Consumer products and retail
Riri
Luxury fashion manufacturer uses PLM to synchronize
zipper and button development
Products
Solid Edge, Teamcenter
Business challenges
Proliferation of product data
Keys to success
Solid Edge for design
innovation
Teamcenter for quick and
efficient document retrieval
Integration of CAD and nonCAD data, including Word and
PDF files, in one database
A single data management
platform for all group
branches and subsidiaries
Programmed workflows to
automate product development processes
User authentication, access
restriction and role-based
functionality
With Teamcenter, Solid Edge
models and other product data
are immediately accessible
to all corporate departments;
Siemens PLM Software solutions
protect intellectual property
Premium fashion
Riri SA (Riri), a Swiss company founded in
1936, is a leading producer of high-quality
zippers used in clothing and apparel.
Enrico Matteazzi, R&D (research and development) manager of the company’s zipper
division, has no hesitation in calling Riri’s
product “the Rolls Royce of zippers.” This
statement is supported by the company’s
customer portfolio, which includes worldfamous fashion and luxury brands.
Riri expanded its product range in 2008
with the acquisition of Cobrax, a global
leader in metal buttons. As a result, the
company has become a group with 700
employees, three manufacturing sites (at
its headquarters in Mendrisio, Switzerland;
at the zipper division in Tirano, Italy and
at the button division in Padua, Italy). It
also operates an Italian subsidiary in Milan
along with branch offices in Paris, Munich,
New York, Shanghai and Hong Kong.
During the peak season, Riri produces 70
kilometers (approximately 44 miles) of
finished zippers per day. With an annual
turnover equal to 70 million euros, the
company manufactures zippers for differ-
Riri manufactures zippers and metal buttons.
ent types of products, from leather goods
to clothing, and from shoes to shoulder
gear. It also produces high tech products
for special applications, including army
tents and survival equipment.
www.siemens.com/plm
Results
Accurate product information
accessible to all business
divisions
Design data leveraged for
use in sales, procurement,
customer service, production
planning and manufacturing
Intellectual property
protected
In the wake of its positive experience with Solid Edge,
Riri turned to Novasystem, a Siemens PLM Software
partner, to evaluate PDM solutions.
Teamcenter has been gradually extended to other
offices, from industrial engineering to quality, with
future integration plans involving sales and
manufacturing.
“The capabilities we needed from
Teamcenter – data search and process
management – work as we expected.”
Elisabetta Mazzi
Presales and Training Manager
Riello SpA
Proliferating documentation
Riri’s technical department designs and
develops its products, including leather
goods, clothes, shoes and outerwear, as
well as molds and tooling for plastic
molding machines and Zamac casting
equipment. All assembly, manufacturing
and quality control operations are performed in-house. These are complemented
by external partners for different needs.
Customers are increasingly requiring their
own equipment for checking or applying
zippers to clothing, changing the nature
of the supplier-customer relationship.
Riri had two requirements for its
PDM system: the ability to search
documents and correctly identify the
latest version, and to align documents
with the corresponding zipper, mold
and tooling.
“Our product can be developed in two
ways,” explains Matteazzi. “The first
approach is internal brainstorming or input
from sales and partners. We identify an
interesting product and we move on
with feasibility studies, budget definition,
design and prototyping, production and
distribution. Alternatively, we get a specific request from a customer asking to
customize the zipper puller and/or body.”
The engineering process is a collaboration
between the technical and industrial engineering departments, and involves a team
of 12 people who are responsible for all
design stages, test-related documents,
verifications and approvals, and project
revisions – essentially the entire product
development cycle. This team is where the
company first implemented Solid Edge®
software from Siemens PLM Software.
“Today we have nine Solid Edge licenses,”
says Matteazzi. “As we added CAD (computer-aided design) workstations, we were
confronted with the proliferation of CAD
documents, in addition to a huge volume
of paper documents stored in our archives.
We realized that having each designer
manage his own documents was driving
the system to collapse.”
The company identified two requirements:
first, a way to search documents and
correctly identify the latest version; and
second, the ability to align each document
with the corresponding zipper, mold and
tooling. The latter included linking CAD
Riri’s technical department designs and develops
products, as well as molds and tooling for plastic
molding machines and Zamac casting equipment.
PDM – “Perfectly fit our requirements”
In the wake of its positive experience with
Solid Edge, Riri turned to Novasystem, a
Siemens PLM Software partner, to evaluate possible product data management
(PDM) solutions. “When we were almost
ready to choose, it was announced
that Siemens PLM Software was about
to launch a preconfigured version of
Teamcenter, the product lifecycle management (PLM) solution for small and medium
businesses, which perfectly fit our requirements,” Matteazzi says. “At that point,
we had to decide between a package
developed to our specific needs and
requirements, or a solution directly supplied by Siemens: more standard but
offering long-term stability. We went for
the second option, starting a process that
has led us to equip our CAD stations with
Teamcenter licenses. The licenses have
also been extended to other offices, from
industrial engineering to quality, with
future integration plans for sales and
manufacturing as well.”
