Former PLM director discusses how Electrolux Professional consolidated on PTC's Windchill PLM and Creo CAD.
When it comes to basic CAD and PLM/PDM implementation, one thing is clear: it can be a long and complicated journey approaching anything resembling the smooth product development workflows envisioned at the start. This is especially true for expansive companies, that continuously buy up others, or spin-off from giant corporations.
Just ask Lars Örnholmer, former global PLM director at Electrolux Professionals, a spin-off from the appliance giant Electrolux. He knows what he’s talking about when it comes to connecting extremely diverse development environments. First from within Electrolux as a design manager, and in more recent years as the global PLM manager at Electrolux Professional. The latter has 4,000 employees in 110 countries and produces mechanical washing and dishwashing equipment for commercial kitchen, beverage and laundry companies.
During his PLM journey, Örnholmer has encountered a number of different systems. In approximate chronological order, these include: CADDs 5, Pro/ENGINEER, Windchill PDMLink, SOLIDWORKS, SmarTeam PDM, Dassault Systèmes CATIA, Siemens Teamcenter PLM software and Autodesk Inventor. Having so many systems in play can become a bit messy, and so when Electrolux Professional spun off into an independent entity with Örnholmer responsible for PLM, he decided to invest in a more homogeneous environment with PTC’s Creo CAD and Windchill PLM. They are not there yet, but they have their sights set on the goal, the plan is ready and the work is in full swing.
“Yes, it has undeniably been a motley journey,” says Örnholmer. “You become a bit of a politician with a lot of internal sales of ideas related to product development and the software arsenal required to realize them. It is something of what we nowadays define as an influencer role.”
Örnholmer’s PLM Implementation Story for Electrolux Professionals
I caught up with Örnholmer at PDSVISION’s user event PDSFORUM earlier this year. A rapidly-growing PLM consultant, PDSVISION is one of PTC’s largest dedicated value added reseller (VAR) partners. It is also one of the pillars supporting Örnholmer’s work to implement the Windchill and Creo solutions while establishing smooth workflows with third-party tools.
The challenge, he said, is to get everyone on board. How has this been achieved?
First, it must be stated that PLM within the Electrolux Professional organization is a group function. And they all must be on the same page.
“Exactly how PLM should be defined can be debated, but if we look at Wikipedia’s definition, it is extremely broad and from that perspective it is difficult to find a solution that covers everything,” says Örnholmer. “But we have evaluated and chosen PTC’s Windchill because the platform covers enough and meets our requirements that PLM should constantly develop in a logically followable direction, and at the same time be easily accessible to everyone in all phases. At the sub-PLM level and CAD, it is Creo 8 that applies.”
Then it must be understood that no change can be made overnight.
“When we spun off, we realized that we had more manufacturing sites than we ever had before, and that they all differed in type of products, working methods and more. We needed to standardize the environment, while at the same time we wanted to allow some variation and creativity.”
At the same time, a central point was to develop effective variant management. The company configures its products based on the orders it receives. This involves thousands of customer-specific variants and options based on several product platforms. In addition, the company makes approximately 5,000 product changes per year and has a couple of hundred ongoing product development projects within the three business units.
In an organization the size of Electrolux Professional, PLM/PDM and CAD systems are not something that can be swapped easily. Taking into consideration the multitude of software housed within the company, the challenges become clear.
“I fully agree,” comments Örnholmer. “We have, as it is, several different systems in different places—partly as it looked in various departments when we were spun off, and partly because of new companies that entered the organization during our expansion. In the U.S., for example, the 2018 version [of SOLIDWORKS] is available in two places, while a third has Creo 2.0. In Ljungby, here in Sweden, we have Creo 8 and Windchill 12.1. In France, on the other hand, we have CATIA V5R30 in two locations and SOLIDWORKS 2019 together with their PDM solution in two locations as well. This is because in our Italian organization, we have CATIA in combination with SmarTeam PDM in one place and Creo 8 in combination with Windchill in another. But don’t think it ends there; in Switzerland they work in Autodesk Inventor and Productstream.”
Clearly this is a situation that cannot be changed in a hurry, but rather must be taken step by step. The important thing is to have a clear strategy, clear program options and a process path forward under equally clear leadership functions, and Electrolux Professional has that.
“Yes, there are two of us who lead PLM in the group function, but then there are also local leaders at all facilities around the world. In short, we have key people in the transformation work on site at each site. The plan is in place and, for example, we started phasing out CATIA directly in 2020. The plan now includes the phasing out of SOLIDWORKS.”
PTC’s PLM Suite Windchill in a Leading Role
PTC’s PLM suite Windchill plays a major role in Örnholmer’s plan. Within this framework, they have their CAD archive and PDM system. Otherwise, Windchill’s integrated functions are used for, among other things:
- Modularization and configuration.
- UPI (User Product Information).
- Multi-CAD to single mechanical CAD.
- Multi-CAD to single electronic CAD.
- Electronic CAD.
- Lab tests, including results and certificates.
- Project management.
Windchill’s PLM master data system is also the basis for the creation of eBOMs (engineering BOM), which in turn is the basis for the mBOM (manufacturing BOM) which is created in the ERP system. The eBOM tells how the product is designed, while the mBOM manages the manufacturing of the product. Moving forward, there is an interesting idea of producing mBOMs in Windchill as well, not just the eBOMs.
Future Plans for Electrolux Professional
In addition to the above, future plans include a consolidation of Oracle JD Edwards as a manufacturing support system. In addition, Örnholmer and his team expect that the digital thread will be better via Windchill’s solutions.
“An important reason why we chose to work with PTC was that they focused on helping us work more efficiently. In addition, PDSVISION has added valuable expertise, and they gave us the attention and the implementation and support we needed to be successful with PTC’s products,” says Örnholmer.
As a final note, Örnholmer stepped down during this autumn and is now heading towards retirement. Jens Svensk has taken over the role of global PLM leadership.
