Hermann’s delivers advanced interior solutions with Sovelia PLM

At Hermann’s, Sovelia PLM is at the heart of the data management for the company’s products and projects, enabling high-quality deliveries and helping the company to meet deadlines - even in projects that require continuous changes over the project lifecycle.

Hermann’s Finland Oy is located in Raisio, Finland, and specialises in advanced interior solutions for the maritime industry and building modular constructions. The company has its own production facility to drive complete project deliveries for the customers. This production facility is specifically used to manage the most advanced deliveries which are complicated to outsource. As the company’s business has increasingly shifted to interior design solutions for luxury cruisers and yachts, where the demands are extremely high, it is vital that the technology the company uses is always up to date – and ideally even ahead of the curve.

Sovelia PLM is an agile solution meeting the demands of the fast-paced project work in the maritime industry

When Hermann’s current Factory Manager Kalle Karjalainen was hired as the company’s Design Manager, he was given the responsibility to manage the PLM project.

Symetri’s Sovelia PLM solution was chosen as it can handle and manage the entire product’s lifecycle, but also because it’s a solution that can be optimised for use in project-based deliveries.

Often companies design and produce standardised products or products that are based on standard modules, but at Hermann’s every project is unique. When Hermann's receives an order, they have information only at the product group level. For example, they know they are going to make a bar counter, but the exact dimensions, choice of materials and manufacturing methods are unknown at this stage. Equipment and other solutions in that space may come from different suppliers, and it’s important that the bar counter can be adapted accordingly.

The fact that documentation and drawings are often changed at the very end of the project is a challenge in itself and requires our PLM system to be highly flexible. Sovelia PLM has proven to be excellent at handling such changes,” says Eetu Mattila, Development Project Manager at Hermann’s.

Sovelia PLM is at the core of the company’s business, and other systems are built around it

Karjalainen emphasises the importance of gathering the system requirements in the early stages of the PLM implementation project. The goal at Hermann’s was to find a solution that could streamline the company’s processes and reduce the workload throughout the product’s lifecycle. Hermann’s wanted to have users in focus throughout the implementation project. As a first step, they carefully defined what’s the most important information to be collected and what is the best, most efficient way for the company to apply Sovelia PLM. One of the important aspects was that the system integrates with the user processes in such a way that the users don’t necessarily even notice producing information in PLM as part of their process. Sovelia PLM is at the core of all information in Hermann’s operations and other systems, such as the ERP system, are built around this core.

You can’t go wrong with Sovelia PLM

The interiors of luxury cruisers, which are constantly on the move and whose public areas are used by thousands of passengers around the clock, 24/7 are subject to a great deal of wear and tear that requires maintenance and spare parts. In the past, finding the necessary information was a challenge as it was stored in different places, but now every order is carefully described in Sovelia PLM, making it easy to find information on spare parts and maintenance operations.

Since Hermann’s implemented Sovelia PLM, the company’s quality costs in production have decreased significantly. By running the entire workflows through Sovelia PLM, quality defects have been minimised and if they do occur it’s because the system has been bypassed. “If we follow the system, it is practically impossible to make mistakes,” Mattila points out.

Using Sovelia PLM has allowed designers to work more efficiently. Once the drawings have been entered into the system, the designer can be confident that production is receiving correct and up-to-date information, without the need for any follow-up or monitoring.

According to Karjalainen, who previously worked as Design Manager, Sovelia PLM provides an efficient review and approval process for drawings, which in turn reduces the risk of errors.

Digital twins to be used in the future

In the future, Hermann’s also intends to move into information modelling, and there the next step is to integrate Autodesk Revit into Sovelia PLM. The benefit of Autodesk Revit is that it can be used to create digital models on different spaces and visualise different interior elements that can be integrated within them. Collaboration and communication with customers are enhanced by the ability to display a 3D model in a digital environment that has been created from precise geometries and information about the object – a so-called digital twin.