Shanghai Eastern Iron: Bringing Aviation Rigor Process Management and Supplier Collaboration to the Hardware Industry

Traditional manufacturing industries are increasingly integrating new technologies and management techniques to achieve more refined and intensive product lifecycle management, further reducing cost and improving efficiency. They are expanding their horizons beyond the domestic market.

As a leading company in the architectural hardware industry, Shanghai Eastern Iron (branding as 'GMT') actively embraces this development trend with an open mind. They draw on the fine process management and collaboration methods from the high-end equipment manufacturing sector—specifically the aviation industry—and utilize the AirEdge tool based on its methodologies to manage their new products and projects, thus creating better value for their customers.

Jianming  Wang

Director of R&D and Manufacturing, Shanghai Eastern Iron Hardware Co., LTD

"The architectural hardware market is highly competitive. Brands with long histories like GMT and newly emerging brands face a transparent pricing environment. In such a scenario, to achieve profitability and growth, the most important thing is to reduce cost and improve efficiency through more advanced management tools and methods. Our collaboration with AirEdge is helping us achieve these goals."

Customer Profile

Shanghai Eastern Iron Hardware Co., LTD, and the GMT brand belong to the Zhongsheng Group. The GMT brand was established in 1993 and has won the titles of "Shanghai Famous Brand Product" and "Shanghai Famous Trademark" for many years. The company focuses on total solutions for door control hardware, automated access, and intelligent door protection, with product standards covering American, European, and national standards.

GMT's service network comprises hundreds of distributors across the country, and its products are also exported to Southeast Asia, Northeast Asia, and other regions. The company is a designated supplier for iconic buildings such as Shanghai Disneyland, Beijing Water Cube, and Shanghai Expo Park. It also provides professional product solutions and services for Tesla Shanghai Gigafactory, luxury car showrooms like Rolls-Royce and Bentley, and hundreds of high-speed rail and subway stations nationwide.

Challenges and Solutions

• Challenge 1: Numerous Projects and Dispersed Data, Difficult to Maintain a Unified Management Perspective

The architectural hardware product line is extensive, with many new product development projects. In daily management, whether through offline spreadsheets or some online tools, it is challenging to unify the management of essential elements such as project progress, costs, plans, tasks, and deliverables. This results in non-transparent project progress, unclear responsibilities, and ambiguous cost budget status. Furthermore, the scattered data makes status alignment time-consuming and labor-intensive, leading to inefficient project management that fails to meet expectations.

• Solution 1:

AirEdge's EPPM (Enterprise Project Portfolio Management) and Works (Product Data Management) modules are project management and product data management tools designed specifically for advanced manufacturing lifecycle management. With the EPPM tool, Shanghai Eastern Iron project team can create corresponding project plans and baselines for each new product development project, managing and tracking every activity (including progress, work hours, dependencies, etc.). Seamless integration with the Works tool allows for the management of deliverables. Features like Gantt charts and list views in the EPPM tool enable the project team to clearly identify project plans and critical paths, dynamically adjusting them to reflect the latest changes promptly. The project progress snapshot and comparison functions allow the team to store progress regularly and compare any two points in time, fully controlling project changes and responding in a timely manner. Online collaboration and editing functions enable the project team and participants to update and communicate project status in one place. EPPM also supports clear project cost and budget management, helping enterprise managers and project managers understand the project's financial status. Additionally, EPPM provides a global perspective of project status through dashboards and graphical presentations, allowing enterprise managers and project managers to easily grasp overall project progress, resource load, deliverables, and cost budget information.

• Challenge 2: Numerous Suppliers, Difficult Communication and Collaboration, Use of Different CAD Design Tools

The architectural hardware industry's supply chain is long, with many collaborators distributed across various geographical locations, using different CAD design tools. Communication and collaboration are complex, requiring significant human resources for coordination, which is time-consuming and labor-intensive, often resulting in inefficiencies. Issues with supplier delivery quality or delays can impact the product's market launch timing.

• Solution 2:

AirEdge's Works (Product Data Management) module addresses the reality of a dispersed supply chain and diverse suppliers in advanced manufacturing. Through well defined access control mechanism, it enables suppliers and Shanghai Eastern Iron to collaborate easily on the AirEdge platform, completing document and deliverable collaboration and delivery. Shanghai Eastern Iron can create dedicated work areas for suppliers and manage public areas applicable to all suppliers and unique areas for each supplier through permission settings. Online real-time collaboration on the platform eliminates concerns about data exchange convenience and security through emails or social software tools. The Works tool integrates a professional CAD engine, supporting nearly 40 mainstream 2D/3D CAD formats such as CATIA, SolidWorks, UG, Creo, AutoCAD, and common formats like STEP. This allows for reading, viewing, and simple review of CAD design drawings in one place, significantly saving on the cost of purchasing corresponding CAD tools and the time cost of tool conversion.

• Challenge 3: International Expansion and Management of Foreign Employees and Collaborators

After decades of development, Shanghai Eastern Iron business has successfully expanded overseas to the Asia-Pacific region, necessitating the establishment of teams and collaboration with partners in target markets. Language barriers pose an inevitable challenge for foreign employees and collaborators.

• Solution 3:

AirEdge, as a one-stop product lifecycle management and quality management platform for advanced manufacturing, has been a bilingual system (Chinese and English) from day one. With simple and convenient language switching, the English user interface is instantly available, allowing Shanghai Eastern Iron foreign employees and collaborators to participate seamlessly in daily work.

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