PTC’s Service Information Manager adds three advanced capabilities to the XML authoring and content management system:

1. Translation Management
2. Part List Generation
3. Publication Structures

My last blog focused on Publication Structures. You can read more about publication structures here: Revolutionizing Book Assembly with SIM. Next time I will discuss Translation Management. However, today I’m discussing Part List Generation, how to create value from part data.

The Engineering Bill of Material (BoM) is structured based on the design. The Service BoM is then derived from the Engineering BoM. With the part structure defined, you can visually identify parts and add them to various service kits and assemblies and ultimately generate a part list from the structure that can be used in technical publications. Updates from source parts and drawings to downstream processes are practically automatic. Building part lists with associative, up-to-date service information increases the accuracy of information and improves authoring efficiency thereby reducing time to market.

Each component in a drawing can be a part with its own lifecycle that is managed and repurposed in an integrated system. All too often we see disparate systems with Engineering drawings in one system and part data management in another.

Many users of Windchill use it as a CAD warehouse to store content more or less. Sure users of the design engineering tools find them extremely valuable, many folks are leveraging workflow processes and lifecycle features to expedite the day-to-day flow of information, and many have found that the change management tools add value when it comes to maintaining change integrity and traceability. Nonetheless, many organizations are not leveraging their parametric data for parts management (you know who you are).

The ability to repurpose Engineering design part structures to create Part Lists for Service information is the promise land. But the system can only repurpose parts if they exist as parts in the system. Generating part lists for catalogs and online delivery requires parts with end items and part structures. So in other words, using Windchill Service Parts and Service Information Manager requires part data  management in Windchill PDMLink.

Service parts management provides an out-of-the-box method of generating Part Lists for the technical documentation community from a single source of information. As a result, organizations are able to greatly improve the process of information delivery and are able to leverage dynamic publishing capabilities to bring products to market faster, and keep customers better informed.

Learn More

Refer to PTC’s web site for a complete description of Service Information Manager.

EAC information solution experts have decades of reliable XML solution experience. Explore the EAC website to learn more about our products and services or review the Product Development Information Services Brochure.

The Internet of Things (IoT) poses unique challenges when it comes to protecting smart, connected devices. If devices are hacked, they could cause serious problems. It’s critical to understand what these challenges are and how you can overcome them. A secure IoT solution requires complete collaboration among the infrastructure, platform, developer, and device controller.

Some of the security challenges the IoT faces include user management in the cloud, device variety, and application vulnerability.

User Management in the Cloud

Cloud permissions are typically granted to one human using one application, there are firm boundaries around the authentication and authorization processes. When the IoT is in the cloud as well, devices can authenticate themselves as a human or on behalf of a human. This means a much more complex permission process as well as a trust model must be put in place to maintain security.

A big difference between the cloud and the IoT is that the IoT (typically) has more devices than the cloud. For a hacker to do serious damage, they don’t need to penetrate all of the devices, just a small number of them or even a single weakly protected device.

Variety of Devices

The varying types of smart, connected devices present immense opportunity for damage if a hacker successfully overtakes them. Organizations must ensure their devices and applications are secure from attackers even with knowledge of IoT operations.

Researchers have found they have could interfere with driving an automobile, the functionality of a pacemaker, and even changing the position of rifle’s aim. Your device security is critical.

Application Vulnerabilities

Hackers could go as far as gaining instant access to high-level IoT deployments. They can do this by targeting security weaknesses in the firmware and/or applications running on embedded systems. If your IoT implementation is not properly managed, a compromise of a single device could compromise your entire system.

Environments where devices are deployed through other organization’s networks are especially important. Your organization’s ability to lessen security issues among devices will decrease if you lose control leaving your applications vulnerable.

Now that you’ve read through some of the security challenges the IoT faces, you may want to take a moment and continue reading to learn how to protect your digital data, as well as security best practices: authenticate, authorize, and audit. Security risks associated with the IoT are growing, but you can take preventative action to ensure the security of your IoT devices and deployments.

Rob Black, CISSP Senior Director of Product Management at PTC wrote the White Paper, “Protecting smart devices and applications throughout the IoT ecosystem,” where he reviews IoT security best practices. You can read it here.

In my last blog, Hearing Voices Through Connected Manufacturing & Machine Learning I tried to convey how expensive manufacturing equipment could (and should) be telling you how it’s performing and if it’s going to malfunction. While it seems futuristic and expensive, I’ll attempt to dispel both challenges in this post.

One starting point is the reality of the Internet of Things (IoT) and its impact on manufacturing is recognized by major governments across the globe. It’s referred to as ‘Smart Nation’ in Singapore, ‘Made in China 2025’ in China, ‘Industries 4.0’ in Germany, and generally as the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) by various industry leading organizations in the United States.

