Why is it important to manage your product Bill of Materials (BoM) in a PLM (Product Lifecycle Management)? This is a tough question to answer across the board for every company, but this article breaks down what you need to know.

The level of BoM management in PLM can be dependent on your companies’ products, downstream systems, and product development processes.

With that in mind, here are some general benefits and reasons to manage the creation of your product BoM in PLM.

The benefit of bill of materials management in PLM

PLM in nature is meant to be a tool to help engineering manage their production date while allowing dynamic collaboration and change control throughout the product development cycle.

The data managed in a product lifecycle management system includes CAD and BoM information, as well as additional supporting product information and documentation.

PLM functionality typically allows an organization to store any and all product information in a structured manner. The structured manner is what properly represents the product within all stages of the product’s development.

This includes everything from initial design requirements, to manufacturing requirements and process plans, to quality assurance documents- all linked to a single product structure.

This gives you the ability to graphically see a truly complete representation of any and all products managed within the PLM system.

In addition, many of the top PLM systems (such as PTC Windchill) give you the ability to manage different views of a single bill of material.

For instance, you could see the design or engineering view of the structure and all design information needed for that BoM product structure.

You would also have the ability to look at a manufacturing view that has the structure defined in a way to support the best possible manufacturing process, while it also links to any supporting information and work instructions.

Additionally, you could see a service BoM that represents exactly what is on-site or on the hands of a customer, with linked product information specifically related to service or support (such as a service repair or product manual).

ERP or MES systems are all about the financial and manufacturing execution aspect of product management.

These systems focus on tracking and managing all cost and profit throughout the process.

Because of this, changes are tightly controlled and require significant steps to ensure proper applications across the system.

There are also few systems that allow for full product representation inside of ERP or MES as outlined above. Nor do they fully support many different views of the same BoM.

ERP tends to only manage what is required to properly manufacture or sell a product, which does not always represent the full product design or its full breadth of supporting information and documentation.

There many impacts on these fundamental differences.

When to use PLM for BoM Management

Here are some general concepts as to when to use PLM for BoM management.

When your product development is in the dynamic phases that require many changes and updates at each phase gate, your bill of materials should be primarily managed in PLM.

If your product requires specific requirements management, detailed manufacturing, quality work instructions, or an intensive manufacturing process, it’s in your best interest to use product lifecycle management for your BoM.

At the very least, all of your product information should also be managed, or linked to your product lifecycle management system to ensure full accountability to all information updates required in the instance of change.

Integrating ERP and PLM

At a minimum, if you have an ERP system it’s important to integrate your system together with PLM.

It’s essential to establish key integration points between your enterprise systems that send needed information back and forth to your enterprise resource planning solution. This will help you properly execute new product releases and changes.

By integrating your systems, your ERP processes will ensure all proper tasks and functions are executed in your ERP or MES systems.

From there, your ERP to PLM system integration would send information back to your PLM system to close the loop.

These are our best practices to help you get ahead and to take product data further. We would love to hear about your thoughts about this topic and answer any additional questions you might have. Feel free to drop a comment below or leave an inquiry under let’s talk.

Looking for an easy way to quickly assess your bill of materials and ensure projects stay on-time and on-track?

Here’s why every manufacturing company should be considering product lifecycle management applications.

Expand PLM software usage throughout your enterprise with PLM apps

Let’s face it, no company uses a single product data management system (PDM) or a Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) system for ALL of its organization’s needs.

Your organization likely uses an abundance of different technology software to collect and store data. These technologies can include customer relationship management (CRM) systems, quality management system (QMS) software, enterprise relationship planning (ERP) systems, application lifecycle management (ALM) systems, and so many more.

If your organization currently uses a PLM system, odds are you most likely paid a pretty penny for it. So why not make the most of that product lifecycle system investment and use your system’s complete functionality?!

Product lifecycle applications support, enable, and enhance the value and footprint of PLM software. PLM Apps go a long away to assist and ensure consistent access to up-to-date product data. They can help expand controlled access to valuable content and give functional groups a single simplified view of files, data, and content all within a single browser-accessible screen.

You’re going to want to invest in these kinds of advanced technology solutions that simplify data gathering processes and expand the value of your PLM investment. PLM apps are meant to help you find data easier which reduces user frustration and helps take productivity to new levels within your organization.

PLM applications, also referred to as PLM system plugins, deliver on the dreams of many organizations. They are a simple solution that drastically increases enterprise PLM usage.

