How does Scienta Scientific connect the product development pieces, consolidating 3D CAD design on Autodesk Inventor and Vault, with IFS ERP system?
What does the Swedish-German company Scientific Instruments and electron spectroscopy have to do with ERP and PLM?
As it turns out, quite a lot when it comes to establishing sharp processes around development, manufacturing and administration work. But when it comes to the products they develop, especially those around electron spectroscopy, leading roles in terms of methodology, equipment and technology are played by Nobel laureate Kai Siegbahn and the company he co-founded, Scienta Scientific, which translated his ideas into concrete instruments and solutions.
Since 1983, the Scienta Scientific company group has increasingly—after acquisitions—led the development of analysis equipment in the areas of surface physics, materials physics, Ultra High Vacuum (UHV) technology and radiation detection. Scienta Scientific’s development in these areas has resulted in everything from scientific breakthroughs and customers being awarded the Nobel Prize, to outstanding industrial equipment. The company is simply building the equipment needed to carry out the analyses.
Today’s article will take a close look at the administration, ERP and PLM arrangements around the latter. I met with Anders Österberg, CTO/CIO at Scienta Scientific, and Jens-Magnus Andersson from Addovation, the IT partner who implements Scienta Scientific’s newly purchased ERP system, IFS Applications.
What are the challenges? How do they solve them? And how do they connect the product development pieces—where the aim is to consolidate the 3D CAD design of the instruments on Autodesk’s Inventor and Vault PDM—with the IFS system, at the same time as the previously used PTC solution Creo/Windchill PDM Link is being phased out?
Superstars In Physics – From Hertz and Planck to Einstein and Siegbahn
In physics, the photoelectric effect is a phenomenon that has been studied ever since it was discovered by Heinrich Hertz in the late 19th century. Names that pass by in the history of this discovery include famous superstars in physics, such as Max Planck, Albert Einstein and Kai Siegbahn. The point is that when light hits a surface—for example, a metal surface—the metal emits a number of electrons. The negatively charged particles emitted in this way are called photoelectrons.
Today, the phenomenon can be studied and analyzed through electron spectroscopy. This technique reveals a lot about the properties of the materials, and you can study a number of these, such as optical and magnetic properties.
A major role in the development of equipment and methodology for this technology is thus played by professor Kai Siegbahn. He received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1981 for his contribution to the development of high-resolution electron spectroscopy.
In particular, he developed methods for analyzing with great accuracy the energy of the above-mentioned electrons, which are emitted from radioactive preparations or from atoms and molecules when they are excited—that is, “charged with energy”—by means of X-rays.
The development of electron spectroscopy with very high energy resolution led, among other things, to the discovery that the energy levels of electrons depend on the chemical environment of the atoms. This has led to the widely used method of Electron Spectroscopy for Chemical Analysis (ESCA).
A Pioneer in Analysis Methods for Surface Physics Research
That said, the company Scienta Scientific is making its entry into history. Scienta was founded in 1983 by professor Siegbahn in order to commercialize his discoveries, and has since been a pioneer in advanced electron spectroscopy.
It is also a matter of fact that the company not only has a Swedish background, but also a legacy from Germany in the form of the 2015 purchase of Omicron Nanotechnology. The latter company was founded in 1986 and was the first to commercialize the UHV Scanning Probe microscope.
As can be seen from history, Scienta has strong connections at the highest academic level and has developed world-class innovative thinking, all manifested in products that support leading researchers, institutions and companies around the world. This means, of course, that the requirements are high for what is to be delivered.
“Today, Scienta Scientific mainly consists of two parts,” says Anders Österberg, CTO/CIO at Scienta Scientific. “Scienta Omicron accounts for the bulk of, say, 90 percent of the business, while Scienta Sensor Systems—which makes surveillance equipment to “sniff” Xenon radioactive—accounts for the remaining 10.”
Equipment For Research Groups
In monetary terms, the Group draws in around $71 million and has around 200 employees.
“We are about 100 people in Germany and about 50 people in Sweden, while the rest are around the world and work with sales and aftermarket,” says Österberg.
The company’s customers are, on the one hand, the user; that is, the individual researcher who has developed an idea and needs equipment for his or her research group to verify whether the idea works as intended. On the other hand, the customers are the user’s commercial counterpart: the contracting organization to which the researcher belongs.
