Many companies in the manufacturing industry are making increasing financial and organizational efforts to control the growing complexity of their development projects and achieve their productivity targets. This is confirmed by a survey conducted by the IT market research company Techconsult, for which 163 decision-makers in the field of product development in the manufacturing industry were questioned: Only 55% of developers' working time is available for actual development tasks, the remaining 45% is spent on so-called support services, i.e. unproductive work for data maintenance and transfer. 77% expect that the introduction of a PLM system would tend to increase the amount of time spent on support services. 78% of all companies believe that discipline-specific data management and synchronization with the PLM or ERP level is a sensible alternative for electronics and electrical engineering. These results have prompted Zuken to adopt a new strategy.

The company is questioning the axiom that the development data of all disciplines and trades involved in a development project must necessarily be kept in a single PLM or ERP system environment. Instead, Zuken is taking the path of user-oriented management and provision of the required data and information within the CAD authoring environment, which can be synchronized with the PLM or ERP level with significantly less integration effort.

User-oriented administration

This approach, also referred to by Zuken as 'Domain Data Management', addresses one of the most common reasons for the failure of many PLM projects, namely the implementation and maintenance of the necessary interfaces, which often proves to be much more complex and cost-intensive than assumed by those involved. The ability to open and read ECAD original data should enable efficient support of structured change, configuration and reuse processes and simplify synchronization with the PLM and ERP level.

A new Zuken data and project control environment is integrated directly into Zuken's E³.series interface for electrical and fluid design, giving designers access to all the information they need without having to leave their familiar environment.

Integration into the authoring tools

DS-E3 is a data management environment for the specific requirements of electrical engineering. It provides all employees and suppliers involved in the product development and manufacturing process with up-to-date, valid and validated development data, parts lists and library information. With functions for change and configuration management, DS-E3 also provides capabilities for supporting corresponding company initiatives. The new software is built on the same platform as its counterpart for PCB development, DS-CR, which is also directly integrated into the CR-8000 family interface for PCB and system development.

Benjamin Nixdorf, Managing Director of Zuken Europe, has high expectations for the new data management solution: "The new software technology has the potential to enable productivity increases in a whole range of sectors in the manufacturing industry. In addition to providing up-to-date and valid development statuses, it supports a number of strategic initiatives of our customers, such as the systematic use of existing development data, the configuration of customer-specific products or the implementation of a mechatronic development process.