Olympia Express used Solid Edge, Teamcenter and NX CAM from the Siemens Xcelerator industrial software portfolio to reduce prototyping efforts by 50 percent and increase productivity by up to 30 percent, freeing up resources for new innovation.
Siemens Digital Industries Software today announced that Olympia Express, the global leader in handcrafted espresso machines, is digitally transforming the design and manufacturing of its world-famous espresso machines with Siemens’ Xcelerator portfolio. For more than 95 years, Olympia Express has designed and manufactured espresso machines with Swiss precision, renowned for their robustness and durability and considered the best in the world. Schätti AG acquired the brand in 2011 and has since been designing and manufacturing Olympia Express products in Glarus, Switzerland using Siemens’ Solid Edge® software, building on the company’s heritage and exploring new avenues of innovation and market development.
Olympia Express CEO Thomas Shetty.
(Image courtesy of Olympia Express)
Thomas Schätti, CEO of Olympia Express, explains: “When we took over the company, the previous owners were designing in 2D, so that data was extremely useful. Our need for precision and efficiency was the driving force behind the decision to switch to the Siemens Xcelerator software portfolio. Solid Edge allows us to create highly accurate 3D models, allowing us to streamline our production process from design to manufacturing, saving time and resources and enabling us to perform at our best. We remodeled every part of the machine in Solid Edge and created new models and spare parts. We started from scratch and built a complete data engineering set. We’ve made various design iterations and improvements to the machine since then.”
Sascha Matiz, Product Designer, Olympia Express.
(Image courtesy of Olympia Express)
The main benefit of 3D modeling with Solid Edge is that it speeds up the design process and reduces the number of physical prototypes, reducing development efforts by 50% and freeing up resources for new innovation projects. Olympia Express’ engineering team can easily model and 3D print prototypes to better understand components in different materials. Additionally, Solid Edge’s sheet metal design and manufacturing capabilities are invaluable to the development process.
The engineering team also uses Solid Edge’s visualization capabilities for internal communication, and Solid Edge’s exploded view feature is essential, given that the 50-year-old Cremina machines require frequent maintenance. This allows the engineering team to provide assembly and maintenance documentation, making it easy to understand what spare parts are needed and how to replace them.
The Olympia Express brand and its Cremina espresso machines have achieved legendary status among the coffee enthusiast community.
(Image courtesy of Olympia Express)
Olympia Express manages its design and engineering data in Siemens’ Teamcenter® software for product lifecycle management, which allows for secure management of engineering data revisions and efficient, controlled design reviews. The company also uses NX™ CAM software to prepare high-precision components on the manufacturing floor. Schätti explains: “To deliver top performance, we use NX CAM on the shop floor to ensure the highest standards of production and to ensure that the coffee machine components are manufactured with excellent quality. We use Teamcenter to manage our product data, enhance collaboration between teams and store all our design data, including data on vintage Olympia Express, in one place.”
Olympia Express not only uses Solid Edge to design innovative new products, but also helps loyal customers ensure their products last for generations.
(Image courtesy of Olympia Express)
A fusion of tradition and innovation
While the Olympia Express brand and its Cremina espresso machines have achieved legendary status among the coffee enthusiast community, the company wasn’t content to rest on its name and reputation alone. It used Solid Edge to help develop Mina, a new portable espresso machine that can make high-quality drinks anywhere there is boiling water and fresh coffee grounds. Solid Edge’s 3D modeling tools enabled the team to efficiently repurpose the existing machine. knowledge Using 3D data, the company has created an entirely new product category, which it will launch at World of Coffee this month.
Olympia Express uses Solid Edge, Teamcenter and NX CAM to reduce prototyping effort by 50 percent, increase productivity by up to 30 percent, and free up resources for new innovation to deliver legendary products. (Image courtesy of Olympia Express)
The future of Olympia Express
Despite its name, Olympia Express is in the middle of the “slow food” revolution. Shetty explains: “Our products brew the same quality coffee as an Italian coffee bar, at a fraction of the size and cost of a professional machine. Crucially, they’re made with the same care, high-quality materials and meticulous design as professional machines. Our machines are made with a little eternity in mind. They’re designed and built to last multiple lifetimes, and use should be a celebration of brewing great coffee.”At the same time, Olympia Express is Siemens Xcelerator will not only preserve its rich product traditions, but will also explore ways to bring to market innovative, truly sustainable products that will last for generations, meeting customers’ expectations to drink high-quality coffee wherever they want.
Learn more about how Siemens’ Xcelerator industry software portfolio empowers pioneers and innovators of all sizes here. https://www.sw.siemens.com/en-US/Digital-Transformation/
Siemens Digital Industries Software helps organizations of any size digitally transform with software, hardware and services from the Siemens Xcelerator business platform. Our software and comprehensive digital twins help companies optimize design, engineering and manufacturing processes to transform the ideas of today into the sustainable products of tomorrow. From chips to entire systems, from products to processes, across all industries. Siemens Digital Industries Software – Accelerate your transformation.
