Norican Group

Increased global collaboration between Engineers

Norican Group is an engineer-to-order company who was formed in September 2008 when moulding technology company Disa merged with Wheelabrator, a worldwide surface preparation technology provider. Today, the company has 2.000 employees on five continents.

Over the years, Norican Group has acquired various companies, each operating on their own enterprise resource planning (ERP) and computer aided design (CAD) systems. This has made it difficult for employees to collaborate on projects and share drawings and other resources with each other.

To ensure its employees could access a single set of version-controlled product data, Norican Group implemented Bluestar PLM, a Microsoft Dynamics 365 F&SCM-based PLM solution. Bluestar PLM was initially rolled out to Disa employees and after the merger with Wheelabrator, it was deployed across Norican Group’s global R&D teams.

“Bluestar PLM integrates the design, engineering and manufacturing systems, providing Norican Group with a complete PLM and ERP system as a global data master for collaboration” explains Anette Olsen, Vice President, Global Business Systems and continues: “Providing a single set of reliable data is important in any global manufacturing company as it enables them to perform predictably and efficiently.”

Enhance global collaboration

Since implementing Bluestar PLM, Norican Group has streamlined its systems, creating a centralized, reliable, and easily accessible tool for its data. The company can distribute synchronized data around the world in real time, while its engineering and manufacturing teams can automatically exchange designs, bills of materials and 3D models between their various CAD systems through the ERP system. This has increased collaboration and ensured that data is instantly accessible across all departments.

“Now that our teams can access the same PLM system and share reliable data regardless of their location, they can collaborate on various projects, which helps to reduce engineering cycle times,” says Anette Olsen and continues: “For example, our China-based engineering team can take a machinery design produced by our Danish team and adapt the parts to suit the needs of the local Chinese market. Other teams can then trace the original design and reuse it to develop products for different markets.”

By implementing Bluestar PLM, it is now possible to design in one location and release it to another location responsible for manufacturing and sales:

“Bluestar is fantastic because it is not tied to legal entities and thus F&SCM. It operates on brands alongside engineering functions. And one can release it to the company where one can build a machine or sell a spare part.” says Anette Olsen.

Norican prioritizes implementing Bluestar before their ERP system to ensure all data and Bills of Materials (BOMs) are correctly aligned. Norican Group emphasizes the significance of this sequence: “I wouldn’t be able to explain how we could even begin with ERP if nothing was in the PLM system first.” says Anette Olsen.

Every time Norican acquires a company, they follow this methodology, starting with Bluestar implementation and then moving on to ERP to ensure smooth and efficient integration. This approach is crucial for Norican Group, as having items and BOMs in place beforehand provides a major advantage. It simplifies the cleanup process when migrating from various systems and aligning data, ensuring they are ‘cleaned’ properly.

Implementing new sites

Norican Group’s implementation philosophy begins with globally aligning data, addressing duplicates, and focusing on business processes rather than system functionality. When implementing new sites, the approach starts with analyzing differences between the newly acquired company and Norican Group. This includes mapping current processes and identifying gaps relative to Norican’s standards. Identified gaps, such as renaming item numbers to fit Norican’s global PDM database, are addressed in the implementation plan. Additionally, data enrichment to meet minimum PDM requirements is carried out in collaboration with PDM Technology, often via scripts.

Organization around PDM and ERP

Norican Group aims to maintain a single PDM and ERP (Dynamics F&SCM) globally. When a new company is integrated, it is appended to the existing global platform. The support structure for PDM and ERP consists of:

• Key Users: Located in each department, often as the right hand to the department manager. They train new employees, provide first-line support, and liaise with IT support. Key-users typically dedicate 10-50% of their time to these responsibilities, depending on department size and the number of new employees.
• Key User Forums: These forums consist of all key-users globally within a specific functional area, promoting global information sharing and discussion.
• Buddies: Experienced key-users who have participated in multiple implementations. They serve as internal specialists and trainers, reducing the need for external consultants and retaining knowledge within Norican.

