Copy

ny with an emphasis on technology, industry, trading and finance.

Haier is committed to providing satisfactory solutions to global customers and realizing a win-win situation between the enterprise and the user. Speeding the pace of new product development is one of its main objectives. Eight of Haier Group’s product lines are using product lifecycle management (PLM) technology from Siemens PLM Software, a global division of Siemens Automation and Drives, to support innovation and speed time-tomarket. The solution was chosen based on Siemens’ excellent reputation in the industry along with the functionality of its products. The PLM implementation was handled by members of Haier’s R&D and IT departments along with 60 key users from eight product lines with support from Siemens.

PLM reinforces R & D

Haier products include more than 15,100 different specifications and 96 categories. As the business grows substantially, the parts and technical documents multiply at a rate up to 40 percent annually. Before the introduction of PLM solutions, drawing, document and part information were isolated in various systems and thus existed in different versions. Moreover, the group was unable to standardize information, and consequently experienced problems in quality control, manufacturing and purchasing.

Haier is using Siemens’ digital lifecycle management solution, Teamcenter®software, to solve these problems. Using the Teamcenter solution, the company has established a centralized part and document library. Today, 100 percent of all technical drawings are in digital format (versus only 80 percent in the past) and are stored in the Teamcenter vault. Documents have been standardized, and with Teamcenter managing the approval/release process and version control, a new level of accuracy and consistency in product information has been achieved. This has eliminated the previous financial issues due to mistakes in ordering and manufacturing caused by inaccurate documentation.

In...