NX Sridevi Tool Engineers Increasing profitability through improved mold-making technology Industry A design process built on NX Industrial machinery Mold Design allows mold makers to realize productivity gains of Business challenges more than 50 percent and cost Profit margins eroding due to savings exceeding 40 percent increased competition Continuous improvement drives growth Automakers’ demands for Sridevi Tool Engineers Pvt. Ltd. (Sridevi) increasingly shorter cycle was founded in 1972 to manufacture times molds and dies. The company has Rigorous quality expectations prospered in both domestic and international markets ever since. In 1986, Sridevi was the first commercial tool shop Keys to success in India to adopt computer numerical In-house design process control (CNC) machining, a move that using NX gave the company a strong competitive Design that automates many advantage and helped it to grow at a much assurance system based on the ISO 9000 aspects of mold design faster pace than other tool shops in India. standard. Another aspect involved In 1998, Sridevi formed a joint venture changing the company’s design process Part-mold associativity that with Italy’s second-largest tool company, from one provided by an outside vendor speeds design changes Comec S.p.A. Called Comec India, this and based on 2D computer-aided organization serves the European engineering (CAD) to an in-house 3D CAD Results automobile market. solution equipped with industry-leading mold design capabilities. Mold designs completed in Today, in addition to the automakers, half the time Sridevi provides molds to white goods “There were numerous drawbacks to the Mold development cost and consumer products manufacturers. old process,” says Surendra C. Kalyanpur, savings of more than Customers include Honda, Yamaha, Sridevi’s managing director. Kalyanpur 40 percent (due to increased GM, Maruti, Ford, TATA, Eicher, Fiat notes, “Our design vendor was not able to designer productivity) and Stanley. deliver designs as fast as we needed them Productivity gains of more to satisfy our customers.” than 50 percent Sridevi’s management aims to ensure ongoing growth and profitability through Mukesh Kansara, manager of design at continuous improvements to the Sridevi, adds, “It was very time-consuming company’s expertise, design process, to incorporate customers’ changes into a products and services. This involved, for design since that meant going back to the example, the implementation of a quality vendor. And once a design was complete, www.siemens.com/nx “Quality is tremendously important to Sridevi, and especially in this regard, the decision to go with NX has been very beneficial.” Surendra C. Kalyanpur Managing Director Sridevi “NX Mold Design encom- very weak in CAD and not suitable for our passes best practices type of intensive product development derived from a wide base of that requires frequent and rapid design mold manufacturers. We are change,” says Narottam Jethva, general taking advantage of these manager at Sridevi. techniques and directly it had to be transferred to our CNC system. This introduced the possibility of human applying them to our mold “We decided to implement NX, including error, which in turn caused problems design process.” mold design and industrial design during manufacturing.” Narottam Jethva products,” Jethva explains. “A key part in the company’s new design system is General Manager NX and automated mold design NX Mold Design, the knowledge-driven Sridevi functionality automation module that captures the After deciding to bring the design work expert knowledge of mold designers to in-house, Sridevi outlined the require- create a fast, step-by-step approach to ments for its CAD software: advanced mold development. functionality for mold design, user friend- liness (including an intuitive interface), “After importing customer part files in ease of modifying existing designs, and IGES format, we use NX Mold Design to parametric modeling. In contrast to other automatically create portions of the mold, options they evaluated, NX™ software such as the cavity and the base,” notes V. from Siemens PLM Software met all of Veerapandian, assistant manager of design these requirements. “Other programs were at Sridevi. Designers add components such as electrodes and gates by selecting those parts from a component library, or using built-in tools to create them quickly. For example, to place a gate, they simply indicate the location and enter the specifications. NX Mold Design generates the geometry and inserts the gate into the model. Solutions/Services NX www.siemens.com/nx Customer’s primary business Sridevi Tool Engineers Pvt. Ltd. designs, develops and manufactures injection molds used in the production of automobiles, white goods and other products. www.sridevitools.com NX Mold Design maintains associativity the time it used to take. In addition, the Customer location between the part model and the mold designers’ enhanced productivity has Thane, Maharashtra tooling, so that when a customer changes lowered the cost of mold development, India the design of its part, once the NX part file according to Veerapandian, who reports is updated at Sridevi, the changes are that those costs have been reduced by automatically propagated to the mold more than 40 percent. Partner design. “For example, changes we make to Gnosis Infotech Pvt. Ltd. the part model automatically update the “Quality is tremendously important to core and cavity of the mold. This has sped Sridevi, and especially in this regard, the the change process significantly,” says decision to go with NX has been very “The changes we make Veerapandian. beneficial,” says Kalyanpur. to the part model automati- cally update the core and In addition, Siemens PLM Software Kansara adds,“NX Mold Design cavity of the mold. This has partner Gnosis Infotech Pvt. Ltd. helped encompasses best practices derived sped the change process to accelerate the company’s mold design from a wide base of mold manufacturers. significantly.” process through timely consulting and We are taking advantage of these Mukesh Kansara training, and continues to provide techniques and directly applying them to Manager of Design valuable support. our mold design process. With significantly Sridevi increased productivity, we are also Developing molds in half the time, realizing important gains in the quality while increasing quality of our molds.” Because mold designers no longer spend most of their time creating geometry, they are twice as productive as they were in the past, completing mold designs in half Siemens Industry Software Americas +1 800 498 5351 © 2012 Siemens Product Lifecycle Management Software Inc. All rights reserved. Siemens and the Siemens logo are Europe +44 (0) 1276 702000 registered trademarks of Siemens AG. D-Cubed, Femap, Geolus, GO PLM, I-deas, Insight, JT, NX, Parasolid, Solid Edge, Asia-Pacific +852 2230 3333 Teamcenter, Tecnomatix and Velocity Series are trademarks or registered trademarks of Siemens Product Lifecycle Management Software Inc. or its subsidiaries in the United States and in other countries. All other logos, trademarks, registered trademarks or service marks used herein are the property of their respective holders. www.siemens.com/plm Z22 25725 10/12 C.