Marel is digitizing costing and routing with simus classmate

Since January 2021, the Boxmeer and Dongen (Netherlands) production sites are already successfully using the solution. In the first half of 2021 also Gainesville in Georgia (USA) and Gardabaer in Iceland are expected to go live.

Like most manufacturers, Marel is striving towards cost-conscious design, reduce the time it takes to create routings and set target costs for contract parts. In 2019, a group of engineers from all major production sites began searching for software that would automatically provide work plans and a calculation of future manufacturing costs based on 3D models and component information to identify potential improvements. The common platform should be available to design as well as production and procurement.

“Based on the results, we chose simus systems as a strategic partner for the implementation, which is now supporting us very flexibly in the optimisation”, reports André Kouwenberg, Global Manufacturing Engineer at Marel.

New processes were defined and a technical database was filled with all internal and external production techniques and machining parameters. Due to the cellular structure of the production, the automatic creation of production routings was quite a complex task. By automatically classifying the 3D models based on feature information, the products are now assigned to the right production cell in Boxmeer or Dongen. In the process, routings are already created for the correct machines and operations within the production cell.

Marel’s IT department created connections to SAP and the Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) system. The challenges of a multi-CAD environment were successfully overcome in the process.

“With the cost information in the development phase, we now improve the design engineering of our products, while manufacturing saves time and effort in creating production routings. Procurement achieves better terms with suppliers, due to target costing capabilities”, says André Kouwenberg.