Recently I had an epiphany. It wasn’t the kind of epiphany that changes a life forever and drives someone to become a monk in the Himalayas, but it was an epiphany nonetheless. It had to do with collaboration, data management, reporting, and the way many of our customers inevitably deal with their customers.

For the sake of this blog I’m going to oversimplify the “discrete manufacturing” industry into two categories: Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM) and OEM suppliers. Many of our customers supply larger companies. This puts our customers in a unique situation in which they operate their businesses within other people’s timetables. They operate their internal projects within larger projects managed by the end customer. This is where things can get tricky, but I digress…

I was grabbing lunch with a couple friends, colleagues, and long-time engineering veterans when the conversation veered into oncoming traffic. A simple question, “Does anyone have any meetings they need to get back for?” opened up a new line of dialogue. One of the engineers referenced a late afternoon meeting and started talking about the time they waste on redundant meetings with their internal teams and the end customer. Throughout any given week they have status meetings, update meetings, and check-ins on the updates and statuses. Everyone is always trying to stay on top of expectations and progress and it seems like it’s, well, getting in the way of progress!

The other engineer sympathetically chimed in because they both felt the same pain and frustration with the overhead of trying to GSD (Get $#!+ Done!). Throughout the conversation, phrases like “they didn’t hire me to attend meetings” and “I wonder if anyone is adding up how much these meetings cost?” were thrown around. I couldn’t help but think there had to be a better way…in fact, I knew there was a better way. You can dive in and learn more about Knowledge Worker Management and Time Boxing here, but for now I’m going to focus on the tools that can help GSD.

Nowadays the acronyms PDM and PLM have become common terms in the engineering and manufacturing world – Product Data Management and Product Lifecycle Management. These tools can relieve some of the frustration. If a company uses a tool like PTC Windchill to collaborate with customers and internal teams, they can set milestones, see real-time reporting based on work states, and manage changes easily and within clearly defined workflows. They can help provide answers to questions without needing to interrupt the engineering staff.

If you give us a call and a few minutes we can help you understand the return on investment in a legitimate PDM/PLM tool (something other than file folders and shared drives). We can help you figure out how much time and money PTC Windchill can save you – hard numbers that help the bean counters sleep at night. But, it is important to remember there are tangible benefits to improving your collaborative space that go beyond cycle times and promotion requests. Investing in a PDM or PLM tool can free up time for engineers to get back to engineering. An engineer’s lunchtime conversation should focus on the amazing innovations they’re working on. It shouldn’t focus on frustrating meeting-itis. Engineers aren’t cheap. Let’s get them back to work and out of redundant meetings. I think tools like PTC Windchill can help do exactly that.

By the time you have invested in a Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) system, you are ready to overcome the inefficiencies of your current processes, and reap the benefits of improved business operations and profits.  The key to maximizing those benefits lies only partially in the program itself.  The other part rests firmly in the hands of those who will implement the new program.  Making sure your employees know how to use the system to its best advantage will put your company well on its way to achieving its goals.

Employee Training as an Investment

Change, by itself, is often frustrating. Employees using one system for years grow comfortable even with features that do not operate as intended, sometimes designing elaborate work-arounds just to get the job done. Suddenly presented with a new PLM system, these employees may dread the unknown and cling to a subpar system for its familiarity alone.  Getting employees involved with the new PLM system early in the process when bringing a new system on board is important in maximizing its efficient use in your company.

When introducing your new system, start with a reminder of what you learned from your employees about the old system: what problems they were having, where there were inefficiencies or delays, and what impact that had on their ability to get their work done.  Then invite them to see how the new system will help alleviate those issues.  Once they see how they will benefit from your new program, they will be ready for their next step: learning how to use it.

Certified Training Opportunities

Training is available for product design and management programs including Windchill, Creo, Arbortext and more. Options include public or group training events, private training sessions and remote or eLearning opportunities. Web modules offer further employee development.

Whether they breeze through free tutorials and are completely comfortable with the new program, or whether they require more hands-on training, each member of your team will need full access to instruction that will make them experts in using the new PLM program.

You should also consider having a system available for experimentation. Each employee should be able to get the feel for how Creo, other CAD platforms, Microsoft Word, and company procedures work within a system like Windchill. Finally, get feedback from your teams to understand how they feel and what additional assistance they want.  Knowing that you want to give them all the tools possible to make the new program work will remind them that they are important players in helping your company achieve its goals.

How Training Your Employees Helps Your Business

Investing in your employees and their training is time well invested. Employees who are happy in their positions and feel appreciated are likely to stay at your company and take it to a higher level of productivity.  Employees frustrated by not understanding a new system, on the other hand, may look for greener pastures.  Implemented correctly, a new system can enhance not only work efficiency but employee satisfaction as well.

The highest quality, most advanced PLM products on the market are only as good as the employees that use them. Remember to invest in your employees as much as you invest in your technologies.  And when you feel thankful for that new program and the efficiencies it has brought, this time of year is a great time to show thanks to your team for ensuring your business success.

Small and medium sized businesses may appear smaller and more nimble than their large corporate counterparts, but they have the same need to manage engineering, inventory and process changes. Their need for this change management is just on a smaller scale. SMBs should have access to the same high-tech solutions for Product Data Management (PDM), only scaled to meet the needs appropriate for their size.

PTC Windchill: for PDM Essentials

Engineering projects both large and small require up-to-date product versions. Design, production and quality control teams all require quick access to the correct and most current product information. And access to this change management process must also be controlled to prevent unauthorized changes.

Windchill PDM Essentials is an easy to deploy system that meets these goals. You do not need to spend countless hours configuring the software to meet your individual needs. Configuration and installation wizards allow for fast, easy setup with less cost to the company.

CAD with Creo

CAD data management is essential for effective product improvement. Teams need the ability to work together to share their ideas. CAD models are stored in a central location with revision control features. With the included ability to use a 3-D viewer and markup utilities, those without the CAD capability installed can still work with the same stored model designs and provide their input.

Small and medium businesses can especially benefit from the ability to reuse and re-engineer existing designs. This is how a smaller business can leverage its prior work and find ways to grow. Control over different design versions allows small teams to be nimble and avoid design mistakes that could lead to increased costs and lost time. This is why Windchill PDM comes with PTC Creo View Lite and it works with a variety of other CAD systems, including AutoCAD.

Office Documents and More

This same change management can also be applied to regular office documents with a check in and a check out function. Check out locking prevents other users from modifying documents while the work is in process with a different team. Check in releases the document to other approved users. The history of when changes were made, and who made the changes, is stored to track the most current versions and ensure the changes were authorized.

Database searching is simplified to reduce the time needed to locate designs and documents. The interface allows you to search with multiple terms, from product numbers to created-by dates and names.

Keeping it all Moving at the Right Pace

Data publishing can also be scheduled to allow for viewing and access of documents at exactly the right time. This is how product lifecycle functions control when teams have access to data. It ensures that parts for manufacturing are not ordered before the final design is approved. Keeping everything on the right schedule is key and this level of lifecycle control ensures that all the people in your organization (regardless of size) are kept in the loop and product development flows smoothly and quickly.

These are the ways that PTC Windchill with PDM Essentials gives small to medium businesses the data and change management solutions that meets their current needs with the ability to add solutions as the company grows. From EAC’s perspective, we see PDM Essentials as an excellent base foundation that can be modified to meet your unique business needs – large or small. Please contact us so that we can tailor a solution that fits your business and your budget.