Aebi Schmidt achieves global PDM and 3D-supported product assembly based on the central SAP system

With eight well-established brands, the Aebi Schmidt Group is a global leader of intelligent solutions for the treatment of mission-critical infrastructure areas and demanding terrain.  The competitively broad equipment and vehicle portfolio of the group is manufactured in twelve different production facilities in seven countries: Germany, Poland, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Finland, USA and Canada. To enable multi-site engineering, the company has created an SAP-based central PDM platform by introducing DSC’s Engineering Control Center and SAP Engineering Control Center. This has also paved the way towards the paperless factory. Urs Lauber, CAD / PLM Administrator at Aebi Schmidt Group, talks about the different approaches, the lessons learned, and the successes so far.

The company, which today operates as a global group, was previously a rather loose association of individual and regionally operating organizations. That is why not so long ago, each individual site managed the product-related data (CAD documents, project documentation, etc.) in a different way: partly in the SAP system, and partly in differently structured project folders stored on the network drive. Collaboration was challenging as it was often unclear where which document was stored and which version was valid. This is why we decided to unify the product data management – based on our central SAP system.