PLM apps integrate siloed data from disparate systems

With the use of multiple complex enterprise systems, your organization’s data is most likely held captive in siloed systems. Many PLM applications help connect these disjointed enterprise systems using common application programming interface (API) connection abilities.

PLM apps simply pull data from other enterprise systems into a new user-interface through API integrations. They don’t rely on interface features from other enterprise platforms or systems (besides the data and information they extract), therefore, they are less likely to be affected by a new release of the underlying enterprise systems!

PLM apps simplify searches for the occasional PLM software user

PLM apps change the user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) of your PLM system so that it’s easier to use. This can be useful for occasional or novice users who can feel overwhelmed by the complexity of their PLM system compared to those that use their PLM system on a daily basis.

PLM applications offer user-friendly interfaces that simplify the complexity of PLM systems and make it easier to search, find, locate, and understand product information. In fact, many of these tools even allow organizations to adjust settings for specific users (such as purchasing, marketing, accounting, etc.) so they can access the direct information they need.

PLM apps Many customers we work with use complex product lifecycle management systems such as PTC Windchill or Siemens Teamcenter. Due to the robust capabilities of these enterprise systems (and other PLM systems), many users find product data hard to navigate – especially if they aren’t daily users within these systems.

PLM apps speed up product development processes by providing users with complete access to real-time complex enterprise data.

Product lifecycle applications really do make PLM easier – see it for yourself by watching this short PLM applications video.

Customize PLM apps without disrupting your PLM software

PLM applications and system plugins offer simple and easy ways to customize enterprise product data systems. A PLM Administrator can customize the apps to conform to their company’s goals and prioritization of tasks without disrupting the PLM software itself.

Time after time, we see organizations add PLM customizations to their mainframe PLM software, only to wind up facing dozens of challenges as new system software versions get released. Because PLM apps are an extension of PLM software systems, they are minimally affected by upgraded software versions and updates (if at all).

PLM apps provide organizations with the ability to easily custom tailor simplified product lifecycle management interfaces or mashups. This functionality provides additional value and integration capabilities with other enterprise systems.

PLM Applications offer a brand-new UI for your intricate product data management system; enabling a fresh and simple user experience. They also have started to help organizations solve problems easier and faster with direct, accessible, and instantaneous insights from data.

Your systems are only as good as how you use them. If employees struggle to navigate your product lifecycle system interface, PLM apps are definitely something you should be looking into!

How PLM apps drive flexibility within your organization

PLM applications provide access to PLM information to employees outside of engineering such as marketing, sales, finances, and procurement.

Access to PLM system data provides another way for teams to identify the broad scale of their day to day activities and information. This can help teams understand and prioritize tasks to be more efficient and productive.

This flexibility allows teams to work the way they want. By enhancing a complex system and tailoring each end-user experience, it’s easy to see how these PLM system plug-ins can drastically improve productivity and drive value across an organization.

What is better than providing every department with product information that they want and need to do their job?!

Want to learn more about PLM Applications and how they could pair up with your current enterprise systems? Let’s have the conversation!

If you have Windchill, a PLM (product life cycle management system from PTC), odds are it’s where your organization stores a lot of really great product data and information. It also means there’s a high likelihood many employees in your organization need access to that valuable product information.

But what happens when people within your organization need to access valuable product information, but they aren’t necessarily veteran Windchill (or PLM system) users? What happens when your ‘casual Windchill users’ only want to quickly get to the information but simply don’t want to be “Windchill users”? 90% of the time this scenario involves your experienced Windchill users being disrupted by requests to pull product information.

Right at this point – exactly when people in your enterprise need access to information in systems they don’t use on a daily basis – is when you lose efficiency, productivity, and revenue. This cross-departmental disruption leads to wasted time, and wasted time leads to wasted money. PTC realized these challenges and created a solution to combat complicated enterprise system interfaces, varying user needs, and disparate enterprise data sources – It’s called ThingWorx Navigate.

To make Windchill PLM, or any PLM information more accessible and solve disruption challenges, PTC designed ThingWorx Navigate role-based applications (apps) that allow users to easily access and consolidate information from secure systems like ERP, MRP, CRP, and PLM systems like Windchill. For instance, by using these applications, a tool designer could call up drawings without having to go through the whole interface of Windchill. The applications pull up windows to look directly into systems, without forcing a user login in and navigate complex product design or enterprise planning systems. 

