At the invitation of AUCOTEC, on 18 November 2009 engineering experts from different industrial sectors met in Frankfurt to discuss the optimization of their design and development efforts. This was the first of a series of expert panels to which AUCOTEC will invite annually in the future. The focus of the first panel was on the reusability of planning and manufacturing documents once they have been produced. This is a milestone in the further automation and rationalization of engineering processes. This kind of modular operation is only possible with standardization and an effective variant configuration, however. Yet in each business there are quite different obstacles that prevent or hamper standardization. This starts with individual customer requests, which are an important factor for later satisfaction. However, these often are collide with the simultaneous wish for a low-cost product.
Who profits?
What can be done to solve the problem? Do standards and individual products contradict each other? How many single solutions can a company afford? These were the questions the Hanover-based system house Aucotec asked its customers at a forum in November 2009, where engineering experts from companies representing quite different branches discussed the matter and in some cases offered approaches of their own. Despite different requirements one goal is common to all: Save resources.
The standardization benefits not only the design and the assembly by generating higher throughput rates and better quality, but also the purchasing department by more favorable prices, the service by shorter setup and idle times or the sales department by higher flexibility once the question of the variant design has been solved efficiently.
As key speaker, Reto Lerchner from the Swiss Ferag AG talked about his experience. He is head of the plant engineering at Ferag and a pioneer in standardized, open, database-driven electrical engineering with Aucotec's most recent software generation. Karsten Tischer from the globally operatin
g process engineering expert Bühler also came from Switzerland.
A question of definitions
One participating rail vehicle expert put it like that: "Whoever wants to use documentations repeatedly, must deal with variants. And the optimum standardization does not function without reducing the variant units with matching option selection." An important result of the exchange of experiences was the unanimous realization that the proper definition of the standardization units is essential for successful variant handling. Thus a forum participant reported about a template repertoire containing 400 variants for drives alone. Here the maintenance effort is much too great. It is better to define smaller standardized units and to instead enable the selection of additional options. Thus the number of variants is distinctly reduced, and both the clarity and the selection are vastly facilitated.
The trick therefore is to properly define the standardization basis. The same holds for the options. If a brake is considered an option for the motor, then the terminals should be specified as well because otherwise the variety of options becomes too large and thus too confusing and labor-intensive.
As much as necessary, as little as possible
When one thinks about standardization, a question always to be asked is whether the standardization is follow the processes or the processes are to follow the standardization. This question was also heatedly discussed at the forum, but it seems that here the famous phrase: "It all depends..." applies because a generally applicable rule was not found.
To reduce the manufacturing expenditure, some companies have simply integrated certain options routinely into their finished product; they are made available and charged only on request. Another possibility is to always equip the product with a former option. Questions concerning expenditure and benefits should always be asked when dealing with variant definitions: Is this variant/option actually necessary? What are the consequences for data management? By how much does the complexity increase, and what about the compatibility with other items of the template? Does the flexibility of my catalog suffer? And finally: Is it ensured that the input into the software is done in qualified manner? The participants of the first AUCOTEC forum took this fundamental usefulness check home as a welcome procedural guideline.
Aucotec-Vorstand Uwe Vogt(2vre) mit Teilnehmern beim Varianten-Forum
Additive or subtractive?
Once the variants have been defined, there are several possibilities to make them available for putting together a machine or plant so that in the end a 100% documentation for manufacturing is available. Here the branch also matters. In rail vehicle construction for example, often the so-called 150% template (maximum plan) is used, where all defined options are included and unnecessary items must only be crossed out. A different approach is the modular method, where the designer uses his module library to select the items to be used for assembling the product. The generation of the diagram and the assignment to the real machine is then taken over by the CAE software quasi at the push of a button.
Prerequisites for the design software
However, a software package must meet certain preconditions for the standardization and modular operation to be possible. On the one hand database-driven operation is the most efficient method to be able to quickly use comprehensive libraries without data discontinuities and interfaces. On the other hand a widespread programming language is important because the introduction of new variants or options into the templates usually also entails changes of the copying routines and requires the corresponding skills.
Here the object-oriented and database-driven Engineering Base, the most recent software generation from Aucotec, could score amply. The planning tool uses the Microsoft SQL server as database and VBA as a very widely used programming language. A number of listeners made enquiries about migration options and periods while still there, with the aim to be able to use the latest developments for standardization and optimum resource exploitation. Because despite the lively discussion the forum participants agreed on one point: top-quality products cannot be planned with an average software product.
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