About the Customer
KUKA is a global automation corporation with sales of around 2.6 billion euro and roughly 14,000 employees. The company is headquartered in Augsburg, Germany. As one of the world’s leading suppliers of intelligent automation solutions, KUKA offers customers everything they need from a single source: from robots and cells to fully automated systems and their networking in markets such as automotive, electronics, metal & plastic, consumer goods, e-commerce/retail and healthcare.
Project Overview
As part of its continuous digital transformation, KUKA aimed to establish seamless integration between its ECAD tools and the SAP PLM environment. The project focused on unifying data management across various engineering systems and ensuring consistency in libraries and processes. XPLM supported KUKA in developing a tailored data model designed to meet the specific needs of the electronics development team. The solution also enables all global KUKA sites to access centrally managed SAP PLM information, ensuring uniform workflows and efficient collaboration across the organization.
The XPLM connector for Altium Designer to SAP PLM is really intuitive to use. Within a few hours, we got to grips with it thanks to the excellently prepared training documents.
Solution
XPLM implemented the integration of KUKA’s ECAD environment into SAP PLM via SAP ECTR. Together with KUKA, a customized data model was developed to precisely match the workflows of the electronics development team, including the management of product variants and compliance requirements. The XPLM ECAD Connector automates the transfer of Altium Designer data, ensuring that all design, assembly, and production files are stored and synchronized within SAP PLM according to KUKA’s naming conventions. Automated synchronization of component libraries across all ECAD systems via MS SQL procedures guarantees up-to-date, consistent master data and seamless integration into SAP ERP processes.
Benefits
- Automated synchronization of parts lists with up-to-date ECAD data ensures data accuracy and consistency across all systems
- Unified configuration, change, and version management strengthens process reliability and traceability throughout the product lifecycle
- Consolidated parts lists and coordinated design releases streamline downstream processes and enhance overall efficiency