For example, by using PTC’s ThingWorx solution, a tool designer could simply type in a drawing number he or she was looking for on the PTC ThingWorx Navigate application, and the drawing files would pop-up instantly on the screen. These simple product data navigation features also work with product information that purchasing, quality, or any other departments might need access.

PTC’s ThingWorx Navigate applications make it easy for anyone…ANYONE in an organization to obtain product information without having to be a Windchill system expert. One of the great things about these role-based applications is – depending on who you log in as – the apps can be set up to determine what type of information access someone has, as well as what types of product info an employee can access. 

For instance, someone on a shop floor could access ThingWorx Navigate applications, and with a simple click in a window would display all the information they need about a drawing. Or perhaps someone only needs to see bills of materials, they could do that in one location by accessing a ThingWorx Navigate application. Just like PTC Windchill, PTC Navigate is a web-based application. This means all an organization really needs is a web browser and a login and instantly anyone can start working.

ThingWorx Navigate applications are also completely customizable. This allows your organization to control exactly what displays on the search screens, as well as, how that information would be delivered to your users. In fact, PTC even created a Thingworx Navigate Productivity calculator to demonstrate how much money enterprise collaboration can save a business. It even lets you estimate your exact company’s potential annual productivity savings!

Bottom line, there really are a lot of great benefits that come along with being able to easily deploy Windchill access throughout an enterprise in a unique and stress-free way. And remember, ThingWorx Navigate also integrates with other enterprise systems, not just Windchill.

But wait…there’s more!

You can make the user experience even better by implementing ThingWorx Navigate and extending functionality and configurability with EAC Productivity Apps. In case you are not familiar with us, our company (EAC Product Development Solutions) specializes in transforming the way companies design, manufacture, connect to and service their products.

One of the ways we do this is through implementing, maintaining, and helping customers with PTC Windchill product lifecycle management systems. Being the Windchill experts that we are, with extensive years of experience (over 23 years to be exact), we work with hundreds of organizations and their PLM systems. This is precisely how we know the need many manufacturing organizations have to extend enterprise system data and capabilities even further!

Working with our Windchill customers over the years, we recognized patterns of system requests and capabilities that just didn’t seem to be specifically addressed by existing solutions. We recognized and researched system challenges that many organizations tended to face with their PLM systems and realized the need to help organizations quickly deploy Windchill, increase user adoption, and capitalize on system functionality. After all, we live in a world obsessed with speed and efficiency. So, to quote the wisdom of Daft Punk, we needed to make complex PLM systems Better, Faster, and Stronger.

Furthermore, we realized valuable data our customers acquired from their other disparate enterprise systems never seemed to be tied together with product data from PLM systems. This was increasing our client’s risk of transferring obsolete inaccurate data. With that knowledge, we knew our solution needed to be able to connect multiple streams of data from different locations and enterprise systems, and even different databases.

All these reasons drove us to develop what we refer to as EAC Productivity Apps. They help organizations quickly advance and capitalize on Windchill PLM capabilities. Although EAC apps are different from Navigate applications in many ways, what I believe really sets them apart is how they use and leverage the concept of data mash-ups. Multiple sources of information brought together to simplify a role-specific workflow.

EAC productivity applications take product data and information from a variety of different systems and transform that data into an easily consumable visual dashboard for any user. Essentially, our apps create a way for organizations to easily connect data from multiple enterprise databases, bring it into one accessible location, and tailor it to the needs of a specific user. This allows any user to easily have all the information he or she could desire with a few simple clicks.

EAC apps also help users access product information, search for information, get bill of material reports, create and manage other related documents, and look at associated parts.

Data Visualization and system integration tools are shaping the future of business and I am going to explain exactly why. 

First, it is essential that you understand the impacts of technology and data today. 

The impacts of big data 

Humans collectively produce approximately 2.5 quintillion bytes of data each day and this number is only increasing with the acceleration of the Internet of Things (IoT). These already astonishing statistics are growing at an ever-increasing rate as our world becomes even more digitized and data-centric.

Due to this overwhelming growth, businesses have begun facing challenges with data capture, analysis, distribution, storage, and visualization. In fact, big data has started to become so large and so complex that businesses are even finding traditional data processing techniques to be inadequate. This is exactly why system integration and business intelligence software have become essential components for successful business data management strategies.

System integration and system integration tools

Enterprise application integration software combine components of sub-systems together into one centralized system. Essentially, system integration applications ensure all business systems function together as one.

