Implementation case of PDM Application in the hott

PDM (Product Data Management) technology is a theory that rose abroad in the 1980s to manage product related data in the product life cycle of enterprises. It inherits and develops the advantages of multiple systems such as design resource management, design process management, information management, and applies advanced technologies such as concurrent engineering methodology, network technology, database technology, Effectively solve the enterprise "bottleneck" problems such as enterprise information integration and process optimization management

the author is a PDM implementer of Beijing Exeter company, who has helped many enterprises implement PDM systems. Next, an enterprise in the electrical switch industry implemented by the author will make an introduction to the case of PDM implementation, because this enterprise has strong industry typical characteristics and certain characteristics of large and medium-sized state-owned enterprises. I hope that this case can provide some useful help to those enterprises who want to implement it

Tianshui Changcheng Switchgear Factory is an important backbone enterprise specialized in switch manufacturing in the domestic power transmission and transformation equipment industry. The leading products mainly include: medium and high voltage complete sets of control equipment, vacuum circuit breakers, medium and low voltage electrical components, bus ducts, etc. The enterprise has passed the ISO9000 quality system certification and has established a standardized management system. With the rapid development of information technology, enterprise leaders are keenly aware that without a good grasp of information technology, it will be difficult to stand in a favorable position in the market. Therefore, the enterprise has started cad/capp projects since the 1980s, and has successively purchased some software, which has also achieved good economic benefits. However, with the diversification of products, the specialization of customers' requirements for products and the increasingly urgent delivery time, the market competition is becoming increasingly fierce; On the other hand, with the continuous development and expansion of the enterprise, the drawings, product data, resources and experience of the enterprise are constantly increasing and enriched. It is increasingly difficult to meet the needs of the market and modern management by relying on the original simple CAD and workshop level manual information management mode at the "drawing board" level. Therefore, it is urgent to implement an enterprise level integrated PDM (Product Data Management) system. Therefore, changkai plant began to prepare for the implementation of enterprise informatization. After nearly a year of type selection research and analysis, it finally decided to choose xtpdm products of Beijing Tsinghua Exeter software group as the integration platform of the whole enterprise informatization technology

in the process of implementation, the factory took the problems faced in business activities as the starting point, comprehensively considered the actual situation of enterprise computer application, the management background, the quality of the staff, the future development of the enterprise (including the application of new management technologies and concepts), and established the implementation plan, including benchmark product design, engineering product design, process design, production application, and data management, At the same time, an implementation organization led by the chief engineer has been established, and a series of management systems and enterprise management standards have been established to promote implementation and application. And has established a long-term cooperative relationship with Beijing Tsinghua Exeter software group, which has laid a foundation for the cultivation of enterprise reserve talents and the sustainable development of the enterprise

main problems faced by the enterprise

after the cooperative relationship was determined, the implementation personnel carried out a detailed and comprehensive investigation in the enterprise and found that the main problems faced by the enterprise include two aspects:

the main problems in the product development stage are: long development cycle, manifested in low utilization of existing data, more repeated modifications, and poor data consistency; The development means are poor, which is reflected in the low degree of data sharing, less analog design, and poor consistency of work in all stages of the design; The organization and management are backward, and the personnel organization, data management, project coordination, process control, etc. are all manual management

the main problems in the project management stage are: long design cycle, low data reuse rate, many manual statistics of bill of materials and statements, and imperfect management systems such as approval, change and distribution; The process preparation is slow, which is manifested in the low utilization of CAD data; Plan management is difficult, which is reflected in the unclear progress of the project and the inability to carry out work in parallel; Production management is difficult, which is manifested in inaccurate procurement, processing and assembly data, frequent changes and rework; The difficulty in cost management is manifested in the difficulty in controlling the costs of design, processing and sales

the main reasons for the above problems are: first, various professional software (xtmcad used by the benchmark product design department, electrical CAD used by the engineering product design department, CAPP, cam, pro/e used by the process department, etc.) are self-contained, and the data transmission is completely manual copying, resulting in many errors, repetitions, and rework; Second, due to the long coordination cycle and the serial management mode, there is a lack of rapid communication tools within and between departments

establish implementation objectives and plans

in view of these problems existing in the enterprise, the cooperative parties jointly studied and negotiated, and established the overall goal of xtpdm implementation as follows: establish a complete data model of all products in the enterprise (including benchmark product design data, engineering product design, process data and management data, etc.), and gradually establish an enterprise level data sharing and collaborative work platform on this basis, Overall, improve the efficiency of product design and development, and shorten the technical preparation time required for product manufacturing

according to the general objectives established above, a step-by-step implementation plan is formulated as follows:

