Case Study: Rohde & Schwarz achieves efficient variant management and schematic-driven manufacturing with Zuken’s CR-5000

Rohde & Schwarz manages variants with increased efficiency using advanced PCB design software

Rohde & Schwarz, the Munich‑based specialist in test & measurement, broadcasting and secure communications, faced increasing product variability and needed a way to manage multiple assembly variants without costly parallel product families. To address this challenge they adopted Zuken’s CR-5000 PCB design suite (including Design Gateway and Variant Manager) so development engineers could define the full configuration bandwidth up front and make the schematic the master document for manufacturing.

Zuken implemented an end‑to‑end ECAD flow—CR-5000 modules (Design Gateway, Variant Manager, Board Designer, Lightning), centralized libraries and integration with Teamcenter and in‑house tools—so variant definition is front‑loaded into schematics. As a result, CR-5000 is a pivotal element of Rohde & Schwarz’s process: engineers can define all placement variants during schematic creation, the company maintains a single BOM covering every variant, and roughly 100 layout designers and 200 hardware engineers across 13 locations drive manufacturing execution from the schematic.

Rohde & Schwarz

Siegfried Doser

Hahn Development Support