Creo Customers: System Logistics Picks, Packs, and Moves the Goods with Creo

By Geoff Hedges | Published: July 7, 2011

Look at these numbers:

• Coca-Cola produces and stores 500 million liters of beverages each year – at just one site, for just one country – Italy!
• L.L Bean, the fashion retailer, handles 10 million units of merchandise each year, with an average of 50,000 customer orders a day.
• Modelo Group produces and distributes 12 brands of beer, including Mexican blockbuster Corona Extra, with up to 50 million bottles going out the door each week!

By the time your numbers start looking like these, you need to automate. For Coca-Cola, L.L. Bean, and Modelo, that means adopting material-handling machinery from System Logistics. A leader in developing automated solutions in warehousing and distribution operations, System Logistics makes equipment that handles high volumes of products efficiently and accurately.




But what does System Logistics do when it wants to improve its own productivity?
It examines the product development cycle.

“We identified that with the right partner and software, we could raise the bar on innovation and product development,” says Roberto Dolci, CIO System Logistics. “We evaluated global and local partners and their software solutions, held numerous meetings with peers, watched demonstrations, and performed technical benchmarking.”



In fact, the company looked at all the usual CAD, PLM, and product information management companies. Dolci says the results surprised him.  

“We found that Creo’s direct modeling approach better aligned with our product and design strategy for our main businesses. In detailed internal technical benchmarks, we were 40% faster using Creo’s direct modeling approach than when using the closest parametric modeling system.”

But while direct modeling seemed a better fit for the company overall, System Logistics shied away from committing to a single 3D modeling approach. That is, it didn’t want to forever exclude either direct or parametric modeling from its engineering process. “So the question was how to serve both needs,” says Dolci.

PTC had an answer. Dolci could uses Creo’s direct modeling apps for one business and Creo Parametric for another. No matter which tool engineers started with, design data can be reopened and modified in either system later thanks to the Creo common data model.
That interoperability helped convince Dolci and team; when the evaluations and benchmarking were done, System Logistics chose PTC. The two companies partnered in a multimillion dollar deal that includes Creo, Windchill, and Arbortext. Now, System Logistics designs with all the benefits of a direct modeling approach, but without the technology lock in.

Dolci says the results have been just as he hoped: “We’re seeing even more productivity on the part of the engineers and wider adoption of direct 3D modeling across the company. I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw a 50% improvement in product development productivity.”
And I wouldn’t be surprised if System Logistics customers noticed more innovation in their automation products soon too.