For instance, integration applications (such as EAC Productivity Apps) connect existing systems and enable seamless data to flow from various systems into role-based dashboards or “mashups.” 

By using applications that integrate all of your business systems, your organization opens up a clear, efficient path, for information to travel from one application or system to another. The process of linking together different computing systems and software applications opens up an organization’s ability to easily collect, aggregate, and share data. 

Business intelligence

The trend towards business intelligence (BI) has driven many companies to evaluate technology-driven processes for analyzing data and presenting actionable information.

Common functions of business intelligence technologies include reporting, analytics, data mining, process mining, business performance management, benchmarking, predictive analytics and prescriptive analytics.

BI technologies can handle large amounts of structured and sometimes unstructured data to help identify, develop, and otherwise create new strategic business opportunities. They aim to allow for the easy interpretation of big data. Identifying new opportunities and implementing an effective strategy based on insights can provide businesses with a competitive market advantage and long-term stability

System integration, Bi, and data visualization

Tools and applications that integrate business systems incorporate oftentimes incorporate data visualizations, also known as data dashboards. 

Data visualizations deliver graphical representations of data or information, often in the form of a chart, diagram, picture, or any other visual illustration. Visual representations of data and information help humans understand the significance of data by transforming it into information placing it in a visual context.

Human visual processing is efficient in detecting changes and making comparisons between quantities, sizes, shapes, and variations in lightness. When properties of symbolic data are mapped to visual properties, humans can browse through large amounts of data efficiently.

If considering the way the human brain processes information, using charts or graphs to visualize large amounts of complex data is much easier than attempting to analyze multiple different spreadsheets or reports. By using visual elements like charts, graphs, and maps, data visualization tools provide an accessible way to see and understand trends, outliers, and patterns in data.

The impacts of data visualization

Data visualization enables executives, managers, and other corporate end users, to easily digest huge amounts of data by displaying visuals.

These data visuals encourage decision makers to compare sizeable amounts of information while data is being revealed beneath several levels of detail. This encourages the natural eye to compare and contrast different pieces of data, that may have otherwise been lost within reports. 

System integration tools that collect data from internal and external systems and aggregate it into data dashboards, enable organizations to reason quantitative information.  This helps executives, managers, and other corporate end users to better understand trends, patterns, and possible correlations.  Data visualizations can also allow decision makers to make better business decisions.  

Visual data representations of information assist decision makers in the absorption of information in new and more constructive ways. They encourage a user to think about the substance of the data rather than the methodology. 

With the ability to manipulate and interact directly with data, organizations visualize relationships and pattern between operational and business activities. This allows them to identify and act on emerging trends faster, as well as, identify areas that need attention or improvement. 

By using system integration business intelligence tools and applications, organizations can collect data from internal and external systems, prepare it for analysis, develop and run queries against that data, and create reports, dashboards and data visualizations to make the analytical results available to corporate decision-makers, as well as operational workers.

Think data visualization and system integration could be what your organization needs?

We offer EAC Productivity Apps as enhanced guidance to your specific organizational goals around data management and a way to your amplify your Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) investment. These applications, or PLM plugins, deliver role-based product data to stakeholders throughout your organization. We can combine information from ERP, MRP, PLM, and QMS (as well as others) to securely deliver accurate product data to those who need it.

What are PLM Apps?

Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) Applications (Apps) take data from your product lifecycle management software and combine it with data from your other enterprise solutions to create a single, accessible dashboard view (of all your data), that can be customized for any role within your organization. 

Essentially, PLM Apps offer a comprehensive, basic IoT scheme to connect to your equipment, collect data, begin data/alert/notification workflows, deliver role-based dashboards, and more.

Here are four ways that PLM system applications could benefit your business. 

PLM Apps, Systems, and more

Odds are, if your business is currently involved with the creation or production of any sort of product, you have likely heard of (or you might already be incorporating) product lifecycle management practices within your business. For those of you who are newer to the concept, product lifecycle management (PLM) often involves implementing software solutions referred to as product lifecycle management software, or systems. 

Product management software systems (such as PTC Windchill, SAP PLM, Oracle Agile PLM, Teamcenter PLM, Autodesk Vault, Centric Software, Aras, etc.) are designed to manage your product’s entire lifecycle from ideation through engineering, design, manufacturing, service, and even the disposal of your manufactured products. Oftentimes, PLM software systems are implemented with the intention to integrate product data with other business processes such as manufacturing execution systems (MES), enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems and many other enterprise solutions. However, the reality turns out to be much more complex. 

