Engineering Contractor Ampack Ammann Opts for Transparency and Standardisation

New CIM DATABASE platform organizes projects, processes and documents

Bremen, 31 July 2009 – Ampack Ammann GmbH services customers world-wide with high-tech plants to package and fill extremely sensitive foodstuffs such as dairy products, clinic foods and infant nutrition. Each and every installation is unique, posing project managers and controllers alike with new challenges which the previous PDM system couldn´t master anymore. The Königsbrunn-near-Munich based company therefore decided to supplement their ERP system with a PLM solution designated as a central database-backbone for all plant-relevant documentations. Decisive management criterion was the issue that the new system should provide all-encompassing support for project management processes. With the since January implemented PLM platform CIM DATABASE, several projects are already under PLM supervision and over 70.000 documents accounted for. Within short notice, CONTACTs offline solution „Mobile PLM“ for on-site reconciliation with customers will be implemented. At the same time, preparations are under way to link engineering and production to utilize the new PLM platform as a company-wide data-base and know-how platform.

Ammann’s complex filling and packaging systems must fulfil highest quality standards in respect to hygienic standards, dosing technologies, run-time and format-changes requirements and many other standards. Projecting such plants demands in-depth knowledge of all participants: beginning with the task of selecting the right components out of a vast spectrum of options for the customer and encompassing the sales, engineering and production processes, down to documentation and after-sales-services. Due to the growing limitations of the hitherto implemented IT infrastructure, the engineering specialist now supports his key processes through CIM DATABASE. The decision for a centralized PLM platform follows a system-encompassing, integral approach.

CIM DATABASE provides project engineers with a tool with which they are given necessary information in a fast and easy manner and with encompassing project planning support. Complimentary, controlling is provided with “on demand” daily updates. First applications are document management, full-text researches, process-management and reporting of the relevant project. Further extension levels incorporate the integration of the M- and E-CAD systems as well as the bi-directional data synchronisation with the ERP system, so that both systems will then warrant the transparent and retraceable life-cycle of a plant.

„Customized plant specification is linked to a literal flood of documents and data that demand organizing. With our current methods, that was nearly no longer feasible“, explains Jürgen Gonschior, head of Ampack Ammann’s IT. The management itself belongs to the key users of CIM DATABASE, which undoubtedly supported the whole project. Rainer Ammann, heading the family enterprise together with his sister in the second generation, is strongly involved in the sales and project management activities of the business. According to Axel Eckstein, head of CONTACT’s Competence Center South, regards the in-depth process know-how of Ammann’s management as a decisive advantage for the project: „Because the project is a key management issue, decision taking is short. The project is constantly being promoted and the value-added potentials of a modern PDM/PLM technology are consequently being exploited for the company“, is Eckstein’s summary.