Regardless of what the governing bodies are doing, we’re in business to make money.

How can you do that?

Use the IIoT and all that it can do to achieve your business initiatives.

That’s when some new compelling or wiz-bang approach to things can actually make sense (or cents). What I mean is this, don’t treat the IIoT as something new or as a separate initiative. Rather, embrace the technology for what it is and how it can propel your existing business initiatives.

The ideals of my previous blog, preventive maintenance, enterprise monitoring, and increased ROI are probably already on your visions and strategy hit-list for making more money. These are exactly the core business initiatives that are possible. When these are being met, the feeling of work being ‘expensive’ shifts to understanding the value of smart, connected operations. This comes from connected systems and equipment flowing data from previously disparate systems into a data refinery directly connecting operational metrics to core business initiatives in real-time. Then you can focus on the value.

Move forward into what’s current and available if you’ve been sitting for a while.

As for this being ‘futuristic,’ well I guess you could say it is, but it’s more focused on moving forward. This is fundamentally about transforming the way you design, manufacture, connect to, and service your products. It’s a major shift into the future.

It’s not about unobtainable science-fiction — rather its attainable with modern equipment and easy add-ons to old equipment. This is enabled even further through easy access to high volume scalable process computer systems in the cloud and at the edge. It’s even become expected in newer equipment.

The advent of IoT Platforms like PTC’s ThingWorx has created systems that address all aspects of the IoT stack and support smooth and complete implementation. Starting with Industrial Connectivity to accelerate the connection of existing equipment into a central hub, you can rapidly bring equipment into the ‘connected’ state by feeding the ability to give your equipment a voice. A scalable and flexible environment for creating applications and role-centric mashups of refined information comes together in ThingWorx Foundation. Augmented Reality runs right through this system as well as predictive analytics in ThingWorx Analytics. ThingWorx Analytics are available to turn these concepts into reality and truly give the equipment in your operation a voice.

So, are you hearing voices yet? Or maybe wishing that you did? We’d love to help make this happen — whether it is through connecting the dots related to strategy, providing technology, implementing it, or even helping to retro-fit existing equipment so it can speak, let us hear your voice and we’ll help give your operation a voice as well.

If you’d like more information about connecting your products through smart manufacturing, you may find our brochure helpful.

3D printing is not only transforming the way organizations manufacture products, it’s transforming the manufacturing process. Before introducing 3D printing to your organization, it’s important to understand these how your organization plans to address these questions:

1. How will 3D printing improve your organizations product offering?
2. How will 3D printing improve your organizations processes?
3. How can you implement 3D printing?

How will 3D printing improve your organizations product offering?

Your organization needs to understand how 3D printing will provide a competitive advantage to their products. 3D printing allows for limitless customization and efficient production. You

3D printing has been considered a tool to quickly design and create prototypes. It is redefining the way we design products and here’s why:

Faster Design

3D printing allows designers to go directly from design to manufacturing. When you 3D print in-house instead of outsourcing your projects to a third party you can reduce print cycles up to 75%.
Reference: Save Time and Money with the Form 2

Innovation on the Fly

Companies are able to test their prototypes before committing to a specific design. 3D printing welcomes the age of rapid prototyping. Through rapid prototyping, designers are able to evaluate print failures more efficiently and improve their design.

Use Resources Efficiently

3D printing can produce the same technology as other types of heavy machinery at a fraction of the cost.3D printing in-house rather than outsourcing to a third party allows significant cost savings. According to a case study evaluated by one of our customers, they saved 93% by printing in-house. 3D printing in house allows your design to make design improvements quickly and cost efficiently.
Reference: Save Time and Money with the Form 2 

To learn more about 3D printing in house and when to outsource, you may be interested in the white paper, ‘When to 3D Print In House and When to Outsource.’ The white paper reviews three 3D printing methods and presents a pros and cons list comparing the methods.

In last week’s post I walked through a manufacturing use case without Product Lifecycle Management (PLM). I hope you noticed the possible issues and costs related to restricting Manufacturing direct access to PLM and engineering data.

If you missed last weeks post, you can read it here:

Product Lifecycle Management in Manufacturing: Part 1

This week I will use the same use case story. The only difference will be manufacturing has access to PLM. I have also included manufacturing specific modules, which are run through PLM as well. Manufacturing has access to these modules and uses them for all Manufacturing planning.

As before, Engineering completes a new product design and starts a release process of the product in PLM. One major difference now, is Manufacturing personnel are included at appropriate points in the new release process. There is a full integration between PLM and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems as well. This integration allows for automatic transfer of the Manufacturing Bill of Materials (BoM) to Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) when appropriate based on processes managed in PLM.