PLM systems are complicated. These systems are complex due to their sophistication and immense capabilities.

In fact, due to the intricacy built within PLM, many companies commonly face challenges with PLM solution interfaces, features, integrations, data sharing, reporting, navigation, and user adoption. Soon enough the PLM technology lives in a ‘vacuum’. Sales and quality managers who don’t use it daily may find it difficult to use. 

Other employees might avoid using the PLM systems entirely, and even those who do access the product lifecycle systems daily may find it challenging to coach others who have minimal exposure to these tools. This is exactly why we hear many companies who are not fully entrenched within their PLM systems claiming, “PLM systems don’t deliver on business requirements” or “PLM functionality you expect doesn’t work”. 

The reality is – people and departments cannot perform their tasks in isolation. This is exactly where PLM apps add value to your business and streamline workflows.

1. PLM Apps promote cross functional alignment

Traditionally, functional areas within our businesses such as sales, marketing, finance, and operations specialize in different portions of organizational planning activities, which result in conflicts over expectations, preferences, and priorities.

Think about it for a second. 

Organizations tend to have isolated departments focused on different business objectives. They often use different data collection systems to accomplish unique tasks. While organizations may consider their teams to be functional, they may fail to recognize the efficiencies they could drive with full cross-functional alignment between and across teams. That or the cross-functional alignment that organizations initially targeted with product lifecycle management didn’t work out as well intended.

This is just one of the reasons PLM Applications are a game-changer.  PLM Applications break departmental silos by providing semantic interoperability, ultimately enabling cross-functional alignment. 

I know what you’re thinking. “That’s great.. but how exactly does that work?”

Or perhaps, “That’s exactly what I was told my PLM software was supposed to do” just came to mind. The reality is – PLM systems are completely capable of doing everything you had purchased them for, but training everyone in these complex systems is more than a chore. PLM Apps take the foundational features and functionality of your PLM systems and make them easy. 

The biggest advantage of these applications is that they actually motivate your siloed departments to utilize the technology investments you’ve already made. PLM Applications extract data from your existing enterprise software systems (such as ERP, MRP, PLM and more), combine that integrated data into easy-to-use interfaces, and enable role-based data access to any user who needs it.  

Check out a real-life example of how a fast-moving apparel industry made the product development process exponentially faster and more efficient with the use of mobile apps.

For example, purchasing departments spend most of their time within Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems creating purchase orders, checking stock levels, scrap/rework, etc. They commonly face challenges retrieving engineering data (such as PDF’s, DXF’sand IGES) that are contained in systems controlled by engineering or IT. PLM system applications create self-serve user-based environments that integrate combined enterprise data into consumable interfaces for any end-user or role. 

Essentially, PLM applications build user interfaces that non-technical staff can actually understand. PLM Apps can also act as an extension to your existing engineering system, allowing your departments to retrieve drawings without having to ask or burden an engineer. In fact, PLM application interfaces can even be adjusted to display key purchasing information. They have the ability to retrieve all documents (such as PDF’s, DXF’s, IGES, and more) that are associated with a specific order or drawing file. 

Creating a self-service business environment for your departments allows purchasing to retrieve the correct drawings (PDF, DXF, IGES) without having to rely on engineering or configuration management.

This is just a few of the ways that PLM engineering applications can enable cross-functional alignment throughout your organization. 

2. PLM Applications simplify communication among distributed teams

Forget the need to run around and collect information from multiple departments in order to collect the data a business division needs to do its job. The infrastructure within PLM Apps allows for access/permission controls and change management. 

This means you no longer will need to disrupt other departments or coordinate schedules just to exchange information. Plus, by providing everyone with instant access to relevant and up-to-date product information all teams will be on the same page.

3. PLM Apps optimize all aspects of the manufacturing process

Once your siloed teams start to align, the communication between distributed departments becomes more efficient. Your business will be well on its way to optimizing your overall performance. By centralizing all aspects of your product data, your organization will notice relevant common grounds and establish open communications about areas for continuous improvement. 

PLM Applications make it easier to view and understand product data within one simple interface gather information from many systems; ultimately enabling your teams and your organization to make better and faster decisions.

Your team’s alignment and enhanced communication will create opportunities for action and better execution. Being able to access accurate data helps everyone maximize output, reduce costs, increase product quality, and get products to market faster.With actions that lead to better execution, your organization will see more success. 