The tools currently implemented in
the engineering department will be
extended to other business areas,
including sales, procurement,
customer service, production planning
and manufacturing.
Teamcenter® software is preconfigured
for rapid deployment and fast return
on investment. The implementation of
Teamcenter started with a macro analysis
of the business organization to identify
all intervention areas.
At Riri, the engineering process is a collaboration
between the technical and industrial engineering
departments.
documents to all non-CAD files related to
the same project, including standards,
requirements, datasheets and reports contained in different Word files and portable
document format (PDF) files.
Riri also needed to manage its development process more efficiently. “In a
company where roles, relationships and
strategies change, it is essential to rely on
systems that, through programmed workflows, automatically address the process
with one click, independently of the memory, attention and good will of individual
users,” Matteazzi recalls.
“The capabilities we needed from
Teamcenter – data search and process
management – work as we expected,”
says Matteazzi. “It may seem banal, but
we have realized the great value you get
when you find and immediately recognize
the correct information and its status.
Besides this, another useful capability is
bill of materials (BOM) management. We
use fictitious items, which have not been
drawn yet, so that we can handle samples
and tests, keeping track of all item codes
from the very start. Another benefit
is assembly management based on
Teamcenter rules, such as ‘last designed’
or ‘last released’ for the revision of each
Riri uses Teamcenter to manage
projects and to link CAD documents
to all non-CAD files related to the
same project.
Solutions/Services
Solid Edge
www.siemens.com/solidedge
Teamcenter
www.siemens.com/teamcenter
Customer’s primary business
Riri SA produces luxury zippers
and buttons.
www.riri.com
Customer location
Mendrisio
Switzerland
Partner
Novasystem
“As we added CAD workstations, we were confronted
with the proliferation of CAD
documents. This problem
was solved effectively by
implementing Teamcenter.”
Enrico Matteazzi
R&D Manager
Zipper Division
Riri SA
assembly. Finally, the creation of CAD
documents as PDF files is maybe less
impressive but very useful, as all documents can be viewed by all departments,
avoiding manual PDF printouts. And of
course, the PDF file is always consistent
with the model’s latest version.”
Continuously improving
competitive position
The Siemens PLM Software tools currently
implemented in the engineering department will eventually be extended to
other business areas, including sales, procurement, customer service, production
planning and manufacturing. “The second
step involves extending the access to data
to other users, who will also add their
documents to the system. The issues of
security and privacy are very important
for a company such as ours, which holds
about 80 patents. Teamcenter offers
all the necessary capabilities for user
authentication, access restriction and
role-based functionality.”
The expansion plan will also bring Siemens
PLM Software technology to all group subsidiaries. At present, Teamcenter is up and
running at the Tirano site, where people
can access data for browsing and printing.
“Once we have completed the integration
with other offices, we will move out
from the Mendrisio headquarters,” says
Matteazzi. “We have already started the
integration with the Milan branch for customer service, and we are evaluating the
possibility of granting access to our agents
in the territory, provided we can guarantee
suitable browsing speeds and intellectual
property protection.”
During the peak season the company produces
70 kilometers of finished zipper per day.
Since the introduction of Solid Edge, Riri
has been collaborating with Novasystem,
which provides user training and configuration support services to the company.
“We worked side-by-side with Novasystem
during the initial analysis, installation and
commissioning,” Matteazzi notes. “Now we
have resumed intensive collaboration for
the second stage.”
“Helping an organization like Riri improve
its competitiveness is a challenge,” says
Graziano Bergonzi, technical sales manager in the PLM division of Novasystem.
“We are proud that we have been able
to help this customer respond to the
demands of a more complicated market,
and to create a solid database on which
they are developing an extended platform
on a global scale.”
Siemens PLM Software
Americas
+1 314 264 8287
Europe +44 (0) 1276 413200
Asia-Pacific +852 2230 3308
www.siemens.com/plm
© 2013 Siemens Product Lifecycle Management Software Inc. Siemens and the Siemens logo are registered trademarks of
Siemens AG. D-Cubed, Femap, Geolus, GO PLM, I-deas, Insight, JT, NX, Parasolid, Solid Edge, Teamcenter, Tecnomatix and
Velocity Series are trademarks or registered trademarks of Siemens Product Lifecycle Management Software Inc. or its
subsidiaries in the United States and in other countries. All other logos, trademarks, registered trademarks or service marks
used herein are the property of their respective holders.
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