One thing to note on the outline below; each system task, since it is in PLM, has links to all the required information engineering released as well as any supporting information. This is including manufacturing information, customer specification, and supplier specifications on purchased parts.

Part 1: Release Process

The lead Manufacturing Engineer receives a PLM task asking him to begin manufacturing planning for this associated new products design.

Part 2: Manufacturing Planning

The manufacturing engineer begins the layout of manufacturing processes in the PLM Manufacturing Planning System. This includes planning at each work cell. Each cell is linked to required resources, parts, CAD data, and manufacturing documents required to complete that cell action. With the correct system, this will have included all metrics required to properly and completely plan a manufacturing process.

If required, a Manufacturing BoM is based off of, and linked to, the Design BoM. This allows the Manufacturing Engineer to restructure the BoM as needed to allow for the most efficient manufacturing processes without losing ties to the design BoM and parts the manufacturing BoM was created from.

Once complete, work instructions can be created in web form or be printed to paper from this plan. The work instructions would include links to the correct Engineering data and required manufacturing documentation.

Part 3: Release Process Continues

Once the Manufacturing Engineer completes their planning tasks, all required parts and Manufacturing BoMs, are automatically added and/or updated into the ERP system via an integration to PLM.

During this same process, PLM system tasks are sent to purchasing to start the procurement process.

Tasks are also sent to the tooling designers to start tooling generation.

As mentioned, these tasks are automatically linked to all the required engineering and manufacturing information to appropriately complete each task.

Part 4: Tooling and Controls Tasks

Tooling designers access PLM to generate their tooling data and controlling programs directly from engineering 3D data.

The resulting CAD and other tooling data are also saved to the PLM system. This data is linked to Engineering data, Manufacturing data, and the Manufacturing process plan.

Machining paths and other controlling programs generated are also created and saved to PLM with the same functionality mentioned above.

Having these links from manufacturing to engineering data allows for full impact analyses of any potential changes being planned for the product by the company. As well as insures all downstream data is updated appropriately when an engineering change does occur.

Part 5: In-Process Change by Engineering

While ramp up is happening, Engineering makes a last-minute change. Once the change is complete in Engineering, they start a change process that includes all downstream departments. Each department receives a PLM system task with the all required information related to the change linked to the task. This includes purchasing, manufacturing, tooling, etc. Each department acts upon the change, completing all internal department actions required.

Once all of the departments have completed their tasks in PLM, the change has been completed. Manufacturing ramp up continues leading into the initial manufacturing process.

Part 6: Issue Tracking and Correction During Manufacturing

During the initial manufacturing process, a manufacturing team member notices there is a clearance issue with the design. The team member verbally notifies their cell leader of this issue. The cell leader creates a change request in the PLM System. During that process, he creates a digital markup that is saved with the change request. The change request is created referencing the engineering data the issue is related to.

The engineer responsible receives a PLM system task notifying of this problem. The engineer takes the needed corrective actions and updates the CAD data. This CAD data is then revised released and included in the problem report.

The cell leader receives the notification the problem report was approved and corrected. The updated CAD data is included, the cell leader and the manufacturing floor team member can now reference the new data directly from PLM and make the needed correction.

This happens many times during the initial manufacturing process. The necessary PLM processes are initiated based on the issues found during the initial manufacturing run.

Manufacturing uses PLM to gain access to engineering data because it always references the latest released information. This insures nothing is made from outdated information.

Part 7: Final Product Release

The final product is released to the customer.

All as-built information has been saved in PLM, meaning most of the related engineering data has been changed via the PLM process capturing changes. Anything that hasn’t been corrected yet is also saved via electronic markups to be processed later.

Part 8: Another Manufacturing Run

One year later, the company needs to do a manufacturing run on this same product. However, they have a large turnover with their manufacturing employees. Only a few people are there that worked on the first production run of this product. Without the use of PLM, this could be a disaster. However, all as-built changes where captured in PLM for the first production run of this product and manufacturing is still using PLM to access all build information. This allows manufacturing the ability to properly prepare for the next run. This resulted in very few, if any, issues during the next production run.

Hopefully it is easy to see the benefits of giving manufacturing direct access to PLM, even based on this limited use case example.

There are many benefits to utilizing PLM in manufacturing. Much more than is appropriate to list in a blog. If you’d like to take a deeper dive, please contact one of our experts here at EAC. We would love to talk you through all the benefits PLM utilized in manufacturing could offer you.

In the meantime, reading our eBook, “Designing an Effective Change Control Process” may be helpful. We walk you through how to design a change control process to improve productivity and reduce quality issues.