4. PLM Apps drive accurate data

According to the Harvard Business Review, workers waste approximately 50% of their time locating data, finding and correcting errors, and searching for sources to confirm the accuracy of data. 

Can you believe that?! 50 percent! In addition to wasted time; inaccurate data inevitably leads to redundancy and inefficiency. 

Let’s put it in perspective. 

Essentially, we are talking about approximately half of the time and salary we are paying managers, decision makers, data scientists, and knowledge workers – gone because people have a hard time accessing data. This scenario makes it easy to see how bad data and complicated interfaces can cost an organization big – time, money and possibly reputation. PLM Applications can help protect you from the negative impacts of bad data.  PLM applications can help everyone access to one centralized data source – quickly, and easily. 

That’s right. One. 

By using only one source for data, your information will be easier to maintain and keep clean. You can be sure everyone is accessing data that is accurate, verified, and up-to-date. Besides, let’s not forget, data drives decisions. By using PLM applications to access and collect your data, your organization can be confident that the data you use for your day-to-day operations is data you can trust. 

Overall, PLM applications greatly promote cross-functional alignment throughout organizations, eliminate communication complications between distributed teams, optimize performance aspects within manufacturing processes, and centralize data to ensure accuracy. Think PLM applications could improve the way your business operates? Check out how EAC’s custom PLM applications – EAC Productivity Apps – connect all aspects of your organization. 

Imagine if you could manage quality, reliability, and risk at every stage of your product’s life cycle. You could reduce costs, speed innovation, and enhance next generation products. PTC’s product lifecycle management (PLM) software, Windchill, lets you do just that. 

Want to see an example of how Windchill software is used? See how Virnig Manufacturing uses PTC Windchill to change the way their data is delivered within their organization.

Already using Windchill and need help with admin and support? You’ll want to check out our Alliance Program,  provided to our customers for on-going technical support, business process consulting, and mentoring services on a monthly basis.

Already using Windchill but you or some of your team member don’t use it often, therefore, it gets confusing? You’ll want to check out our role-based apps for casual Windchill users – EAC Productivity Apps or ThingWorx Navigate will help you.

Don’t know what the heck PTC Windchill is? Then read on.

What is PTC Windchill?

PTC Windchill is a product lifecycle management (PLM) application suite that leverages a consolidated view of product information through multi-system data. It’s a systemic enterprise wide approach to maintaining product and process quality throughout the entire product lifecycle. 

PTC Windchill PLM software provides a complete functionality dimension to help organizations capture product structures from computer-aided design tools, transform them into full engineering bill of materials (eBoMS), to manufacturing bill of materials (mBoMS), to service bill of materials (sBoMS) all while retaining the linkages between different perspectives on the product. Windchill solutions break down organizational barriers, allowing teams to work faster and more accurately all while reducing time-to-market and cutting costs.

The Windchill Product Lifecycle Management system can help streamline your product development and service information processes. It’s a system that can help your organization create better products, with more variations, faster, at a lower cost. As a manufacturer, your pressures are not only continual – they’re mounting. Your industry is changing. Your customers’ requirements are evolving. And your supply chain is constantly adjusting to compete in today’s environment. In the middle of all this, more is being demanded of you and your entire organization.

Windchill helps with exactly that. As an integral component of PTC ’s Product Development System, Windchill manages all product content and business processes throughout the product and service lifecycle. And it has a robust, high-performing architecture to help you today – and to prepare you for tomorrow’s uncertainties. Windchill provides a rich systematic approach for creating, configuring, managing and reusing product structures and associated content, such as CAD files, documentation, requirements, manufacturing information, service information, part/supplier data, calculations and illustrations.

Windchill can also play an important role in increasing your company’s competitiveness by allowing continuous improvements and automation of business processes and procedures. Windchill is an integral suite of products that address the needs of product development. The Windchill family is composed of products that help support product data management, collaboration, product analytics, service information, product quality, and integrations. Check out the PTC Windchill Data Sheet to learn more.

PTC Windchill Cost

PTC Windchill made updates to their PLM packaging and pricing – which means you can customize dashboards and product data more than ever before at a cost that makes sense for your organization. Here is a breakdown of the new PLM structure.

