Arctic Machine manages product information with Sovelia and Vault
Arctic Machine went from construction in Inventor towards process optimisation with product lifecycle management.
An internationally operating Finnish family company, Arctic Machine, focuses on manufacturing road maintenance equipment. The company is one of the few in the business that is able to equip an entire road maintenance unit with its own products. The turnkey delivery starts with a truck’s chassis and often covers all the equipment for snow removal, deicing, road cleaning, and complete automatic control for the management of the entire unit.
From construction in Inventor towards process optimisation with product lifecycle management
Designers and purchasers at Arctic Machine can today find needed items and documents quickly and reliably using Sovelia and for example all the drawings and part lists, related to main configuration of the product, can be collected by one function. In the past everything was handled manually.
”Together with Symetri, we implemented Sovelia and Autodesk Vault. The designer uses Vault during the work process for managing design documents. Items and product structures, as well as documentation, are generated through the interface into Sovelia, automatically. In the past, we saved all the drawings manually in a folder structure on our server located at our head office,"
tells Product Development Manager Petteri Tervamäki.
Personal guidance, consultancy and support available at one single phone number
After deciding to acquire the PLM-system, Arctic Machine took 4-5 potential system suppliers for comparison. Among these potential system suppliers Arctic Machine did a thorough investigation and gained the best understanding of the selection criteria. According to Petteri Tervamäki, one of the most important things was the support for Autodesk Inventor. When Autodesk launches a new version of Inventor and Vault the benefit is that Sovelia is capable of delivering support accordingly and immediately. Having signed an agreement with Symetri who delivers the complete solution, Arctic Machine gets the full potential from both product vendors. Also, the personal guidance, consultancy and support is available at one single phone number, as they support both the design software and the product lifecycle management system.
”In the past, the designer or the purchaser had to know in which of the server’s folders the latest version of each document could be found, Tervamäki recalls. – Now, they find the items and documents quickly and reliably with Sovelia’s search tools. For example, all the drawings and part lists, related to main configuration of the product, can be collected by one function. Before the implementation, we had to handle everything manually."
Implementing Sovelia to ERP and to support sales & service processes
According to Petteri Tervamäki, the implementation ran smoothly thanks to Symetri and the expertise they delivered in the process of implementing Sovelia. Their support answers questions quickly and the industry expertise is good. When working with the specifications, the problem is of course, knowledge of the client’s specific products. That knowledge needs to come from inside the company.
Arctic Machine is to also transfer product information automatically into the ERP system and then implement SOVELIA to support Sales processes and Service business. It will be of great benefit as the products are highly customized and there are dozens, if not hundreds of versions. According to Tervamäki, the topic has already been subject to a lot of meetings, as there are still many basic things that have to be done, internally. However, when the company has decided on the next steps, the future will bring even more development and automation to strengthen the processes at Arctic Machine.