Implementation

The implementation model assumes that Norican’s processes and functionality are the standard. Training videos are available for each process, and data must meet minimum requirements before being loaded into a global test system (Dynamics F&SCM including PDM).

An implementation typically spans 4-6 months, influenced by the number of data-related gaps and the functional area’s size. Norican IT facilitates the process in collaboration with business managers. Key milestones are structured around three simulation sessions (SIM1, SIM2, and SIM3).

Generic Project Plan

Month 1: Identifying Gaps and Solutions

• Assess and find solutions to close gaps.

Month 2: Preparing Project Environment

• Set up the project environment and pre-load relevant data samples.

Month 3: SIM-1 Session

• Participants: All Key Users and managers, Buddies, Norican IT specialists, and senior management.
• Activities: Live presentation of processes and functionalities, addressing or noting questions and findings.
• Management approval of SIM-1 milestone and decision to proceed to SIM-2.
• Training of Key Users and functional managers using video-based material.

Month 4: SIM-2 Session

• Participants: Same as SIM-1.
• Activities: Key Users present processes and future workflows. Management approval of SIM-2 milestone and continuation to SIM-3.
• Address unresolved gaps, train Key Users, prepare training plans for end-users, and develop a technical Go Live plan.
• Test-load all data.

Month 5: SIM-3 Session

• Participants: Same as SIM-1 and SIM-2.
• Activities: Key Users present processes fluently, confirm no open gaps, conclude test-load of data, and ensure End user training plan is in place.
• Management approval of SIM-3 milestone, fixing the Go Live date for four weeks later.

Month 5-6: Towards Go Live

• Conduct End user training.
• Load data into LIVE and create End user accounts.
• Management Go Live decision (typically on a Sunday).
• Go Live on a Monday morning.

This structured approach ensures a smooth and effective implementation of Bluestar PLM across Norican Group’s global operations, leveraging internal expertise and maintaining consistency in processes and data management.

 

A systematic approach and alignment of data

One of the modules that Norican Group is particularly pleased to use is Bluestar’s Product Configurator. Before using this module, engineering teams often moved far ahead of configuration teams, leading to inefficiencies and misalignments in machine improvements in real-world applications. The old configurator required data to be transferred from Bluestar to F&SCM, causing unnecessary data duplication.

The introduction of Bluestar PLM marked a significant shift towards more efficient processes. With Bluestar, data configuration occurs within one system and is only released when it is truly needed, fostering a new flow and control that keeps engineering and production in sync. This systematic approach not only minimizes data waste but also aligns data more effectively, preventing the synchronization issues that previously plagued separate systems.

Each piece of data is version controlled, and Norican Group can manage engineering changes via workflow automation. This ensures that only one person can update a drawing at any single time within the PLM system, reducing the risk of engineers working from old data.

“Bluestar PLM has greatly improved our company’s operational efficiency and we benefit from having implemented the system across all of our global offices,” states Anette Olsen.

Strong collaboration between Bluestar and Norican

Norican Group and Bluestar PLM have been partnering for over 15 years, not least because of Bluestar’s proven experience in addressing challenges like those we face. “There’s a particularly good understanding within Bluestar PLM of what’s crucial for a business like ours in the mechanical industry, and importantly, they can communicate effectively with our engineers and managers and understand their language.”

Another significant advantage is Bluestar’s MultiCAD setup, which, unlike other PLM systems, offers consistent structure across various platforms. “The fact that Bluestar is formally a module within F&SCM, that it maintains the same user interface, and can integrate with any CAD system, is definitely a strength and makes the structure solid,” highlights Anette Olsen as another key point of value.

Finally, Bluestar’s global operational capability is a clear benefit for a worldwide enterprise like Norican. “Having these vault servers where users are working allows us to operate globally because the data synchronizes in the background,” concludes Anette Olsen.