Case Studies

Weifang Foton Mould Selects Siemens PLM's NX and Teamcenter

Using NX and Teamcenter enables a “drawing-free” approach that boosts efficiency by 30 to 40 percent. Besides, it can protect corporate knowledge and speed mold development.

One of China's top brands
Weifang Foton Mould Co., Ltd. (Foton Mould) is the auto mold process equipment business division and a wholly funded subsidiary of Beiqi Foton Motor Co., Ltd., one of China's top-500 brands. Foton Mould has a mold manufacturing capacity of 450,000 work hours per year and a stamped parts processing capacity of up to one million pieces annually. Foton Mould has successfully developed more than 2,500 sets of vehicle body molds for the Auman heavy truck, the Ou V passenger vehicle, the Ou Ma K high-end light truck, the Legend SUV, and the MP-X MIDI series. The company has also established strategic relations with Dong Feng Mould, FAW Car Mould, and Shanghai Volkswagen, as well as long-term, strategic relations with auto mold manufacturers in Japan and South Korea.

Built on advanced CAD and CAM technology
Since the company was founded, Foton Mould has realized the importance of advanced technology for realizing sustainable future development. In 1997, the company began using the computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) functionality of Unigraphics® software (which is now NXTM software from Siemens PLM software). At that time, the corporate goal was to turn out products using advanced, digitally controlled manufacturing equipment.


Later, the company realized the important role of computer-aided design (CAD) and decided to upgrade from a 2D process to 3D, solids-based design. Compared with 2D, working in 3D would provide better visualization, but more importantly, it would create a foundation for digital manufacturing.

"Before choosing a partner [to supply 3D design software], Foton Mould conducted many investigations and also sought input from other users of the technology, including Tianjin Automobile Mould Co., Ltd. and Chengfei Integrated High-Tech Co., Ltd," says Li Shuxin, deputy general manager of Foton Mould. "Through this process, we realized that Unigraphics was well recognized by the industry and could meet our needs well. We purchased eight seats, and found that Unigraphics Solutions, Inc. (now Siemens PLM Software) also offers satisfactory services and timely and meticulous preliminary training. Our engineers were quickly using the software on many projects."

After implementing the new CAD software, Foton Mould arranged special projects that would allow users to become familiar with it in their daily work. Eventually, the company successfully realized its goal of having all molds for new projects developed in 3D. Today, Foton Mould uses NX to design and develop its products using a "drawing-free" design process.

Protecting corporate knowledge
Over the past 10 years, China's mold industry has seen rapid development accompanied by disruptions in the availability of skilled personnel. In the past, the knowledge of each engineer was stored on his/her personal computer, forming numerous islands of information. Even colleagues in the same department could not share information. When someone left the company, not only was his or her talent lost, but some useful knowledge vanished as well. This situation demonstrated the need for a product data management (PDM) system to manage this knowledge. Based on the company’s excellent experience with Siemens PLM Software and its technology, Foton Mould chose Teamcenter® software for managing its considerable amount of data.

Using Teamcenter, Foton Mould formed a corporate knowledge base that includes a standard parts library and a library of commonly used parts and components, in addition to all product data. Data can be transferred to the enterprise resource planning (ERP) system accurately and smoothly and then used to plan production. Today, Foton Mould's use of CAD, CAM, computer-aided engineering (CAE) and computer-aided process planning (CAPP), referred to as its C4 platform, along with PDM, has greatly raised the company’s efficiency, accelerated development, and improved its products and production process.

Compelling metrics
“Our drawing-free process uses 3D model geometry created during product design as the basis for further development and simulation, and then for digitally controlled programming and manufacturing, reducing the amount of time previously spent creating drawings by 80 percent," says Shuxin. "The knowledge re-use made possible by using Teamcenter with NX has raised design efficiency by 30 to 40 percent. In addition, our knowledge base has become a high value-added corporate asset. For example, it includes a training template that is used for the preliminary training of college graduates entering the company. Using this template they are able to operate independently after 3-1/2 to 4 months."

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