Step 1: sort out all product resources within the enterprise and store them in the xtpdm product database, realize the effective management of the existing product resources of the enterprise, and solve the problem of low repeated utilization of product resources caused by decentralized management

step 2: determine the enterprise coding system, improve the basic database required by the design, such as standard parts library, material library, purchased parts library, electrical components library, ensure the effectiveness and accuracy of the data source, and lay a foundation for the standardization of product information

step 3: implement product configuration, ensure effective management of engineering construction process, and provide complete and accurate data for production and process departments

step 4: implement process management, establish an enterprise level parallel work environment, including project management, workflow management, task review, change management, etc., establish an effective and controllable collaborative work environment among departments, further improve the electronic management level of the enterprise, and lay a solid foundation for the take-off of the enterprise

step by step implementation and benefit analysis

according to the implementation plan, the implementation personnel of Exeter company and the implementation team members in the enterprise began detailed and specific implementation work. After the happy cooperation between the two sides, in a short period of half a year, It solves the following bottleneck problem of product data management for enterprises:

it solves the problem of difficult management of enterprise product structure: xtpdm organizes engineering data with the core of paying special attention to the short product structure of experimental grounding wire as far as possible, and the hierarchical relationship of enterprise product data is clearly visible under the clear product structure view. At the same time, it provides query, modification and data organization based on product structure, which plays an important role in the management of enterprise product data? quot; once the headrope of a fishing net is pulled out , all its meshes open "Function.

solves the security problems of enterprise product data: Based on the database, xtpdm stipulates different use permissions of data resources according to different roles through dynamic role management and built-in browsing tools.

solves the retrieval problem of enterprise product data: xtpdm provides a variety of query methods, which can be queried not only according to the attributes of drawings, but also according to the mutual relationship of product structure Query. Through effective safety, it can also be used to quickly adjust the experimental space management system when no-load, which can meet the needs of technicians for enterprise data to the greatest extent within the scope of safety, that is, "accurate people get accurate information and accurate versions at the right time"

solves the process management problem of the technology department: with the deepening of the "drawing board project", after the drawing work of the enterprise technology department is completely completed on the computer, the original work driving mode based on paper media of the enterprise hinders the production efficiency of the engineering technology department to some extent. How to find an appropriate inclusion that can meet the requirements of engine oil? I believe everyone knows the electronic process management means of enterprises, which has become a problem that enterprises need to further solve, and this is also the key technology to be solved by product data management technology. PDM currently provides a workflow management module. Enterprises can customize work links according to their own conditions, and use embedded browsing tools to complete browsing and annotation tasks in the whole work process

it solves the problem of processing enterprise product data: the process design, production organization, material supply, logistics management, external cooperation and other business activities of manufacturing enterprises should use data information based on product structure, which is expressed in various forms currently used by enterprises. PDM provides an interactive custom table tool, which can generate any complex enterprise table, and provides a variety of statistics, summary and expansion methods

solved the problem of product reorganization. In order to meet the personalized requirements of users, enterprises need to properly reorganize existing product resources to reduce product design and tooling costs. In xtpdm environment, user orders can be defined, and the definition data is directly reflected in the product structure. Xtpdm adopts the configuration file method to manage the configuration. Based on the basic product model, a new product structure based on the basic model can be created by appropriately adding, modifying and deleting the configuration, and the variant design of the product can be completed quickly in the environment of xtpdm

solves the integration problem of engineering and production fields: xtpdm can well realize the integration of different platforms and avoid the problem of data dispersion. It provides a working environment that supports parallel work, so that product design, technical preparation and production preparation are carried out alternately, and the product development cycle is shortened. Due to the integration of CAD, CAPP and production supporting system, one part can be transferred after the engineering design is completed, and the technical preparation can be carried out for the process, and the production preparation can be carried out for the production. As soon as the engineering design is completed, various preparations have been basically completed, and problems can be found in time, returned to the previous procedure, and corrected in time. Only this one can shorten the production preparation cycle by more than one month

it solves the problem of extracting enterprise engineering information: with the continuous deepening of "drawing board project", CAD software (two-dimensional and three-dimensional) has become the main tool for enterprises to define products. How the engineering information contained in CAD files enters the production organization department is one of the key links to improve production efficiency. PDM and CAD series products are closely integrated, providing a tool for extracting engineering information from open CAD software

due to the great flexibility of xtpdm management software, it is difficult to measure some benefits with exact values. When enterprises introduce xtpdm system, they should not only focus on economic benefits, but also bring the biggest strategic benefits that cannot be expressed in money

summary

as an enabling technology, PDM mainly organizes, accesses and controls all product data in enterprises. It is an essential major infrastructure technology for the reconstruction and development of enterprises. The implementation of various advanced management plans of enterprises, such as the reconstruction of enterprise business process, concurrent engineering, ISO9000 international quality system certification and so on, are also inseparable from PDM

enterprises should implement PDM