Keytech PLM streamlinesZeppelin development

September 2007

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Zeppelin takes off with PLM Legendary air transportation innovator, Zeppelin, created its next generation Product Lifecycle Management environment with keytech PLM Suite.

ÓZeppelin, founded in 1908, still exists today and has been able to open up new international markets in

the airship manufacturing sector thanks to its wealth of ex-perience and innovation. This is achieved today by Zeppelin Luftschifftechnik (ZLT) GmbH & Co KG, founded in 1993 with the aim of developing, building and operating new Zeppelin airships – the first product of which is the Zeppe-lin NT LZ N07. This is a 75m long, 19.5m wide vessel. It can carry 12 passengers in a roomy cabin, contains of 7,300m3 of helium, boasts a maximum air speed of 125km/h and has a range of 900km over 24 hours.

With the concentration on the environmental effects of the air travel industry, it’s perhaps no wonder that the name Zeppelin has seen a major resurgence since the 1990s. By pro-viding an environmentally friendly and cost effective alternative means of air transportation, the company that bears the name is amongst the most innovative in the aerospace field.

Until recently, ZLT GmbH & Co KG had been using a two-dimensional design process, using Helix-2D for draught-ing work, while critical electronics design work was carried out using ANVIL. To assist with the management of the product development, Engineering Change and Release, ZLT developed KMS (Configuration Management System), an in-house Microsoft Access-based system.

In late 2003 it became clear that ZLT couldn’t continue with a 2D design and engineering workflow, so following ex-tensive evaluation, the company chose SolidWorks as the ba-sis for its next generation product development environment. Alongside this, ZLT quickly realised that it was also necessary to replace its existing in-house KMS with a system more able to manage the CAD, as well as the working procedures, workflows and standard practices that it had developed – which eventually led the team to keytech PLM Suite.

ZLT was looking for a system that was tightly inte-grated with SolidWorks and could replicate the workflows established in the company’s KMS system. Karin Bernhardt, Airworthiness Data and Configuration Manager at ZLT, ex-plains, “After presentations from different PDM-providers we decided to take keytech because we got the impression that they have the closest interface to SolidWorks and would be able to implement at least most of our KMS functionality.”

The reason for the concentration on replication of its ex-isting workflows and sign-off procedures is that that these had already been certified in the older generation KMS system by Luftfahrtbundesamt (LBA), the German Civil Aviation author-ity. This meant that as keytech could replicate these proce-

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PLM Case study

dures, then LBA certification would be problem free. Only one issue arose, which related to the switching from a hand-written signature, to an electronic one. When ZLT replaced its paper based ECB processes, with a PDF-based electronic version, the LBA gave its OK with one exception: that the last person in the release process has to still sign manually.

Legacy & BOM managementAlongisde the management of master SolidWorks data, keytech also handles legacy data using an interface to both Helix and ANVIL to manage legacy 2D drawings and ECAD information. It was of particularly importance that keytech was able to support the release procedures for all kinds of data, irrespective of source. Of course, a common issue when managing data from multiple sources within an engineering and manufacture environment is the mainte-nance of Bills of Materials. Within the ZLT implementa-tion of keytech, legacy BOMs from Helix and ANVIL are handled entirely by keytech PLM Suite, while SolidWorks BOMs are imported into keytech and completed to add missing details. Whichever system authors the BOM, the one within keytech PLM Suite is the master.

Configuration & Item management Another key factor in ZLT’s decision to adopt keytech PLM Suite is that the system is built on a foundation of Item Management as opposed to document management. When asked why this was critical to the company’s choice of keytech PLM Suite, Bernhardt explained, “An airship is always a hardware configuration. For the approval of an airship it is necessary to know each part and to release every change of any part of the ship. That is why configuration management is so important in our business. The documents are the tool to manage the design and the composition of the parts. Only the current configuration of the airship delivers the complete set of current documents which have to be released.”

Business System integrationkeytech PLM Suite is responsible for the management of the complete product development data, while INFRA, ZLT’s Enterprise Resource Management (ERP) system is responsible for production data. A unidirec-tional interface has been implemented between the two. After the release of a new part or a change of a part the complete data of the part (including BOM, drawing number etc.) is transferred auto-matically from keytech PLM Suite to INFRA. In addition to this, INFRA has access to the PDF-Files of the corresponding drawings.

ConclusionZLT now has its product development processes and data under control and managed using keytech PLM Suite. Legacy data is managed with keytech PLM Suite controlling 17,000 drawings, 1,000 electrical schematics and another thousand ‘office documents.

ZLT’s innovative products are incredibly complex, with 32,000 items and 160,000 components within Bills of Materials. Its products are in operation across the globe, from providing an ‘Eye in the Sky’ for security at the Athens Olympics, conducting aerial geophysical surveys for De Beers Prospecting in Botswana or setting the Airship World Speed Record with Steve Fossett.

Summing up the adoption and implementation of keytech PLM Suite, Karin Bernhardt concludes, “keytech PLM suite has now been in use for around half a year and, in my opinion, users are a good way to accepting it. It’s very comfortable to work with and many additional reports

can be added and easily recovered.” lwww.keytech.de/english

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