PTC Windchill Certification

Once you’re ready to purchase the software, you’ll need to make sure it’s learned and understood in a timely manner and without frustration. We have a few options:

Short-Term Support: EAC’s Product Development System Services Team has a long track record of successfully implementing Windchill products.

Long-Term Support: Check out our Alliance Program – EAC’s PTC Windchill system administration and support services for on-going technical support.

Support at your own pace: Your team can get PTC Windchill certified by taking our classes we offer for end users and managers. Check out our training schedule.

The Windchill Products Explained: 

Windchill products are application modules that offer users specific sets of features and capabilities within the Windchill application suite.  Some of the most common Windchill PLM modules include: 

What is Windchill PDM Essentials? 

PTC Windchill Product Data Management (PDM) Essentials is built on PTC’s production proven PTC Windchill software. 

Windchill PDM Essentials simplifies data management activities by transparently incorporating them into the design process. It manages all forms of information such as CAD drawings, customer requirements, schematics and Bill of Materials (BoMs) that are generated during product development.

This modern product data management solution makes it easy to manage, share, and review your data. It’s finally possible to have a single view of the latest product data, along with tighter integration to major end CAD vendors, Microsoft Office, and desktop tools. Plus, it allows your users to save time with better version control, automated data release, and simple search capabilities. Learn more by reading the PTC Windchill PDM Essentials Data Sheet.

What is Windchill PDMLink? 

With an abundance of data dispersed throughout your organization, how do you maintain the integrity of your product information when multiple people are working on the same files? The solution is easy – Windchill PDMLink. 

Windchill PDMLink is a Web-based, industry-proven Product Data Management (PDM) system that supports geographically dispersed teams while managing critical processes such as content, change and configuration management. Windchill PDMLink maintains the integrity of your product information by storing master data in a secure area where you can control, monitor, and record all changes. 

When a change is made to your data, Windchill PDMLink stores a modified copy of the data, signed and dated, in a secure area alongside the old data, which remains in its original form as a permanent record. In addition to providing change control management, Windchill PDMLink enables you to manage your product’s release cycle as well as its configuration. Check out the PTC Windchill PDMLink Data Sheet for more information.

What is Windchill ProjectLink?  

Windchill ProjectLink is a collaborative product development web-based environment that automates and tracks projects. 

ProjectLink provides a common workspace where you and your team can share and discuss documents and product structures, hold meetings, and communicate and track progress on tasks. From private exchange environments to public business to business (B2B) exchanges, ProjectLink is a secure web-based system that can easily be used in any collaboration environment.

It can also be used well beyond the engineering and manufacturing departments of your organization. Any project that requires team members to share electronic information such as writing annual reports to creating training materials, can be managed with Windchill ProjectLink.  For more information read the PTC Windchill ProjectLink Data Sheet here.

What is Windchill Partslink? 

Windchill PartsLink is a module for PDMLink that adds part classification-based features. 

PartsLink enables you to perform parametric attribute searching and manage your results through convenient navigation and searching. You can search parts by typing a free-form product description or a part number in the search criteria text box. You can browse the hierarchically organized structure of your parts using text and images. You can also refine your search by constraining parameters in a parametric search. 

Windchill PartsLink enables your team to perform similar part searches, expanding your search to look for matching parts that have parametric attributes that are within a certain percentage or absolute tolerance of the selected part. Additionally, you can export the result set to a file.

Many companies lack a comprehensive part search system and as a result they lose the benefits of reusing product components. Criteria-based searching limits the result set, which helps a great deal in reuse decisions. PTC Windchill PartsLink helps solve that problem. 

What is Windchill Quality Solutions? 

Depending on your specific Windchill Quality Solutions suite (Windchill Quality Solutions 10.1 Desktop, Windchill Quality Solutions 10.1 Administrator, Windchill Quality Solutions 10.1 Web Access) you may have access to one or more applications. 

Windchill Quality Solutions, the desktop version, is the cornerstone of the Windchill Quality Solutions suite. It is available in both the team and enterprise additions and is the feature rich windows application for all of your reliability and maintainability activities. 

Available in the enterprise addition you will also find Windchill Quality Solutions Administrator which provides you options for administrative controls including options to support secure login. 

Windchill Quality Solutions Web Access available specifically for Windchill FMEA infractions in the enterprise edition, allows you access for data entry, filtering, graphing, reporting and more. 

Is there other Windchill Software for product data management and process management?

Want to see a PTC Windchill tutorial to see the software in action? Watch this on-demand video of Windchill’s basic software capabilities.