Digital production - Step 2: The Planning

Nuremberg, SPS IPC Drives 2014: Using the development and production of a Sirius contactor as an example, visitors to the Siemens booth in Hall 11 can experience firsthand the seamless integration of digital and real-life manufacturing

Last week, Magnus Edholm, the Siemens marketing director responsible for Digital Manufacturing Solutions in Germany, described the benefits of designing a product with the innovative NX tool. But when it comes to the second step – production planning – Siemens also has customized, integrated software solutions.

Mr. Edholm, production planning plays a key role in the industrial value chain. What’s new and special about the comprehensive software solution Siemens is offering with Tecnomatix?

Tecnomatix™ Digital Manufacturing uses the product design data transmitted by Teamcenter™. Planning production processes and making them safe through simulations at an early stage represents enormous added value. Tecnomatix can virtually validate individual machines and production lines as well as entire production plants and, working with SPS code, place them into operation virtually. It is even possible to simulate the workloads and working conditions of a production employee.

What are the specific benefits of these remarkable possibilities?

Tecnomatix offers enormous benefits for production planning through the simulation and optimization of planning processes. Simulating the processes, including virtual commissioning, allows us to optimize production and productivity in advance on the screen. This results in up to 40 percent savings in time and money during planning and commissioning. Product time to market becomes noticeably faster with the seamless transition from product design to planning and simulation and finally to production. The efficiency of later operation and, last but not least, the product quality can be reliably increased in a targeted manner.

The next step in digital production is engineering. How has Siemens guaranteed its seamless integration with the previous design and planning steps?

Like NX™, Tecnomatix is also based on Teamcenter and thus builds on the foundation of Product Lifecycle Management (PLM). Together, the two tools provide a comprehensive, transparent and inherently consistent engineering data pool for both product design and production planning. Data consistency delivers decisive benefits especially in engineering.