As part of a training partnership with ZF Friedrichshafen AG, IndustrieHansa is sharing its expertise in modern CAD technologies with a focus on Pro/ENGINEER and the data management system AXALANT.

ZF products set the standard in drive and chassis technology. About one third of the group's turnover is generated through products that only went into series production in the last five years. To make sure it can continue to deliver innovative products well into the future, ZF allocates about 5% of its turnover to R&D.

¬ Function- and process-friendly design

ZF's developers use cutting-edge 3D CAD software to design parts and assemblies with function- and process-friendly visualization. This allows parts to be designed in parallel with the computer-aided planning of production, testing and assembly processes. Function and load simulations are also computer-assisted.

¬ Leading role for Pro/ENGINEER

Of all the systems used by ZF's developers in their demanding work, PTC's Pro/ENGINEER software has played a leading role for a number of years. In 2004, when the Friedrichshafen-based business decided to upgrade to Wildfire 2 (then the latest release), it entrusted the training of its workforce to the specialists from IndustrieHansa's Digital Engineering division. In total, over 1200 employees from ZF offices throughout Germany received Wildfire training.

¬ Update training for upgrade to Wildfire 4

Another upgrade, and all the challenges this presents, is once again on the horizon. ZF Friedrichshafen is migrating to the Wildfire 4 version of Pro/ENGINEER – and once again, training support will be provided by IndustrieHansa. Training will be provided to 1200 employees at all the company's sites. Training sessions will be held both at ZF's premises and in IndustrieHansa's nearby training centers. Suppliers and service providers who use Pro/ENGINEER on ZF's behalf will also receive this training.

¬ Training partnership with many facets

For Horst Kramny, the responsible department manager at IndustrieHansa, the current project represents the continuation of a training partnership that has many facets: "The courses we provide for ZF include basic, advanced, surface, drawing and sheet metal training. There are also special workshops for rounds, Mechanica, MDX/MDO and other special topics. The training isn't limited to Germany, as we also run Pro/ENGINEER and AXALANT courses in Hungary, Malaysia and Brazil, for example."