Nexans

THE GOAL 

Nexans is one of the world’s largest cable suppliers, with 25,000 employees in 40 countries. It supplies all kinds of cables, for aerospace, wind farms, data and telecoms, and many other uses. In Norway, where Nexans has 1,550 employees, the company’s Halden facility supplies high-voltage and control cables for the offshore oil and gas industry. Most cables manufactured at Halden are custom solutions and often consist not only of the cable itself, but also the connective equipment at either end.

The company was using several different IT systems to manage its construction and development process, some of which were outdated legacy systems. Data was often unreliable and needed to be double-checked. Nexans needed a better way to manage information such as drawings and product descriptions so they would be easy to share throughout the organisation. The company approached low-code and no-code expert CLEVR to handle this project and move the company’s processes on to Siemens Teamcenter product lifecycle management (PLM) platform.

THE APPROACH

The first step was to get a clear idea of exactly how the existing system worked. Many people used different methods to accomplish the same task, which made it hard to determine the best way to do things. CLEVR worked with Nexans to analyse its processes and determine where changes would be most beneficial. It interviewed employees to gain a greater understanding of what works well and what should be improved. Meanwhile, Nexans worked with Accenture consultants to analyse its whole organisation, from management to operations, with a focus on maintaining quality and competitiveness.

These projects allowed CLEVR to achieve a detailed understanding of Nexans and helped test and verify Teamcenter as the ideal solution. The next phase involved workshops with Nexans employees at various levels of the organisation, both to determine the best order in which to implement the project and to begin to establish new working methods that would fit with a PLM system.

Teamcenter will be used primarily by Nexans engineers, but some project organisers will use it too, while other staff will need it on a read-only basis. The software will roll out to all staff at the same time, but it will take two years to complete the transition because only certain parts of the system will be used at first. As each new function is successfully adapted into the workflow, more will be added.

THE RESULTS

Teamcenter will bring Nexans better access to information for staff across the whole organisation. It will improve data quality and reliability, eliminating the need to double-check information. The new system also standardises working methods, so everybody accomplishes tasks in the same way. This eliminates potential problems that can arise when staff take unexpected shortcuts and provides a simple paper trail for all tasks. Overall, it will allow Nexans to work faster, with greater accuracy, and deliver better products in a more efficient way.

CUSTOMER QUOTE

“We need to remain at the highest level when it comes to quality and competitiveness. With the high costs in Norway, it is absolutely essential that we find ways to produce the cables as efficiently as possible. Only in so doing will our customers continue to find us attractive”

Jon Arne Häll, project engineering director, Nexans