alois Sparber CIO LEITNER
and other documents, release states – up to the stage where products enter the ERP (enterprise resource planning) system.”
By the end of 2013, the entire organiza-tion will be standardized on LEITNER’s ERP system. Direct and seamless integration between PLM and ERP was a critical perfor-mance factor. “We have great expectations from standardization. Our goal is to har-monize all processes in the technical area to reduce the number of components as well as increase the re-use of components, drawings and numerical control (NC) pro-grams,” says Luca Caspani, PLM manager at LEITNER. “In this way, we will cut both time-to-market and costs. Already, lead time for a plant, from order to delivery of the manufacturing bill, has shrunk to six months. If you don’t have ready-to-use key components, it is impossible to meet such strict deadlines.”
Not only engineeringMany non-CAD professionals at LEITNER also use Teamcenter. Their use includes the management of numerous purchasing and production documents. The company is now considering upgrades, including adding special change management func-tionality and advanced classification tech-nology, and possibly implementing a shape recognizer.
“Another essential integration project involves mechatronics,” says LEITNER’s Christian Allegrini, Research and Development, Rope Technology. “Until recently, electrical design wasn’t inte-grated with Teamcenter and we were losing control of the situation. At the end of 2012, we launched a process to inte-grate our electrical design offices, because we realized the high value of having the electrical system integrated with the NX model. After several meetings, discussions and analyses, we made the decision to use Teamcenter to manage electrical engineer-ing data, which we create using special-ized electrical CAD software.”
Customer’s primary businessLEITNER Group is a global leader in ropeways, snow groomers and tracked vehicles, snowmaking systems, urban transport and wind turbines. www.leitner-ropeways.com
Customer locationSterzing, Bozen Italy
“ We used to have a stand-alone 2D CAM package. Since introducing NX, the number of 3D models has increased exponentially, so direct inte-gration between NX CAM, NX CAD and Teamcenter pro-vides us with a single-model source, eliminating data conversion.”
Christian Allegrini Research and Development LEITNER
Sparber points out, “It’s important that the entire design process be on a unified plat-form, shared and accessible to all LEITNER engineers. We feel that mechanical and electrical engineering must be integrated to increase efficiencies, and for this pur-pose we rely on Teamcenter.”
The same is true for finite element analysis (FEA) and finite element modeling (FEM) applications. LEITNER’s engineers had been using distinct applications for structural analysis. Now, analysis is integrated with Teamcenter and NX, so that calculations can be executed during the design and development phase, without exporting or converting 3D models. “In this way, possible modifications are immediately reflected via structural analysis,” says Allegrini. “When a component changes, we can immediately identify all associated calculations. For structural analysis, we have selected Siemens PLM Software’s Femap™ software. We are adopting Femap at Leitwind, our wind power division, and
then plan to extend the software to our Ropeways business unit, acquiring many licenses for our R&D team.”
LEITNER has also implemented computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) technology, with a machine tool pilot project currently underway. The computer numerical con-trol (CNC) output files, setup sheets, and tool lists are all generated by NX CAM from the NX model. Full associativity between design and manufacturing applications allows any subsequent changes to be auto-matically updated.
“Working on three shifts, our numerical control machinery operators always have the machining program available to download,” says Allegrini. “We used to have a standalone 2D CAM package. Since introducing NX, the number of 3D models has increased exponentially, so direct integration between NX CAM, NX CAD and Teamcenter provides us with a single-model source, eliminating data conversion.”
