The Invisible Brake in Mechanical Engineering
Many mid-sized mechanical engineering companies harbor a hidden efficiency killer: the media break. While engineers develop cutting-edge solutions, drawings, material data, and bills of materials are often still manually transferred into the ERP system. Such a process is not only time-consuming but a permanent source of errors that paralyzes the entire value chain.
A striking example of this digital bottleneck was a traditional expert in conveyor technology that has been delivering innovative logistics solutions for industries such as e-commerce, automotive, and textile and apparel since the 1970s. Despite technical excellence, the established culture of manual data entry—driven by the use of Creo 2.0 and Windchill without ERP integration—massively slowed down dynamics. The migration to SolidEdge and the PDM system RuleDesigner, guided by the experts at Mista GmbH, demonstrates that a software change can be far more than a new user interface: it is the necessary transformation towards a “single source of truth.”
Takeaway 1: Avoiding the Trap of “Dead Geometry”
The biggest hurdle in a system migration is transferring legacy data. In this project, approximately 30,000 files had to be migrated. While the purely technical extraction from Windchill provided data formats such as .pdf, .step, and .x_t, a mass import via standard scripts often leads to strategic information loss. The designer receives only “dead geometry.” This means: the shape is there, but the design history, color specifications, surface finishes, and classification in the technical organization system are missing.
To ensure master data quality, Mista GmbH chose an intelligent enrichment strategy:
“A solution was developed here to enrich the newly imported CAD file with existing data from the ERP system, avoiding the need to reinvent the wheel.”
Through this approach, valuable ERP information was married with the new CAD models, rather than corrupting the database through incomplete imports.
Takeaway 2: Why Automation Begins with the “Boring” Tasks
True digitalization means freeing engineers for creative work by eliminating “human intervention” in routine tasks. The PDM system RuleDesigner acts as a digital enforcer of quality standards. Automation not only saves time but enforces compliance through defined workflows.
Key process improvements include:
- Controlled Release Cycles: The system strictly distinguishes between releases for “prototypes” or “series production.”
- Quality Assurance: Drawing verification is secured through a system-supported four-eyes principle.
- Automatic Derivatives: Upon series release, the system automatically generates PDF drawings and STEP files without manual intervention.
- Status Management: New versions automatically trigger digital stamps such as “obsolete,” “withdrawn,” or “locked” on predecessor documents.
Takeaway 3: The End of the “Block” – Standardization as a Search Accelerator
In data repositories that have grown over decades, nomenclature often runs wild. A classic example is the “Klotz” (block)—a meaningless term that makes targeted reuse impossible. When designers cannot find existing parts, they design them anew. This unnecessary variety drives storage and administrative costs exponentially.
Through the introduction of dropdown menus and strict categorization by keywords, a technical organization system was established. This standardization ensures that components can be quickly found and the number of standard parts (e.g., screw variants) is reduced to a process-technical minimum. Order in the system is synonymous with direct cost reduction.
Takeaway 4: Strategic Pragmatism Beats Maximum Complexity
A decisive learning from this project lies in the conscious decision against bidirectional ERP integration. In a world calling for maximum connectivity, strategic pragmatism was chosen here.
Instead of getting lost in highly complex, error-prone two-way data exchange, the focus was on a stable “one-way-automatic” workflow from PDM to ERP. This time-to-value approach (MVP thinking) enabled rapid implementation and delivered immediately measurable ROI results. It is wiser to take a stable, automated process live than to fail at a theoretically perfect but practically infinite interface.
Conclusion: Drastically Shortening the Time from Design to Order
The result of the transformation is a drastic reduction in lead time from the first sketch to the orderable assembly in the ERP system. By eliminating manual interfaces and establishing automated workflows, the foundation for process excellence was laid. The combination of modern CAD/PDM technology and a pragmatic data strategy has paved the way to the “digital twin” and reduced the error rate to near zero.
How much time does your company still lose at the interface between idea and ERP system?