With the Content Server, CAD designers of the machine tool builder work worldwide with high performance.

Because its previous ECM system was too complex and too expensive in terms of licensing, machine tool builder TRUMPF GmbH + Co KG has now switched to the Content Server - a lean archive that is integrated into SAP and only performs the primary task of processing documents via the SAP systems. A special feature of the project is the archiving of CAD documents from SolidWorks, which are distributed worldwide. kgs designed a new cache server concept for this purpose.

At TRUMPF, the kgs solution focuses on data archiving and document storage in conjunction with SAP. Volker Blum, head of basic support for SAP systems at TRUMPF: "We realized that SAP users don't need a fully comprehensive ECM. It makes much more sense to work in an ERP-centric way and to use special tools for individual tasks. When it comes to archiving, the kgs concept fits this approach best."

For TRUMPF, design and CAD data management play a central role. The design engineers produce their drawings and models using SolidWorks CAD software, among other tools. Assemblies of the machines, some of which can consist of more than 10,000 individual parts, are managed by TRUMPF in SAP PLM. These documents must be stored and made available in a timely manner to the design departments located in 15 countries worldwide.

For this purpose, kgs has set up a complex and performance-critical infrastructure with archive and cache servers in connection with SAP PLM distributed across 15 locations worldwide. Each location worldwide has its own Content Server, which stores the parts for which the location is responsible locally. For the standard parts, which are located at the headquarters in Ditzingen, local kgs cache servers have been set up in parallel to provide such remote parts locally. SAP knows each individual server, monitors which one is failing and can switch to alternative servers.

The kgs Migration solution was used to migrate a total of three million documents (approx. 12 TBytes of data) from the old to the new system. Before the first server went live, TRUMPF replaced all of the legacy system's archive clients for viewing and scanning documents. Instead, SAP's own ECL viewer was installed on all clients. In addition, the company installed kgs Scan Clients at 80 scanning workstations in different areas worldwide.