Success Story Flottweg SE

From PDM to PLM

Flottweg stands by its “Engineered For Your Success” motto and has 60 years of experience of separation technology and top product quality, Made in Germany. The medium-sized company’s success is based on expertise, responsibility and respect. Such a corporate approach ensures Flottweg’s all-round process and application know-how as well as solutions tailored to customer needs, aspects that equally apply to CIDEON. Since the launch of an innovative product data management (PDM) system, Flottweg had been able to significantly reduce the time required to manage its engineering data. This took place CIDEON and Flottweg: In the top 3 with ECTR via the PDM system function for processing all engineering information, data and procedures – everything centrally in one place. As part of its digital transformation towards a connected value creation and production process, Flottweg, together with its process consultant CIDEON, then opted to take the next logical step without compromising the already achieved level in digital engineering. The aim was to standardize the tried-and-tested PDM process, including the CAD system, and to develop it into a fully integrated product lifecycle management (PLM) process.

Fully integrated SAP PLM process

“Process efficiency requires process integration,” explains Stefan Winzer, process consultant at CIDEON, adding: “Implementing SAP ECTR improves how departments and processes work together.” However, this often requires the IT system landscape to undergo consolidation and harmonization. A good way to achieve this at Flottweg was therefore standardizing different CAD and PDM systems and implementing the SAP Engineering Control Center (ECTR). What makes ECTR so special? “ECTR enables all cloud or ‘on premise’ engineering data to be integrated into SAP PLM, quickly and securely linking it to an organization’s business data. Engineering processes are also optimally supported, and any downstream processes can also be directly integrated into SAP,” explains the process consultant from CIDEON.

SAP ECTR integration

In addition to secure data transfer via ECTR, i.e., between CAD and SAP, other significant benefits are also improving Flottweg’s data management, e.g., in change management, plant design and planning, as well as in production, IT and product documentation. The system provides significant efficiency gains in managing plant design and planning projects by eliminating duplicate data effort. By replacing the PDM system and using SAP ECTR, improvements can also be made to the entire product development process across all departments. Moreover, ECTR eliminates the need for specific interfaces to SAP because the data is retrieved directly from the SAP system. Data here is then always up-to-date. System administration effort is also noticeably reduced, while data consistency is increased. ECTR at Flottweg now provides an integrated overview of BOMs, drawings and material data. This simplifies documentation preparation for the machine or system in question.

Project implementation including CIDEON SAP PLM tools

The project was fully implemented by Flottweg in collaboration with CIDEON. It commenced with a 6-month proof of concept in 2019. This was followed by implementation and optimization phases. The focus was on SAP ECTR integration for SOLIDWORKS and the import of SOLIDWORKS and Inventor data into SAP. “Iterative phases of the main project existed, each of which underwent agile implementation. Milestones included establishing a fully integrated PLM-ERP system, migrating inventory data from PDM systems to SAP PLM, and optimizing the overall process – all remotely performed due to COVID-19,” says the CIDEON process consultant. Flottweg reaffirms the project’s success: “From our point of view, all project goals were achieved, and project planning was good and realistic. The excellent teamwork between Flottweg and CIDEON was particularly special on all levels,” says Thomas Dax-Schneider from Flottweg's IT-SAP Consulting PLM team. He said this included the highly successful transfer to operational SAP PLM via CIDEON software maintenance, customer care and annual consulting budget. “The next updates and minor optimizations are being planned,” concludes Flottweg expert Thomas Dax-Schneider.