“Our business is usually project-oriented with long lead times from the first customer contact, via the customer’s grant phase to the final business. This is one of the reasons why we have chosen to invest in IFS Applications, which is strong in project-based business,” Österberg explains.
“The products we sell are partly standard instruments, and partly larger customized systems where there can be around 40 of them per year. Since each solution in the latter case is unique, where each of the systems is configured or designed to suit the individual customer’s needs, we hope that the IFS Applications project module will be able to suit us well,” he adds.
On The Way to Consolidate PLM Tools on Autodesk’s Solutions
The background to the ERP system includes how Scienta Scientific, at the time it acquired Omicron Nanotechnology and planned to integrate this business into the group, had a new ERP system high on the agenda.
“That’s right, we were aware from the start that Omicron Nanotechnology’s system, P2, had reached end-of-life and had to be replaced. So already in 2015, there have been funds set aside for a new system,” says Österberg.
It still took a number of years before they were ready to change systems, Österberg explains, while they took the time needed to coordinate and sharpen the various processes in both companies and bring up profitability in the German part before taking the step to a common system. But in 2017, they were ready to attack the issue again—now from a larger perspective.
“Yes, then the whole map of how many systems we have/had was clearer. In addition, we were considering acquiring a PDM system for the operations in Uppsala, Sweden. In short, we have no PDM system, but only a CAD system and a CAD vault for this. We have run this with PTC’s software Creo and Windchill PDM Link. But here the new thing will be a migration to the systems that other companies in the group use, which is Autodesk Inventor and their PDM Vault,” Österberg says.
After some feasibility studies, a short-list was put together at the beginning of 2018, where IFS pulled the longest straw.
IFS Was Chosen for Documented Strength on Projects and Services
What Österberg now expects from IFS Applications, among other things, is to get help to keep better track of the products they sell throughout its life cycle.
“Our strategy is to grow in our service market and in order to be able to make a good profitable service business, we need a good view of what has been delivered. We cannot conduct an ‘archaeological survey’ to find out what is to be sold in the form of spare parts and upgrades. Ordered, neat and sharp documentation facilitates, saves time and simplifies our opportunities to establish good maintenance on the systems sold. You get exact control over which parts are to be replaced in connection with maintenance measures or upgrades.
How was the system supplier selected, in this case IFS? Were there several competing solutions?
“We did an evaluation and landed in a situation with three different systems. The two who fell off did so because, in one case, it was simply not complete enough; while the other lost due to lack of integration. IFS remained, whose project management and service capabilities, integration and coverage of all areas were what made the decision. They were documented most strongly, especially on project management and service.”
In total, Scienta Scientific’s order to IFS is about 200 seats.
The Role of Scienta’s Implementation Partner, Addovation
What role did Addovation, a partner of IFS, play in the procurement of the new system?
“We did the feasibility study in late autumn 2018 to mid-2019. After that, there was a break of just over a year due to another company acquisition we made,” says Österberg. “When we then returned, we took our starting point in the feasibility study and completed the contract negotiations with regard to both licenses and implementation projects.”
“That’s right,” confirms Addovation’s Jens-Magnus Andersson, “We had an established relationship, a good scope of solution and a common view of priority areas. It gave us the right conditions to start the implementation project at the turn of the year 2020/2021. This deal is further proof of how strong the product IFS Applications is for a global company with several companies in different countries, internal trade and complex manufacturing processes.”
It is clear that under Darren Roos´ leadership, IFS has moved towards a larger, freer role for its partners in its own ecosystem—something that has also unleashed increased total sales for the business system player. But above all, Roos has pointed out the great value that lies in your local partners knowing your customers better and more deeply, with the insights into the needs that characterize the design of their IT support that follow from these connections.
What are Anders Österberg’s views on Addovation in this respect?
“Above all, what shines through is a long-term and concrete experience from this type of project. You have good knowledge of the product IFS Applications and the implementation methodology,” he says.
“When the Migration Gets Really Tough”
IFS Applications is, as Österberg notes, a broad platform built on combinable and seamlessly functioning modules that actually cover the entire spectrum of what a business system can be expected to handle. But it does not stop there; IFS Applications also has solutions for the PLM area and when it comes to field service solutions, it is considered to be the world’s best-positioned system by analysts such as Gartner.
“What we have now invested in means that we basically get something from all parts, but not everything, and only what is relevant to our needs,” Österberg sums up, pointing above all to HR, finance, production, CRM/sales, supply chain management, project delivery and service.
