SOLIDWORKS integrated with DELMIAWORKS moves SMC Metal to paperless environment
Located in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, SMC Metal (Stelzner Manufacturing Company) started out as a coal and fuel oil distributor in the early 1940’s. Maintenance welding became a more routine service demanded by their customers – and a service that SMC became well known for. The addition of metal fabrication machines soon after prompted abandonment of the distribution business and a focus on metal fabrication.
By the late 1990’s SMC had added laser cutting, CNC punch / form, robotic welding, powder coating and light assembly capabilities. Today SMC can claim to be a ‘supplier of choice’ to large original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) for sheet metal and light plate fabricated products up to and including ½ inch thick.
SMC has been using SOLIDWORKS, a Dassault Systemes engineering product for a number of years. As Dan Ruedinger, President and CEO at SMC describes, SolidWorks has delivered significant benefit to the business:
“The speed with which SOLIDWORKS allows us to integrate with our customers drawings to make prototypes and production parts is a key differentiator for us in the marketplace.”
SMC however, wanted to do more and upgraded their ERP system to DELMIAWORKS (formerly known as IQMS), which is also part of Dassault Systemes’ suite of manufacturing products and integrates with SolidWorks.
Ruedinger says that the one of the major goals of the project was to be able move to a paperless environment across the shop floor. The implementation of DELMIAWORKS has:
“Allowed us to significantly increase the speed of manufacturing and reduce costs across the company. Prior to our implementation we were several years behind where we needed to be from a technology standpoint. We felt it was critical to be able to integrate our software with our engineering packages. We needed to move towards paperless for a number of reasons and DELMIAWORKS has provided the vehicle to do that.”
Watch the video to learn more:
The benefits reported by Ruedinger for SOLIDWORKS and the ERP system will only increase following the acquisition of IQMS by Dassault Systèmes earlier this year.
Forming part of the 3DEXPERIENCE platform on the Cloud, DELMIAWORKS and SOLIDWORKS provide repetitive, discrete and batch process manufacturers with significant operational performance, production efficiency and business agility improvements.
Posted by Joe on 5th June 2020.