Novenco underway with Autodesk PLM 360

The Novenco Offshore division is located in Oslo, Norway. It is responsible for worldwide projects involving offshore rules and regulations, including fixed and floating platforms, jack up rigs, F.P.S.Os and offshore barges.

A member of the Novenco Group, Novenco Marine and Offshore prides itself in offering comfort to operators and passengers of marine vessels from cruise ships and yachts to ferries and freighters plus offshore equipment like oil rigs and storage vessels. Novenco Marine and Offshore does this by providing high-performance and energy efficient heating, ventilation, air conditioning, and insulation systems that create a comfortable environment in all areas of passenger accommodation. The headquarters of product development, design and engineering is located in Naestved, Denmark where I spoke with Ole Jensen, Director of Group Contracting.

In 2011, Novenco received an order from the Chinese shipyard COSCO (Nantong) for supplying HVAC/R systems, including engineering, delivery of equipment and on-board testing of air conditioning and ventilation systems for accommodation and engine room are

Mike: Hi Ole. What got you interested in Autodesk PLM 360?

Ole: We have an initiative within our division to reduce warranty costs and to do that we really need to get all of that information inline and more well understood. We formed a global warranty department to assemble one version of the truth agreeable by everyone and with the understanding that access to and sharing that information should be easy. To accomplish this we also agreed to new processes that follow ISO and introduced new documents, in some cases. Only after we finalized our agreements about information and process did we talk about technology.

Mike: Ok, that makes sense. What were your main criteria for the solution?

Ole: As I mentioned, we needed the warranty information to be accessible to all of our office sites. Also, we need to have a great workflow solution. We have issues in warranty we want to fix and a better process flow would help this. Also, since our warranty process mimics our larger project execution process flow, we wanted technology that could grow to solve that process, too. Prior to Autodesk PLM 360, we’ve used mainly email to share files and we’ve built a structure of file directories in a shared folder but that’s way too restrictive. To get the access we need to all sites worldwide, the solution needs to be cloud-based.

The Novenco Merchant Ship division has offices around the world. The division has already provided solutions for heating, ventilation, air conditioning and refrigeration to over 10.000 ships. 

Mike: So how has your implementation progressed so far?

Ole: We started by implementing ISO standard documents in our agreed process flow. In Autodesk PLM 360, we’ll be able to see how project managers and contract managers will see projects. We’ll be able to let different segments of our business see across warranty department to see how many claims we have in total. We’ll see the current stage of each warranty process (we have five) immediately. The key performance indicators (KPIs) we’ve setup for each phase will tell us which tasks are moving and who has too much work to do. All of this is front of mind for us. We need to bring these warranty issues to closure and give our customers a better response more quickly. We hope to lower our costs to do this, too.

Mike: Wow! Do you anticipate any problems getting everyone to take part in PLM?

Ole: You know designing efficient, yet effective environmental systems for ships isn’t easy. You have to account for the direction and the intensity of the sunlight. The size and position of the windows matters a lot. You also have to know what type of environment will make a person comfortable under the present and expected conditions. So our company requires some pretty smart people to work here. We've worked here for 25 years and have been using AutoCAD for ever – from the very beginning – and the move to Autodesk PLM 360 reminds me a little of that. Back then the switch for the experienced draftsman was from the (drawing) board to AutoCAD. Some hated it and some embraced it. Age didn’t matter, it seemed. Some of the most experienced draftsman became the fastest with AutoCAD, too. I think the uptake of Autodesk PLM 360 will be the same.

As a leading global supplier of HVAC systems for more than 60 years, Novenco understands the importance of top-notch After Sales services. These are based at our company headquarters in Denmark.

Mike: Great insight, Ole. So what do you see in the future of Autodesk PLM 360 in your company?

Ole: Our next move would be to elevate Autodesk PLM 360 to manage larger projects outside of warranty and eventually into project management. Within the division we have three project phases:  1 - Sales that involves the customer, obviously, 2 - Project Execution that involves different suppliers and more up to customer signoff, and 3 - After-Sales which includes warranty, as we discussed. Within each phase we’re looking forward to growing Autodesk PLM 360 and investigating the values of the other apps available. But we’ll continue to take a practical approach because we absolutely need to keep our company running across all of our different sites all over the world. It gives me an idea, too. We have many ERP systems. Wouldn’t it be nice if they were cloud-based, too?

Mike: Thanks Ole, I'm really excited to work with you over the coming months to make sure you accomplish all of your goals for PLM 360!

Thanks for reading...Mike

For more info on Novenco see this video below