With annual sales of around 12 billion euros and 120 manufacturing plants in 25 countries, ZF is rightly regarded as a global supplier to the world’s automotive industry. The prestigious ZF brand is synonymous with the supply of high quality drive train and chassis technology to domestic, commercial, construction and agricultural vehicle manufacturers around the world.

Remaining competitive in a global market in the face of lower cost base competition is an achievement in itself and testament to the emphasis ZF places on continuous investment in productivity improvements. In the area of CNC machining, ZF has recently invested in Edgecam, the production machining CAM solution from Planit.

This investment is the culmination of a long-term feasibility project with Edgecam reseller in Germany Wecomp, preceded by an intensive consultation period involving Max Weishäupl, technical representative of ZF and Martin Biewer, senior consultant at Wecomp.

Edgecam’s ability to meet ZF’s technical specification for a 3D CAM system was clear from the outset. The requirement for the new system to integrate seamlessly into existing processes has, however, proved to be a much greater challenge.

Eventually, all necessary interface and data transfer parameters were defined and the main goal – the implementation of a comprehensive solution covering all processes – was reached. This included the joint development of a tool that transfers data such as dimensions and tolerances from Pro/ENGINEER models directly to Edgecam, which in turn allows a very high degree of automation in part programming. As a result, lead times are cut and productivity is increased.

 “This agreement with ZF represents a further milestone on our road to becoming the leading CAD/CAM systems provider for the automotive sector,” says Manfred Kukla of the Wecomp management team. “At the same time, this contract to purchase 50 Edgecam seats – worth around 800,000 euro – is one of the biggest accounts in the 16-year history of our company.”

Commenting on the implementation of Edgecam in ZF manufacturing facilities throughout Germany, Peter Robl, team manager, production services, states: “Edgecam is the only system that delivers the process automation tools we demanded during our evaluation of 10 CAM solutions. The degree of integration and interoperability we achieve between Edgecam and our corporate CAD solution Pro/ENGINEER enables us to take component designs and automatically generate and apply optimised tool paths. The Edgecam implementation will commence at the ZF facility in Passau, (south east Germany), where we have 600 CNC machine tools. Another key aspect of Edgecam is its seamless compatibility with the FaSys tool database system. The productivity efficiencies we achieve with Edgecam give us a significant return on our investment.”

 “As well as being a great success for the Edgecam business in Germany I am especially excited by the productivity gains ZF has achieved during the feasibility phase of this project,” comments Edgecam country manager for Germany, Nick Spurrett. “By aligning its corporate CAM strategy with Edgecam, ZF shows that its manufacturing philosophy of investment in automation is very much in tune with our continued development plans. With operations in both high and low labour cost economies, ZF needed to select the most appropriate CAM solution for future implementation across the whole business. For global organisations such as ZF, simply chasing low wages is not enough. Labour costs are only one element in a complex equation that defines sustained competitiveness.”