Using Teamcenter to increase BOM management

Shanghai Real Information Technology (Real Information Technology) is a leading provider of digital research and development (R&D) solutions in China serving the automotive and transportation industry since 2005. The company has two distinct business segments: digital enterprise solutions (DES) and intelligent R&D and engineering services (IES), supporting over 230 customers engaged in their digital transformations. Real Information Technology works with customers throughout the product development process from planning to design and manufacturing.

Many of Real Information Technology’s customers face issues with bill-of-materials (BOM) management. Some customers do not have internally consistent BOM management suitable to use throughout production so design, engineering and manufacturing departments need their own unique BOMs. Changes that designers make are not accurate in the BOM at the manufacturing stage of the production process.

To help its customers overcome this issue, Real Information Technology earned a specialization in using Teamcenter® software, which is part of the Siemens Xcelerator business platform of software, hardware and services. Siemens Digital Industries Software recognizes partners that demonstrate expertise in its solutions. These Siemens Expert Partners are validated by customers and Siemens for demonstrating their business and technical acumen.

“We have always maintained a close partnership as a Siemens Expert Partner and it provides us with the necessary service support so that we can jointly provide customers with high-quality services and help them achieve their digital transformation goals,” says Luo Li, general manager of the Siemens Software Development Department for Real Information Technology.

Real Information Technology leverages its expertise to provide customers with in-depth consultations on how to best use Teamcenter in its business processes. It shows companies how to introduce effective BOM management using Teamcenter to improve conversion efficiency of computer-aided design (CAD) BOMs into engineering BOMs, software BOMs and manufacturing BOMs. This makes it easier for BOMs to remain consistent throughout the product development process and help companies improve their production efficiency.

Reducing R&D cycle time by 17.5 percent

One of Real Information Technology’s customers operates in automotive assembly. The customer faced difficulties efficiently viewing digital models and accelerating approval processes in its R&D workflow. The company decided to approach Real Information Technology because of its Siemens Expert Partner recognition.

Real Information Technology identified that the customer’s data was fragmented throughout the organization. Using Teamcenter, Real Information Technology centralized the data to make retrieval more efficient. Real Information Technology also leveraged its knowledge using Teamcenter to create a companion application that allowed users to browse, present and approve data from any location.

“Our goal was to provide a simple and intuitive PLM user experience so that all users in the product lifecycle can use Teamcenter on any device at any time wherever they are,” says Liang Meng, manager of the Siemens Software Development Department for Real Information Technology.

Additionally, the customer lacked server capacity, which severely restricted the performance of its internal information technology (IT) systems. Real Information Technology helped increase the number of servers the customer could use to increase overall performance efficiency.

The customer used Teamcenter to combine R&D centers and off-site data management collaboration to reduce the R&D cycle time by 17.5 percent. The customer also saw improvements in R&D quality of 23 percent with consistent data shared between R&D teams. Overall, the project improved the company’s R&D efficiency by 14 percent.

FMEA templates improve R&D quality

Another customer of Real Information Technology produces parts for the automotive industry. The customer faced demands from clients to improve product quality. This required the customer to improve internal collaboration between R&D teams and failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA) data management.

Real Information Technology leveraged its expertise using Teamcenter to perform FMEA data organization inside of the software. This included creating FMEA templates, basic FMEA database construction and historical defect data linkage, which linked failure cases with FMEA failure modes. The customer used these templates to create required FMEA products more quickly.

Using more robust FMEA processes helped the customer improve its product design processes, which enabled it to meet client demands for improved product quality. Overall, the team improved R&D quality by 30 percent.

Taking the next steps to provide digitalization

Real Information Technology wants to expand its Teamcenter service offerings to clients and will pursue further training in several other products in the Siemens Xcelerator business platform. It believes that using Siemens’ complementary products and solutions can provide customers with an integrated and more holistic service across the product development process and help customers compete in increasingly competitive markets.