Industrial machine builder MAUS chooses think3's CAD and PLM solutions

MAUS, part of Finaid, the holding company of the Carraro Group, has chosen think3’s CAD and PLM solutions to compete in the industrial machinery market

In 1989, to keep pace with every changing market scenarios, the company introduced some of the early CAD solutions. In 1999 it started working together with think3 by implementing their CAD solution - ThinkDesign.

“The passage from 2D to 3D allowed us to improve quality and reduce the time spent on control steps during production” explains Antonio Fassina, Technical Director at MAUS. “Today everything at MAUS is developed using 3D. The conversion of historical files takes place in the Indian office”.

In 2000, the company saw the need to automate management information flows for parts lists and needed something which integrated the technical and management sides of the equation. At this point the company’s existing partnership with think3 was extended with the start of a PDM project employing thinkPLM. The first step of the project consisted of coding the company’s products.

The company needed an efficient way of sharing information by automating the transfer of data from the CAD parts list to the management information system. It also needed to a way of improving direct communications with the Carraro Group. MAUS machines and lines share the same platforms but otherwise have a high degree of personalization. Primarily they work to customer orders rather than producing standard machines and this means that the number components common to several machines is relatively small. A complete MAUS assembly can have between 1000 to 1500 components.

Collaboration with think3 saw the progressive development of a PDM project fully customized to the effective needs of the customer.

“We decided to extend the partnership which linked us to think3 for CAD to include the new PDM project because think3 is very similar to us as a business” explains Fassina. “Both companies adopt a very forceful approach, even though they are small businesses with gigantic competitors. We know from experience that think3 is the partner who follows our project best and will support us throughout all the stages of the process.”

Today, thanks to the implementation of PDM, the Technical Department at MAUS handles all the information regarding parts lists, production orders and supplier modification requests and sends this information to the production and purchasing departments. Updated data are managed efficiently. Maximum security is guaranteed for shared information. ThinkPLM is also linked to Microsoft Project. Plans for the future include eliminating the management system interface in the Technical Department so that everything is done using the PDM.

A medium-term objective for the project plan is a VAULT for the branch in India which currently develops software and mechanical parts.

The Replicated Vault by think3 is particularly useful for companies who develop their products across different sites. The think3 replicated vault copies data from the central server onto a local server so that users can continue to work on the same files at the local level. This considerably reduces network loads and enables enormous savings in file downloading times. It also enables easy data retrieval for all users and the logical organisation of information flows.

"Differentiation through innovation." - This one of the prime objectives of MAUS Spa (Campodarsego, Padua, Italy), an example of manufacturing excellence from Italy’s north-east. The company specialises in the production of automatic fettling machines for jobbing foundries and the automotive industry and also vertical turning machines for the on-highway, off-highway, power transmission & generation, bearings and railway industries.