Air conditioner solutions provider uses Teamcenter and NX to reduce time-to-market by 60 percent

A fledgling turns into a behemoth

Amber Enterprises India Ltd. (Amber) is a prominent solutions provider for original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and original design manufacturers (ODMs) of air conditioners in India. Since being established in 1992, the company has become one of the largest manufacturers of white goods in India. Amber has 10 manufacturing facilities that focus on different product segments. The company has a dominant presence in the room air conditioner (RAC) complete unit market and also supplies major RAC components to prominent Indian AC manufacturers.

With expertise in components like heat exchangers, sheet metal components, injection molding components and system tubing and motors, Amber has strongly positioned itself in the market in terms of quality, cost and delivery timelines. Over the years, Amber has acquired expertise in manufacturing AC and non-AC components, and now boasts a diversified product portfolio, which includes: split and window ACs for commercial and residential use; package ACs for Indian Railways and commercial use; multi-flow condensers; home appliances like washing machines, refrigerators and microwaves; luminaries for commercial use; plastic extrusion sheets; vacuum forming components and auto parts.

Amber is an International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 9001 - 2008 certified company, and its relentless focus on quality and processes has earned them a client list of who’s who in the manufacturing sector.

Achieving more rapid new product introduction

During its journey toward product excellence and growth, Amber encountered formidable challenges in new product development (NPD) initiatives. Amber realized that after quality, time-to-market was the most crucial criterion for the continuous growth of the company. Previously, the company had taken a manual approach toward managing data and design. Amber stored all its data – including computer-aided design (CAD) and non-CAD files – on individual systems, randomly copied and pasted project data, and manually named CAD revisions, released project drawings and handled change management.

This proved to be an impediment to faster NPD because it resulted in depending on individual systems, which led to data duplication, confusion and loss of time, knowledge and resources. Amber wanted to systematize data management so its users could conduct faster data searches that would enable them to easily secure, re-use, share and revise data, and allow their cross-functional and multi-location teams to collaborate seamlessly during product development.

To achieve all these objectives, Amber turned to product lifecycle management (PLM) specialist Siemens Digital Industries Software and selected Teamcenter® software and NX™ software for its data management needs. The company used Teamcenter foundation and engineering process management for NX data, which provided tight integration of Teamcenter and NX. The open architecture and flexibility of Teamcenter enabled the Amber team to seamlessly manage all its data and do away with all manual data management practices. The team exploited the data management and distribution capabilities of Teamcenter and achieved all its NPD objectives, and easily secured, re-used, and shared data with cross-functional and multi-location teams.

Better data management leads to better results

Amber reaped impressive results due to the new approach of digitizing their data management practices with Teamcenter and NX. Using Teamcenter and NX enabled the company to put all its NPD initiatives on a fast track as it used seamless coordination and design re-use to reduce design time by 60 percent. Amber also increased its overall productivity by 60 percent and realized cost savings of 50 percent.