PLM Game Changer for Herbert Meyer GmbH:
From High Costs to Significant Savings
Challenge
Special machine manufacturers like Herbert Meyer GmbH, who work to order, need close coordination between order processing, work preparation, design, and production to be able to serve their customers quickly and flexibly.
Outcome
Meyer achieves a new level of transparency by using PRO.FILE as a company-wide product data backbone between the world of CAD and ERP. Time savings, quality improvements, greater operational efficiency, and higher customer satisfaction – that’s how the Revalize solution scores points at the long-established company.
Herbert Meyer GmbH is one of the leading manufacturers of special and series machines for joining and bonding different materials. Meyer systems can be found in the clothing industry as well as at automotive suppliers, shoe and ski manufacturers, in medicine, leather processing, and much more.
- Headquarters: Roetz
- Founded: 1949
- Company Size: €10-20M
- Website: meyer-machines.com
- Employees: 150
- Industrie: Manufacturing
Make-to-Order Manufacturing
Every machine and plant manufacturer wants to serve its customers quickly and flexibly. If such companies manufacture to order, they need close informal coordination between order processing, work preparation, design, and production. The Bavarian Machinery Factory Herbert Meyer GmbH, manufacturer of special and series machines for the textile and automotive industry, has achieved that by integrating the PLM solution PRO.FILE with the ERP system APplus.
Origins of CAD Data Organization
The company has been using the SolidWorks CAD system since 1995. CAD data was initially saved at the file level. The design department created bills of materials in Excel, which were then manually entered into the ERP system in the work preparation department. Managing CAD data with Excel lists and in folder structures meant an enormous amount of work.
Linking problems arose when something was moved in Explorer, preventing the company from designing efficiently and thinking in terms of assembly structures.
Strategic Transformation
In 2008, the company decided to implement PRO.FILE as a central management tool for technical and commercial documents. The PDM/PLM solution integrates SolidWorks with the ERP system APplus from Asseco. Now, CAD data can be accessed directly from the APplus workstation. Article master data and bills of materials flow automatically into the APplus data world and processes. Sales, purchasing, and design can create articles in the ERP and transfer them to PRO.FILE after approval. On the other hand, the design department automatically generates bills of materials and parts in the PDM/PLM via a bidirectional interface and transfers them to the ERP. CAD data and drawings, including their PDFs, can be neatly managed in APplus PLM. In the past, everything was created in parallel in several systems. Now the data is collected at the source.
“Originally intended purely as a PDM, it has proven to be extremely advantageous that PRO.FILE can also be used to store and manage any other data and documents that come from the ERP system and are related to production.”
Johann Bierl
Head of Operations at Herbert Meyer
Reasons for Choosing PRO.FILE
MultiCAD Capability
During system implementation, both AutoCAD and SolidWorks were used. The company had not yet decided which CAD system to use in the future. PRO.FILE’s MultiCAD capability gave the company the greatest possible flexibility.
Process Reliability
Johann Bierl, Operations Manager at Herbert Meyer, was responsible for the entire implementation of PRO.FILE: “We were also impressed by the process reliability, which means that there are clearly defined areas for everything. The system is cleanly managed and can be administered very well via the management level. Instead of working with code, a lot can be parameterized. It is also impressive how Microsoft BizTalk Server as middleware connects the individual components with each other, thus automating business processes between ERP, PLM, and CAD.”
DMS and PLM in One
PRO.FILE can be used not only to control and document development processes in mechanical and electrical design, but also to manage and archive documents from order processing and commercial records. The purchasing department creates purchase items in the system, while the design department creates production parts or production assemblies – a standardized data backbone for the entire company.
Key Outcomes
- It used to take a good week for a bill of materials (which may comprise 150 items and more) to be created by the design department in the ERP system, and for the article to be maintained. With PRO.FILE, the time is reduced to just one day.
- After approval of the bill of materials by the design department, the work preparation department needs another two weeks plus material procurement. That means that production can begin four weeks later. Lead times between order processing and production have now been halved, meaning that production can now start after just two weeks.
- Today, the Herbert Meyer Machinery Factory saves around 20 minutes per day and per employee when searching for bills of materials, other CAD data, or commercial documents. Over the year as a whole, that’s a lot of time saved, which can make all the difference when there’s a shortage of skilled workers.
Time Savings
- Averaged per working hour: €120/h
- Bills of materials per month: 4
- 1 bill of materials before: 5 days*8 hours * €120 = €4,800
- 1 bill of materials with PRO.FILE: 1 day * 8 hours * €120 = €960
- Savings of €3,840 per bill of materials
Eliminate Tedious Typing Tasks
Because purchasing, work preparation, and design used to work with separate systems, many things didn’t run smoothly, making efficient design difficult. With PRO.FILE as an integrative system, the company now has complete control and transparency over the project and machine structure.
“Previously, everything was created in parallel in several systems, and Excel lists had to be typed manually into the ERP system. Now the data is collected at the source. Employees from the design, service, or commercial departments immediately have the process they are looking for on their screens.”
Johann Bierl
Head of Operations at Herbert Meyer
Time Efficiency and Customer Approval
Before PRO.FILE was implemented, the design department at Herbert Meyer repeatedly had to draw assemblies two or three times because it would have taken far too long to search for existing assemblies. Today, it reuses assemblies by using the “Managed Copy” module, which is also attached to work planning. It copies not only the CAD structure, but also all the drawings and work plans, and automatically adjusts the title blocks. That saves a lot of routine work, especially with very large assemblies.
Herbert Meyer also receives positive feedback from customers: Because the service department can quickly access all the necessary information via PRO.FILE and soon find the required spare parts, customer experience and support have once again improved significantly.