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Better Visualization of BOMs in 3D

by Volker Berbohm

BENTELER Automotive not only develops innovative lightweight vehicle components for a variety of uses in the automotive industry but also the materials and manufacturing technology required to do this. Pioneering new approaches is the key to the renowned automotive supplier's success. This also applies to the way in which it makes use of IT: with PROSTEP's support, it has made its engineering BOMs 3D capable.

With approximately 20,850 employees in 20 development and sales offices worldwide and 70 factories in 29 countries, BENTELER Automotive, which is part of the BENTELER Group, develops and produces ready-to-install modules, chassis components, and parts for body, engine and exhaust systems. The Group is headquartered in Salzburg, Austria, and generated revenues of 7.5 million euros in the 2014 financial year. Most of this was accounted for by business in the automotive sector, where practically all major OEMs are customers of BENTELER Automotive.

The prime focus of the division's many and varied activities, which include glass processing equipment, systems for the production of chassis and body in white components as well as forming tools, is placed on integrated lightweight construction using high-strength materials. In addition, BENTELER-SGL, a joint venture between BENTELER Automotive and the SGL Group, develops and produces components made from carbon-fiber reinforced composites for the automotive industry. The division's activities are neatly rounded off by the BENTELER Defense business unit, which – with its robust solutions –specializes in personal protection in civilian and military vehicles.

BENTELER Automotive uses SAP as its central PDM system with direct integration facilities to the CAD systems CATIA V5, Siemens NX and PTC Creo. Using the SAP CAD Desktop, users control not only the transfer of the BOMs and the creation of project records but also print output, 2D/3D conversion and data exchange with external partners. Project records created in SAP 4PEP form the backbone of the product engineering process; they connect engineering BOMs (eBOM), variant management, document management, the change process and baselining. Previously, however, the BOM could only be viewed in 2D.

Automated 3D PDF generation

PROSTEP integrated its own 3D PDF technology in the product engineering process with the aim of enriching eBOMs with 3D information and allowing them to also be made available outside of SAP in a format that prevents subsequent changes from being made. The integration allows 3D models to be exported from the CAD system together with the metadata and attribute information, to be converted and to be merged with the BOM information from the eBOM Parts Cockpit in a 3D PDF template. The entire process is managed by PDF Generator 3D from PROSTEP and runs automatically.

A major advantage of 3D PDF BOMs is the fact that the embedded models can be visualized interactively, i.e. moved, rotated or zoomed, using any standard Adobe Reader. At the same time, users see the associated project data, BOM information and quantities in the different parts of the 3D viewer window. Automatically generated position numbers on the parts and assemblies make it easier for users to navigate the data.

3D visualization significantly simplifies the handling of BOMs, as André Lietz, project manager at BENTELER stresses. The interactive models are linked within the PDF document with the structure information in the BOM and can be used for navigation purposes. The use of PDF Generator 3D in combination with intelligent 3D PDF templates means that the amount of manual work required for deriving the BOMs has been reduced to a minimum despite the embedding of the 3D models. "Further benefits of the solution are the fact that the BOMs can be made available both inside and outside SAP and that they cannot be manipulated once they have been exported," says Lietz in conclusion.

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