“How far have you come currently,” I asked him.
“After running our feasibility study, we are now in the phase ‘initiate project,’ which started in March and will in June (2021) lead to a decision on exactly which solutions we will implement,” says Österberg.
He also predicts that no matter how simple implementations may seem in market rhetoric, installing something of this magnitude is a challenge.
“It will be really tough,” he says. “I think the migration will be the really difficult part. For several reasons, not least because we come from many different systems. Just one example, where in our systems do we have customer data? We have at least four different systems for customer data, probably also with duplications where the same customer occurs in several systems and then maybe even with different data. Which facts are correct? This and a number of similar things must be corrected and coordinated during the migration.”
Development Of Complex Research Equipment
But customer data, financial data, HR and more are just the administrative side of the coin. There are several others, such as production. Just to give an idea of the complexity, we will take a quick tour through the production.
As noted above, Scienta Scientific develops, manufactures and sells instruments and systems for surface physics research. Most of this is related to basic research on material development.
“Exactly,” says Österberg. “These are new materials, which can be used for semiconductors, computers of the future and also some for green tech, as catalysts. But I would say that today quantum computing is the most driving area, such as for the new technology that will come after C-mos, which is in the computers today.”
Scienta Scientific develops two types of instruments:
One type is for photoelectron spectroscopy, based on Siegbahn’s Nobel Prize-winning research. The solution is characterized by bombarding the material surface with photons—the energy particles that in quantum form “wave packages” carry electromagnetic energy, such as solar rays or X-rays. What happens in a material when the surface is hit by the rays is that the electrons present in the material are excited—that is, they reach higher energy levels—and in turn emit electrons. These emitted electrons are measured for energy and outward direction. Based on this, you can then determine the type and properties of the material.
“This technology is very good for looking for new types of materials for semiconductors, for example,” explains Österberg. “Our customers here are essentially universities and research institutes, although there are also one or two companies that buy equipment for their research lab. It is thus about research equipment and not production equipment.”
The second type of equipment Scienta develops is for scanned probe microscopy in UHV, which is based on the results of two other Nobel Prize-winning researchers, Gerd Binning and Heinrich Rohrer. In that instrument technique, a very narrow tip is used, ideally only an atom at the top, which scans very closely over the surface you want to examine. The effect used is that electrons can tunnel in vacuum between the tip and the surface. This gives rise to a weak current that can be used to measure the topography of the surface down to individual atoms. This type of instrument is challenging and requires intricate solutions in many technology areas such as vibration freedom, control technology, low noise electronics and cryo technology, to name just a few.
Phase Out of PTC’s Creo CAD Software
The mechanical equipment that Scienta Scientific designs in the Swedish Uppsala facility is currently developed in PTC’s CAD software, Creo. CAD data is then stored in Windchill. However, there are no connections to the ERP system here; all transfers and revisions are handled manually via PDF drawings. This is in combination with another solution, Monitor’s ERP system.
“Today it is the case that our mechanical designers release PDF drawings via email and then the related work with production preparation is done in Monitor manually, where BOMs and other things are done,” Österberg said.
The idea is now that the corresponding pieces will be consolidated throughout the company and that all product development stages will be automated as far as possible.
“Exactly,” says Österberg, “When we are ready, the connections between Inventor and CAD data and the PDM system Vault will be connected with IFS Applications. Here, the Cool Orange PowerGate product will play an important role for a smooth flow between the interconnected parts.
PowerGate is a solution designed for companies where they work in Autodesk tools, such as AutoCAD, AutoCAD Mechanical and Inventor to create data and Vault for data management. PowerGate, is a “.NET” and “PowerShell addon”, which makes it possible to create scripts and applications that automate data synchronization with the ERP system.
“It is Addovation that first found the solution for us,” says Österberg.
What is the Next Step?
“What is a challenge is what should we include in going live with IFS Applications? The first part of this is very extensive and if we have made the right division, it will be good. But nothing feels given, it gnaws a little in the head,” Österberg says.
How it goes remains to be seen, “but with IFS Applications as the basic system and with Addovation as a partner, it looks bright,” Österberg adds.
“We look forward to an exciting implementation project for a new global, fully integrated system in place in 2022 that gives Scienta Scientific the expected competitive advantages,” concludes Addovation’s Jens-Magnus Andersson.
