ZF Transmission use PARTsolutions Parts Management System to Streamline Design

You’ve probably heard of ZF, since they make some of the finest transmissions and automotive components in the world. If you haven’t heard of them by name you’re probably familiar with some of the vehicles their products help to transfer the power to the ground.

Need a refresher? The Porsche 911, Porsche Carrera GT, the entire BMW line including the M series, the complete Audi family and the Rolls Royce Phantom all use ZF transmissions, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

As a top tier automotive supplier, engineering and part specification process are key to ensuring their products are designed and built in the most efficient way possible.

Until 2005 there was no dedicated system to manage parts in use at ZF. Standard parts were stored in a Standard LIP database, which was only useable with the PTC Pro/E CAD environment, and not with CATIA, their secondary CAD system. This resulted in a high amount of newly created parts, entailing cost of approximately 1,000 Euros ($1300) per part.

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After a thorough review by the ZF team, CADENAS’ Strategic Parts Management PARTsolutions was chosen to tackle this problem.

Deciding factors:

1. PARTsolutions compatibility with their existing systems
2. PARTsolutions  ability to manage, sort and find their existing parts
3. The power to preview individual parts with a 3D model before downloading
4. Broad selection of new parts from 600 suppliers
5. Capability to search new parts with geometry, topology, sketch or text search

The system is mainly used to streamline the CAD design, process, especially equipment design, where many supplier parts are in use. ZF currently has 2400 licenses of the system in use, so virtually every CAD user has access to PARTsolutions.