A Deep Dive into Daimler Truck’s PLM Trend to Siemens Teamcenter

“We are aiming to build the most advanced technology for the transport of the future,” says Daimler’s Andreas Gorbach, responsible for Truck Technology.

A recent announcement officially confirmed that Daimler Truck AG has entered into a new collaboration with Siemens Digital Industries Software, and will implement a state-of-the-art digital engineering platform built on the Siemens Xcelerator portfolio. Engineering.com first reported on this a few months ago, at the end of 2022, and has also covered Daimler Truck’s journey along this path.

The new platform, currently known by the working name PLATON, is intended to replace Daimler’s old SMARAGD solution, which has been in use for production since around 2000. Siemens writes in the press release that the new platform represents the “next generation product development and lifecycle management platform to replace [a] wide range of legacy systems as part of [a] digitalization initiative.”

The new platform will enable Daimler Truck to explore a future of commercial vehicle innovation and efficient product development and lifecycle management of trucks and buses. It will be rolled out globally across Daimler Truck’s technology hubs, brands and business segments.

Daimler Truck AG, in collaboration with Siemens Digital Industries Software, will implement a digital engineering platform built on the Siemens Xcelerator portfolio and cPDm software Teamcenter. (Image courtesy of Daimler Truck AG.)

Daimler Truck AG, in collaboration with Siemens Digital Industries Software, will implement a digital engineering platform built on the Siemens Xcelerator portfolio and cPDm software Teamcenter. (Image courtesy of Daimler Truck AG.)

The good news for Siemens is that the investment in this new digital platform will significantly expand Daimler Truck’s use of the Siemens PLM portfolio, Xcelerator. The basis of the investment will be the implementation of the PLM platform Teamcenter, which in Daimler Truck’s case is extended with Bill of Materials (BOM) management as the future standard PLM solution. This environment brings together and integrates the workflows of the Daimler Truck teams, their systems and associated mechanical design, electrical design and simulation data.

A further consequence is the increased investment in Daimler Truck’s use of solutions from the entire Siemens Xcelerator portfolio, including the CAD software NX.

“Our decision to expand our relationship with Siemens is driven by the ambition to create a globally integrated IT and engineering environment for Daimler Truck,” said Andreas Gorbach, a member of the Board of Management of Daimler Truck Holding AG, and responsible for Truck Technology. “A unified IT landscape will bring our engineering activities at Daimler Truck a huge step forward. With a transparent and efficient end-to-end engineering process enabled by the new development platform, we are becoming more agile and can improve our time to market.”

The World’s Largest Truck Manufacturer

Daimler Trucks is the world’s largest truck and bus manufacturer. It holds industry-leading positions in Europe, North America and Asia, and has more than 40 headquarters around the world. With more than 100,000 employees, the company also unites seven different brands under one roof: Freightliner, Western Star, Thomas Built Buses, Mercedes-Benz, Setra, BharatBenz and FUSO.

The truck and bus divisions were previously part of the Daimler Mercedes group, but were spun off at the beginning of 2021 and became an “own” listed company. Now it is a corporately independent vehicle manufacturer and had revenues of around $45 billion in 2021, which made the company significantly larger than both the Swedish Volvo and German Volkswagen groups in the truck segment.

A Tough Fight Against PTC

According to my sources, Daimler Truck’s decision to replace its older, in-house developed product database SMARAGD with Siemens Digital Industries Software’s collaborative Product Definition management (cPDm) software came after a tough fight against PTC’s PLM solution Windchill. The Windchill platform is Volvo Group’s choice of data backbone.

The new PLATON platform will become the PLM backbone within Daimler Trucks.

BOM management is critical to profitability, and will also be managed within the framework of Teamcenter. Successful and efficient vehicle realization demands an enormous amount of capability from the system. Having effective digital tools to manage BOM data, product structures and configuration is essential. In short, it is the bread and butter of the vehicle industry.

Production of Millions of BOMs is a Critical Factor

Manufacturing in this context is literally about producing millions of BOMs every year. At the bottom line, this is closely linked to how well a company will succeed in business, and is perhaps one of the most critical factors in creating profitability.

But the investment in Siemens Teamcenter version 14 also means that the deal presumably contains integration solutions for Daimler Truck’s other major Siemens installations, such as the CAD system NX, the simulation solution StarCCM+, Capital for electrical systems and several others , e.g. SAP (ERP).

It is also notable that Daimler Truck, since its establishment as an independent unit, has begun a digitization initiative to migrate away from Daimler AG’s legacy system. The strategic intent of this is to lead the way with intelligent IT innovations. To develop the trucks and buses of the future, Daimler Truck follows a clear technology strategy where vehicles in a carbon-neutral future will be powered by both electric batteries and hydrogen-based units. These vehicles are also likely to become more intelligent through increased digitization enabling next-level services such as autonomous trucking.

Daimler Truck collaborates with Siemens Digital Industries in the design of a new integrated digital engineering and PLM platform. The picture shows Daimler Truck Holdings' head of Truck Technology, Anderas Gorbach, and Cedrik Neike, board member of Siemens AG and CEO of Digital Industries. (Image courtesy of Daimler Truck AG and Siemens AG.)

Daimler Truck collaborates with Siemens Digital Industries in the design of a new integrated digital engineering and PLM platform. The picture shows Daimler Truck Holdings’ head of Truck Technology, Andreas Gorbach, and Cedrik Neike, board member of Siemens AG and CEO of Digital Industries. (Image courtesy of Daimler Truck AG and Siemens AG.)

“Trucks are the backbone of global supply chains and Siemens will help Daimler Truck map out the future of carbon-neutral transport,” says Cedrik Neike, Board Member of Siemens AG and CEO of Digital Industries. “Daimler Truck will build its carbon-neutral future with the help of our leading technology platform, using our leading product development, lifecycle management and simulation tools.”

Replaced CATIA With Siemens NX on the CAD Side in 2014

One of the more dramatic features of the Daimler Group’s PLM support came with the earlier step it took to start moving towards the environment it has today. In 2014, Daimler Group decided to phase out Dassault Systèmes CAD program CATIA V5, and moved to a more pure product development environment based on Siemens’ flagship product in CAD, NX.

Daimler Truck’s new solution expands the Siemens environment on the Teamcenter side, and replaces the previous configuration database and the legacy solution SMARAGD. The solution will, among other things, handle the Bill of Materials page, which is one of the more critical pieces to success.