Using improved data control and access to reduce R&D cycle time by 45 percent

Established in 1991, Shanghai Smart Digital Technology (SDT) serves customers in the Chinese automotive industry, helping them implement digitalization strategies in their product lifecycle management (PLM) processes. The company has built an expert professional implementation and development service team of more than 50 people that helps customers optimize their use of PLM software.

SDT is a Siemens Expert Partner in Teamcenter® software. Siemens Digital Industries Software recognizes partners that demonstrate expertise and competency in one of its solutions and industries. These Siemens Expert Partners are validated by customers and Siemens for demonstrating their superior business and technical acumen. Siemens Expert Partner status has helped SDT gain the trust of potential clients, acting as proof of the company’s implementation capabilities. As a Siemens Expert Partner, SDT believes that it’s important to continue improving its understanding of Teamcenter and its potential uses in its key industries.

Bao Zhiwen, project director at SDT, says, “Teamcenter is an industry-leading management tool in the PLM field. With evolving emerging technologies and the increasingly severe business challenges customers face, SDT will continue to stay informed about changes and provide better service experiences to our customers.”

The company decided to specialize in Teamcenter because of the wealth of features it provides, including process management, permission management and project management. As market competition increases, many companies need to reduce their development time to rapidly release products. SDT believes that Teamcenter enables companies to optimize their development processes by making data easier to access, as well as unifying company divisions to support frictionless collaboration between teams.

SDT also provides its customers with regular cross-project reviews prepared by its expert implementation and development teams. These reviews help customers track project milestones and understand implementation blueprints while ultimately enabling them to make more informed decisions about their digitalization plans.

Unifying departments with Teamcenter improves R&D efficiency

One of SDT’s customers faced extensive issues in its research and development (R&D) process. It was using an outdated PLM system, which could not be used to scale with the company as it expanded. After implementation, the company needed to increase R&D staff by 30 percent. The legacy system was sluggish, with many members of the R&D team complaining that it was unusable. The issue diminished the company’s R&D efficiency, resulting in extended product development cycles.

The customer decided to partner with SDT because of its successful experiences with PLM and its service model, which allows for long-term support rather than merely a short-term implementation plan. Consultations with the customer allowed SDT to develop an understanding of the customer’s business, helping it to identify areas that required additional support. For this customer that meant stress testing Teamcenter to confirm it responds well to further increases in personnel and future-proofing the system by examining any potential business models the customer might want to manage via PLM.

SDT’s expert support enabled the customer to integrate all stages of the development process into Teamcenter, allowing for smoother upstream-downstream communication. The successful implementation of Teamcenter throughout the company meant that SDT was able to control all project development processes. R&D designers found the system much easier to use than the previous PLM, helping to improve R&D efficiency by 32 percent.

Cross-product synergies shorten development cycles by 45 percent

Another SDT customer was a new company operating in the automotive and transportation industry. It faced R&D data fragmentation and accessibility issues indicative of poor data management. Clients were also setting tight project schedules, which the company had difficulty meeting.

SDT recommended a combined solution that incorporated Teamcenter and NX™ software for computer-aided design (CAD). Teamcenter and NX are part of the Siemens Xcelerator business platform of software, hardware and services. These products integrate seamlessly with each other, allowing the customer to easily meet internal PLM management needs and comply with audit requirements of upstream original equipment manufacturers (OEMs).

SDT helped the customer to organize data inside Teamcenter. This allowed more effective data control as well as improved access. Additionally, all engineers were now able to design online inside a single system, improving R&D efficiency and shortening project development cycles by 45 percent.

Siemens Xcelerator enables new ways of thinking

The team at SDT believes that Siemens Xcelerator provides a new approach to digitalizing industrial companies by connecting existing Siemens platforms (such as Teamcenter and NX) and helping users to build, integrate and expand their existing data and network systems.

Regarding the company’s relationship with Siemens, Zhou Qin, business director of SDT, says, “SDT has worked closely with Siemens for many years and has experienced strong business development with their support. SDT will continue to develop its expertise in PLM software and share its rich industrial experience with more customers.”