Working from Bergen, ClampOn designs and produces world-leading ultrasonic intelligent sensors for the oil and gas industry.
The challenge
Working from the self-acclaimed «subsea capital of the world», Bergen, ClampOn designs and produces world-leading ultrasonic intelligent sensors for the oil and gas industry. In addition, they export 85 – 90 percent of their products all over the world. The extremely accurate instruments need to fulfill the very high standards of the industry and stand a 30-year lifetime in harsh subsea conditions. One of ClampOn’s strengths is that they have all their departments together under one roof, but their digital workflow hasn’t always supported their collaborative way of work.
The solution
Vidar Hundvin has been working as an engineer at ClampOn for more than four years. “When I started at ClampOn, we had our files collected from various CAD programs for over 20 years, all stored in different locations. To be more productive and secure better communication we felt the need to unite our work in a single CAD system and location and we needed to connect the new solution with our new ERP system.”
ClampOn decided to take advantage of SOLIDWORKS solutions in cooperation with PLM Group and run a major update on their database. Models from AutoCAD and Inventor were remodeled in SOLIDWORKS and stored in SOLIDWORKS PDM while the existing SOLIDWORKS files could easily be imported to the new PDM solution.
«I have experience in using different CAD programs and I find SOLIDWORKS very intuitive», Vidar explains. «It’s very easy to learn the basics, and it’s very advanced if you want to go deeper into the different aspects of SOLIDWORKS. It’s fast and it really makes me concentrate on the job instead of spending time figuring out how to do something. »
All departments benefit from the new PDM system
“The big learning from the process of moving to SOLIDWORKS and PDM actually has been to see all the capacity we gain by using good systems and working by good routines,” Vidar says and adds: ”PDM has really helped us with this.”
It’s not only the engineering department that has benefitted from their new solution; this has proven to be a timesaver for other departments as well. Their logistics department can for example easily pick a file from SOLIDWORKS, add data, and release it for use in their ERP system.
“We also have this magic button”, Vidar explains proudly; ”When we finalize a new product, we can easily export the product data to the ERP system with connected drawings and all information needed by our sub-suppliers and production department.”
ClampOn uses SOLIDWORKS Composer for the illustrations that are used in their product documentation for end-users. This documentation considers for example installation manuals and instrument datasheets. Project Engineer Robert Harrison explains: “When models are updated and this needs to be reflected in user documentation, we know this can be done with a few clicks. This way we are certain that user manuals are always up to date and have the latest information available. “
The user documentation was previously written after the development process was complete, but with the help of SOLIDWORKS Composer and PDM, ClampOn can now begin working on the user documentation at a much earlier stage in the process. “This means that we can produce user documentation in parallel with the development process rather than waiting for it to be finalized”, Robert says and adds:” Which means that we can have material for the documentation ready much quicker, and get it out to the customer much quicker.”
Smooth ERP integration with PLM Group
In order to connect SOLIDWORKS to their ERP system, ClampOn worked closely with PLM Group’s Professional Services Team. This is an important process where both parties need to understand each other perfectly to get a good understanding of how the PDM system could be configured to fit their specific needs.
“After a few weeks of testing and fixing minor errors and when we went live it worked well from day 1,” Vidar says, “We felt very confident and safe choosing PLM Group for this task. Now we feel confident in our solution and can easily scale up to meet future challenges.”
The success
- ClampOn has gained better productivity by switching from AutoCAD and Inventor to one system and uniting their PDM workflow around SOLIDWORKS solutions.
- Better communication across all departments in the organization.
- Delivery time to the customer has been shortened due to working in parallel with documentation and development.