Accelerating Cloud-First PLM for a Global Powertrain OEM
Overview (About our client)
A leading and rapidly expanding European OEM renowned for advanced, sustainable powertrain technology, partnered with HCLTech to underpin its global growth with a modern, cloud-first Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) backbone. As the company opened new operations across the EU and China, there was a need for a strategic solution for addressing complex business challenges.
HCLTech’s xLMCloud offering helped client with a secure, scalable Siemens Teamcenter deployment on Microsoft Azure creating an agile digital foundation that handle large scale data, enables real-time collaboration and fuels continuous innovation worldwide.
The Challenge
Rapid international expansion of parent OEM led to establishing a new entity in the EU and China. For efficient and smooth business operations in new entity, the parent OEM had below challenges
- Consolidating and migrating data from the existing on-premises infrastructure to the latest global PLM system on Azure.
- Minimize operational disruptions, enable real-time synchronization across sites, handle diverse large-scale data and manage associated licensing expenses.
- Safeguard business-critical data and prevent any unexpected data losses.
- Navigate challenges with buying, maintaining and upgrading advanced IT infrastructure in-house
- Go-live with the business-critical PLM functions within stringent timelines
Only a streamlined, cloud-based PLM solution could remove these barriers and unlock the speed, agility and security required for the next stage of global expansion.
The Objective
Build a cloud-first, future-ready PLM foundation.
Our primary objective was to design a future-proof, cloud-first PLM solution that could:
- Deploy Teamcenter in a greenfield setup on Microsoft Azure to ensure global scalability
- Enable comprehensive end-to-end data integration for frictionless global collaboration
- Optimize cloud deployment to balance cost efficiency with high performance
- Establish robust, high-availability infrastructure to ensure uninterrupted operations and rapid product development
The Solution
A tailored roadmap powered by HCLTech xLMCloud.
HCLTech deployed a cloud-first Teamcenter PLM on Microsoft Azure, powered by xLMCloud, letting the client migrate all product data, enabling global engineering connectivity and scale performance with minimal operational disruption.
- Seamless migration: Encrypted, high-speed pipelines moved legacy PLM data to Azure and linked Teamcenter with CAD, Polarion ALM and ERP for real-time collaboration.
- Always-on access: Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) kept PLM and CAD tools available, even during maintenance, so engineers stayed productive worldwide.
- Cloud efficiency: Infrastructure-as-code and native Azure services optimized cost and performance from day one.
- Fast provisioning: Dev and Test sandboxes spun up in minutes and were benchmarked for heavy engineering workloads.
- Built-in resilience: Automated backups, quick & simplified restore procedures cut recovery time
Outcome: A unified digital thread, lower TCO and a flexible PLM foundation that accelerates global product innovation.
The Impact
From legacy limitation to cloud-driven leadership.
With the implementation of our cloud-first PLM solution, the client experienced transformative results, significantly enhancing operational efficiency and accelerating global innovation:
- 20% reduction in infrastructure costs through optimized cloud resource allocation
- >25% quarterly savings on non-production environments via automation
- Optimized licensing costs through streamlined user and access management
- 40x faster restore times in sandbox environments (reduced from days to few hours)
Looking ahead
Propelling continuous innovation and sustainable growth
We remain embedded in the client’s product-development roadmap, extending xLMCloud across new business units, adding AI-driven MBSE, digital-twin integration and advanced analytics. These enhancements transform the cloud-first PLM platform into a continuously evolving engine that accelerates innovation, cuts costs and delivers cleaner, smarter mobility. Together, we secure and ensure the client’s competitive edge, support sustainable growth.
