Press release - December 9, 2019
KIRCHHOFF Automotive selects CONTACT Product Costing
With many strategic applications, CIM Database is the global PLM platform at KIRCHHOFF Automotive. The company is now adding another solution from the CONTACT Elements portfolio in order to create its offers for OEMs with CONTACT Product Costing.
A reliable cost calculation is the basis for the profitability of products. This applies even more if their production requires high investments in equipment, materials and operating processes – and this is the case at KIRCHHOFF Automotive: As a global development partner of the automotive OEMs, the company manufactures complex body components that give vehicles stability and safety.
To date, KIRCHHOFF Automotive uses an in-house developed software for the calculation of its offers. It can no longer be expanded and can only be maintained with great effort. Therefore, the company has evaluated leading calculation programs and selected Product Costing from CONTACT Software.
"CONTACT's solution is cost-efficient and offers clear functional advantages," says Dr. Heiko Engels, Global Executive Vice President Technical Development at KIRCHHOFF Automotive. "We supply the global quotation processes via CIM Database with all data relevant for the calculation, do not have another system under maintenance and do not have to maintain another PLM interface".
A further plus of Product Costing is that KIRCHHOFF Automotive can base engineering changes on the first calculation instead of carrying out a completely new one. The company also sees advantages in the flexibility with which the CONTACT Elements modules can be adapted to its processes, and in the planned connection of the material database to the PLM platform.
CIM Database already controls the quotation process and provides the sales figures for new vehicle models and other calculation-relevant information via its sales database. With Product Costing, the calculators at KIRCHHOFF Automotive will have a globally available and uniformly designed application that provides them with all the data they need for their work.
KIRCHHOFF Automotive is the largest business unit of the KIRCHHOFF Group with over 9,000 employees and around 30 production plants in 11 countries. Since 2012, CIM Database has been productive and is comprehensively integrated into the company-wide process landscape with a wide range of PLM applications. Development, sales, project management, advance quality planning, production planning, purchasing, costing and controlling use the PLM platform for their tasks worldwide.
