Case Study
Capitalizing on technical and design know-how
Attrezzeria Paganelli
Process standardization enables company to significantly improve operations efficiency, reduce design time and cut labor costs
Market, customer and competitive forces drive change
Founded in 1944, Attrezzeria Paganelli first dealt with the production of molds for the cold forming of steel plate. The company served various industries, but ultimately focused on the automotive sector in the international market, providing for the design and manufacture of molds for the production of internal and external body parts. Besides producing molds to manufacture car sides for the major world automotive manufacturers – including Fiat, Alfa Romeo, Peugeot, Mercedes, Audi, Volkswagen, Skoda Ford and Opel – Attrezzeria Paganelli provides technical assistance on the installed molds at its clients’ productions sites.
The automotive market’s continuously increasing push for advanced technology, customers’ new, growing and highly diversified requirements and the demand for more sophisticated professional services at lower costs require Attrezzeria Paganelli to continuously innovate across operations. In addition, unlike the other tool-manufacturing companies, which often relocate production to other countries, Attrezzeria Paganelli pursues the ambitious target of significantly preserving its highly advanced mold expertise and innovation pursuits from its Italian home base. These factors specifically drove the company to further automate and standardize its production processes to significantly reduce the impact of labor costs.
On its way to standardization, management sought a system that would allow the visualization of digital product data in the context of the total project by operators across its workshops.
Cutting-edge background, advanced visualization
Among the first companies in Europe to acquire a computerized system (1982) for its mold making operations, Attrezzeria Paganelli has always been on the cutting edge of technology. Already a user of NX™ digital product development applications from Siemens PLM Software, Attrezzeria Paganelli selected and implemented the Siemens Teamcenter® visualization suite, with remarkable benefits the result.
The system allows the company to explore and approve the various states of product data along the whole production cycle in a completely collaborative manner. Advanced visualization features, measuring and annotation capabilities and multi-CAD system handling (made possible by the JT format) support efficient project management.
More specifically, multimedia revisions (documents, 2D drawings, 3D models and animations) utilize a single intuitive user interface. Regardless of the CAD system employed, the ideas of the various collaborators can be easily gathered and leveraged from the early phases of the process, when changes can be made for the lowest costs.One of Attrezzeria Paganelli’s NC machinery managers notes, “Teamcenter’s visualization capabilities represent an important tool for the most critical PLM processes, including project revisions, options for changes, detection of interferences and more. Design information is simply easier to re-use for accurate product reviews, and data visibility throughout the entire product development process represents a remarkable addedvalue tool for our personnel.”
Teamcenter’s visualization capabilities play an important role in managing Product Manufacturing Information (PMI) as well. PMI adds rich details to the production process, useful for the downstream stages of the product lifecycle. Teamcenter’s immersive reality is extensible to sophisticated presentation environments, such as Cave Automatic Virtual Environment (CAVE), Power Wall, virtual reality rooms and so on. Teamcenter’s functions for virtual mock-up, measurements and space analysis efficiently support managing very large assemblies.
Leveraging CAM
Attrezzeria Paganelli has met its growing manufacturing needs by selecting Siemens PLM Software’s NX. The wide range of functionalities offered by the solution – from simple milling to five-axis applications, with tools for the complete kinematics simulation of machine tools, including multiple-axis processing – helped the company’s production technicians to quickly improve the quality of its NC programs as well as the efficiency of its machines.
In NX, NC data management and process planning capabilities integrate with information management tools to create a completely managed environment for manufacturing applications. Data import and design tools are fully associative with the NC centers, allowing the production shops to rapidly adjust themselves to project changes.
Big benefits
Teamcenter’s visualization strengths and NX’s machining versatility have been instrumental in automating and standardizing Attrezzeria Paganelli’s production processes, especially advantageous in achieving a smoother and more effective approval process. The company now relies on simpler and more accurate diagnostics to identify and correct any issues early on in its production cycle and has already experienced remarkable savings relative to labor costs.
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Challenges:
- Supplying technically sophisticated products in accord with diverse customer needs
- Limiting labor costs to maintain local production
- Improving product development times and operations
Keys To Success:
- Use advanced technology to automate and standardize processes
- Implement a digital environment to allow product data visualization along the whole production chain
Results:
- More efficient management of project revisions
- Virtual detection of interferences
- Streamlined approval process
- Decreased labor costs
Industry:
- Automotive & Transportation
Client's Primary Business:
Attrezzeria Paganelli provides the design and the manufacturing of molds to the international market for the production of internal and external body parts as well as the related mold assembly.
Solutions/Services:
- NX
- Teamcenter
Client Location:
Cinisello Balsamo (MI)
Italy
"Teamcenter’s visualization capabilities represent an important tool for the most critical PLM processes, including project revisions, options for changes, detection of interferences and more. Design information is simply easier to re-use for accurate product reviews, and data visibility throughout the entire product development process represents a remarkable added-value tool for our personnel."
NC Machinery Manager
Attrezzeria Paganelli