Industrial machinery Nexion Group

NX and Teamcenter deliver integrated product development environment

Products Nexion Group establishes NX, Teamcenter centralized PLM platform on Siemens technology; time-to- Business challenges market, cost and quality advantages realized Centralize IT system architecture Specializing in equipment for car Reduce time-to-market and shops and tire centers design costs Nexion Gruppo Industriale (Nexion Group) Extend change management manufactures equipment for car shops and to manufacturing and tire centers, with an organization compris- marketing ing eight brands and production sites under Nexion Financial Holding. Brands include Corghi, Simpesfaip, Mondolfo Keys to success Ferro, Hpa, Orlandini, Sice, Tecnomotor Extending Teamcenter and and Teco. Through a number of acquisi- tions, Nexion Group has grown into a het- In a niche market where competitors are quickly NX from requirements to emerging, it is important to get new products quickly maintenance erogeneous structure, represented by to the market and reduce overall engineering costs. distinct companies that have taken Integration with the independent technical paths over the Microsoft environment years. Each company within Nexion Group in-depth software selection and bench- NX, including synchronous has acquired different computer-aided marking process and although one of the technology, to repurpose design (CAD) and product data manage- organizations had already implemented extensive assets in ment (PDM) technologies. As a result, another solution, Nexion Group selected legacy data management launched a project to Teamcenter® software, the world’s most synchronize its product design and manu- widely used PLM solution. “For a company like Nexion Group, the Siemens PLM Results facturing systems in order to improve communication and collaboration among Software solution offers all the basic and Complete sharing of product the companies. advanced features and functionality we data across the organization need to improve development and design Integrated management of The project involved engaging a full times and to optimize costs,” notes Nexion distinct data types from product lifecycle management (PLM) Group’s chief information officer (CIO). different sources approach across organizations. Nexion “We also think that Siemens PLM Software Group companies have been using provides a growth path offering excellent Siemens PLM Software’s comprehensive warranties in terms of investment protec- product development solution, NX™ tion and duration. It’s a long-term project software, since 1998. Recently, after an with a reliable partner.”

www.siemens.com/plm Results (continued) Excellence in processes and quality Improved efficiency Four Nexion Group companies are involved across group in the first project phase, representing five sites located in Reggio Emilia (three sites), Higher quality products Lucca and Pesaro-Urbino, and a total Infrastructure in place to number of 35 users. The decision to further increase productivity adopt Teamcenter as its PLM platform and cost savings for product development was combined with another agreement with Siemens PLM Software, i.e., to upgrade all Siemens’ solutions to the latest versions available and to adopt Teamcenter classification functionality.

The CIO explains, “Compared to the previ-

ous infrastructure, with two separate sites With eight brands and 870 employees, Nexion Group in Correggio and Mondolfo, we have set designs and manufactures mechanical equipment for up a four-tier architecture that offers car shops and tire centers. remarkable benefits. We have an efficient and cost-saving infrastructure, as well as co-engineering, re-use and standardization capabilities. Now we are working with one single server based in Correggio and accessible to Corghi and Mondolfo Ferro.” “ For a company The company is currently adding Sice Automotive Equipment (also located in like Nexion Correggio), which is migrating to NX and Group, the Siemens PLM Software solu- tion offers all the basic and advanced features and functionality we need…” Expanded through subsequent acquisitions, Nexion Group has developed a heterogeneous structure over the years. Each business pursued an independent technical direction, resulting Chief Information Officer in different CAD and PDM technologies. Nexion Group each brand. With this solution, we have achieved high flexibility in operations and resource allocation.”

