Case Study

Page 1 of 3 | Creo Elements/Direct – Molex Inc. PTC.com

Molex Inc., Ettlingen, Germany

Molex Incorporated develops and produces electronic com-ponents and connectors for telecommunication devices, com-puters, vehicles, consumer goods and industrial applications. In recent years, the company, founded in 1939, has experi-enced dynamic growth not only as a result of acquisitions and its own successes, but also because today’s products feature more and more electric and electronic components, which need connectors–very often supplied by Molex. The company now employs more than 32,000 people in 54 locations across five continents.

To improve the organization’s global processes, Molex recently replaced its many regional divisions with five global divisions, which now market products via a single sales organization. The automotive division, with a key European development center located in Ettlingen, Germany, pioneered the organi-zational restructuring.“ In the future, our developers will work more closely with colleagues across the globe and will use each other’s designs,” says Gary Hart, European CAD Manager at Molex.

The challenge: manage global product development teams and projects

• Conduct product development at multiple locations with globally distributed teams

• Manage many development projects with customers from the automotive industry

• Handle intensified time and cost pressures in customer-specific projects

• Develop new products as an essential success factor

The solution: direct modeling solutions from PTC

• Universal application of Creo Elements/Direct ModelingTM (formerly CoCreate ModelingTM) in product and mold design

• Streamlined product data management with Creo Elements/Direct Model Manager (formerly CoCreate Model ManagerTM) in connection with the global ERP system

The results: seamless collaboration across global divisions

• Rapid response to customer requests for changes, thanks to the direct modeling-based approach

• Easier reuse of existing data at other locations

• Quicker integration of other departments by using 3D

Molex Inc. connects its worldwide operations with CreoTM Elements/DirectTM Software

“In the future, our developers will work much more closely with colleagues across the globe and will use each other’s designs.”

– Gary Hart

European CAD Manager

Molex

Formerly CoCreate®

With Creo Elements/Direct, Molex designs highly complex and sophisticated electronic components, like this junction box, directly in 3D.

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Case Study

New challenges for global product development

Molex’s new global product development strategy creates new challenges and opportunities for its Product Lifecycle Manage-ment (PLM). Hart says, “We want to record how quickly we can launch our products on the market, and where delays occur during the process. In this way, we can improve the flow of information from product development right through to pro-duction. And, when the product goes into production, we need to ascertain where it is at any given time, so that if changes occur, the engineers will know who needs to be involved.”

At Molex, the change process is mapped in an ERP system, which is installed at all locations, and largely controls the production process. The developers create new material mas-ters and parts lists in the product data management (PDM) system. Molex is currently replacing its existing PDM solution with Creo Elements/Direct Model Manager from PTC. As soon as the global rollout is complete, product data and other infor-mation, such as version status, will be exchanged via a PDM/ERP interface.

The development of new products is key to Molex’s success. Last year, the company launched more than 300 new connec-tors into the market–an all-time record for the company. Over-all, the company’s portfolio comprises more than 100,000 products, including standard connectors as well as customer-specific developments. In the automotive industry, in particular, many of the connectors are developed in close cooperation with OEMs or their main system suppliers. In this industry, in-tense time and cost pressures are a ‘given’.

Success through innovation

Although automotive customers occasionally pressure Molex to use the same CAD system that they’re using, the compa-ny prefers to design its products using Creo Elements/Direct Modeling software from PTC. In a benchmark comparison, the PTC software outperformed other leading CAD systems, particularly because of its direct modeling-based approach. Hart says, “When developing a new product, we generally don’t know exactly what the customer wants. Consequently, our drafts have to undergo several revisions, which we can-not anticipate and cannot map in parametric relationships.”

Direct modeling gives designers and engineers the speed to make changes to models ‘on the fly,’ which means that designers can quickly produce unlimited iterations of the product to find the ideal design. Another advantage is that, with direct modeling, it’s easy for one designer to work on a design initiated by another designer, much like a writer can open up an existing Microsoft® Word® doc and continue the work of another writer.

For instance, at Molex, a customer’s change request cannot always be implemented by the same engineer who worked on the original draft. This issue takes on even more impor-tance as a result of global cooperation within the new orga-nizational structure. The direct modeling-based approach to CAD enables engineers to use models from other locations and quickly pick up and work on the design as if the new de-signer had created the models themselves.

Apart from its functionality, Creo Elements/Direct Modeling’s ease-of-use offers a competitive advantage that should not be underestimated, according to Hart, as it reduces the need for training and speeds up familiarization. After all, the soft-ware is used on more than 1000 workstations at Molex, in-cluding product development, mold design, and quality as-surance. Consequently, one day of team training would be roughly equal to an investment of several man-years. Hart ensures that “Normally, users can create their first 3D models with Creo Elements/Direct Modeling after just three days of basic training.”

The Automotive Division produces connection systems for air bags and other

electronic components in vehicles.

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Case Study

Product development has fundamentally changed since the arrival of the 3D system from PTC. Even though the 2D drawing remains the main reference document, Molex engineers now use 3D models in milestone meetings. “Seeing the model in front of you makes things much easier to understand and helps to include employees from other areas, such as mold construc-tion or quality assurance, in the decision-making process,” says Hart. “We try to do this early on, so that product development and mold design overlap as much as possible.”

Hart is convinced that, with the implementation of the Creo Elements/Direct solutions, Molex made the right choice for facing the new challenges of global product development. The combination of the direct modeling approach, stream-lined data management, and Web-based collaboration offers the ideal basis for cooperation between globally distributed development teams.

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6003–Creo Elements–Molex Inc.–CS–EN–1210

FPODuring development, the connection systems experience some major

changes, which are unforseeable and cannot be handled with a parametric

CAD system. This is the reason Molex prefers direct modeling with Creo

Elements/Direct.