Transferring existing incorrect or incomplete data during PLM migration places a heavy burden on the new environment. The robotics and automation specialist KUKA therefore systematically cleansed its inventory of ERP and PLM data at all engineering-to-order (ETO) locations during migration of the SAP data and the simultaneous replacement of the old PDM system with Siemens’ Teamcenter solution. Our PLM integration platform OpenPDM was the driving force behind the data washing machine.
KUKA, which is headquartered in Augsburg, is one of the world’s leading providers of intelligent automation solutions. The company offers customers everything from a single source: from robots and cells to fully automated systems and their networking. ETO is the term KUKA uses to describe everything relating to the development of custom-built production equipment for the automation of manufacturing processes – in contrast to its configure-to-order (CTO) business in the field of robotic components and systems.
KUKA previously had a very heterogeneous ERP and PLM landscape, which was partly due to the company’s structures, which had evolved over time. After an in-depth system selection process, the company decided to gradually replace its legacy system and implement the Teamcenter PLM system at all its ETO locations to provide support for the interdisciplinary product development process. At the same time, the ERP landscape was to be consolidated all in one go, which significantly increased the complexity of the migration project.
KUKA chose the soft route for its PLM migration, with the legacy and new systems temporarily coexisting, so that any open projects could be concluded in the old environment. The changeover to SAP S/4HANA, on the other hand, was to follow the “big bang” approach. We not only brought our many years of experience in performing migrations and our OpenPDM integration platform to the project but also assisted the customer during the cleansing of the data prior to the start of the migration. Of the 3.3 million master data records, only 1.2 million were ultimately transferred to the new environment.
Posted with permission from PROSTEP AG.
Original Article by Mirko Theiss, Senior Manager PLM Integration and Product Manager OpenPDM at PROSTEP AG.