Reduce and re-use In preparation for this project, Nexion Group’s ICT managers increased available bandwidth. Moreover, the solution

With Teamcenter, Nexion Group companies are quickly proposed by Siemens PLM Software reducing manufacturing cycle time. has proved to be very efficient. The CIO describes the setup: “The new architecture is articulated in four levels, with a local leveraging the advantages offered by cache machine in each site. The core synchronous technology. The decision to element is an Oracle database, which is migrate entirely to NX as a group-wide referenced by the volumes distributed on CAD solution was based on an intense the cache servers.” benchmark with a competitive product. The CIO points out, “We have created an Nexion Group’s project consisted of two inter-company working team consisting of strategic goals: increase organizational two skilled designers working side-by-side. efficiency and fully integrate the Note that the benchmark was done with group’s culture across companies. ICT an old version of NX, but in spite of this, managers were looking for a more flex- the Siemens PLM Software suite got the ible and less expensive architecture, better of the rival. The next challenge is as well as one that was effective in to recover the entire data heritage of the improving time-to-market and reducing company, for which we expect great design costs. “We are leaders in a niche benefits from synchronous technology.” market, where Asian competitors are regularly coming up with low-end After activating 35 users in the first phase, products,” says the CIO. “For Nexion Group is now planning to extend the PLM solution to all corporate users, also incorporating its Chinese and German branches according to available band- width. “The technical department consists of about 70 people distributed in different sites,” notes the CIO. “Previously, we needed distributed servers in each site, while the new project has allowed us to centralize the database on a single server, achieving two significant benefits. On one hand, we achieved a clear benefit for ICT (information and communication tech- nology) in terms of reduced maintenance and simplified updates. On the other, we established an optimized technical development process. The closer synergy among developers, who can now work as if they were actually inside the same office (although they are located in different regions and using different products), enables us to meet the specific needs of A new structure, built by Nexion Group on Teamcenter, lays the foundation for continuous business process improvement. Solutions/Services this reason, it is important to get new NX products to the market quickly, as well www.siemens.com/nx as to reduce production costs, which are typically high in a company that strives Teamcenter for excellence. Already, with the Siemens’ www.siemens.com/teamcenter solution, we have taken a big step for- ward. In the second stage of the project, Customer’s primary business we will also introduce product classifica- tion, an essential tool to re-use our design With eight brands and 870 intellectual property and the know-how employees, Nexion Group we have accumulated over the years.” designs and manufactures Four Nexion Group companies are involved in the first mechanical equipment for The CIO points out, “Besides classification, PLM project phase, representing five sites located in car shops and tire centers. Reggio Emilia (three), Lucca and Pesaro-Urbino, and a we plan to revise the entire engineering www.nexion.it total number of 35 users. change management process. We cur- rently use a workflow process based on Customer location Excel. We plan to replace it with a new, pursue tighter and tighter integration structured workflow process to monitor between CAD and PDM on one side and Correggio (Reggio Emilia) engineering changes and product develop- ERP on the other, managing bills of Italy ment step-by-step, considering workflow materials within one environment.” time for each phase and area. In this “The CAD-ERP integration way, we can optimize the quality and The new structure, built by Nexion Group is one of the key strengths quantity of our production operations, on Teamcenter, lays the foundation for of the solution we have with retroactive feedback for procedure continuous business process improvement, implemented. We will and process improvement. From the acqui- especially relative to product development pursue tighter and tighter sition of basic requirements to the launch efficiency and organizational effective- integration between CAD- of pre-series production, we will reorga- ness. The CIO notes that the group PDM on one side and ERP nize the entire flow with Teamcenter.” companies are much more culturally on the other, managing integrated, which is now helping to drive bills of materials within Continuous business process collaboration and best-practice sharing. one environment.” improvement Excellent results in terms of competitive- Among the reasons that Nexion Group ness have already been achieved. Chief Information Officer decided to adopt Siemens PLM Software Nexion Group technology, the integration of NX and Nexion Group also sees significant Teamcenter with Microsoft Corporation’s advantages forthcoming. These include software was a key factor. The group is full visibility and sharing of product strongly based in Microsoft applications, information throughout the organization both for individual information technology and across geographic boundaries; tools and at the enterprise resource plan- improved overall data quality (through ning (ERP) level, where the organization the integrated management of different has adopted Microsoft Dynamics AX. data types generated by various applica- “The CAD-ERP integration is one of the tions); protection of the logical and key strengths of the solution we have physical integrity of information; and implemented,” says the CIO. “We will improvement of collaboration and commu- nications among all business functions.

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