Here are 7 seemingly simple steps that, when followed in the correct order, can help ensure you or your organization will have a successful PLM Implementation. If you have been in the industry long enough, you will know that there is no such thing as a perfect implementation. But, by knowing how to structure your project and involve the right people, you can achieve success and ultimately realize the true value of your new technology.

1: Open discussion among stakeholders: This foundation sets the stage for a successful deployment. At a minimum, three objectives should act as a foundation for every PLM implementation.

• Identify a goal or target. This step will ensure that everyone involved has an understanding of the project scope, the end goal, long-term expectations, and how the decision will impact the organization.
• Form a project budget. The budget can be the hardest to agree on because cost is a factor in every project.
• Define a time frame. Identifying a realistic time frame is what ensures you stay on track and within budget.

2: Project Assessment and Kickoff:

• Project Assessment: This often-overlooked step is vital to understanding the terms of a project. Clearly define what problems are being solved. Define metrics that will be used to measure success. Take time to step back and look before you leap.
• Have a formal kickoff meeting: User involvement is key to a successful project. The sooner you make users aware of the project parameters, the more included they will feel and more willing to accept change when the time comes. A one-hour project kickoff meeting is a good place to introduce your company’s plans to the user base.

3: Solution Definition: Typically driven by the results of your assessment; this is one of the most important technical steps of a project. This is where you match the functionally of a PLM system to the project goals and identify any gaps in OOTB configuration. Sometimes this process is aided by sitting down with a company like EAC to vet out any possible gaps.

4: Solution Configuration: At this stage, the PLM system is configured to suit the project goals and solution definition. This is where companies like EAC can take the reins and complete all necessary technical tasks, including but not limited to, all installation and configurations of needed modules and add-ons.

5: Testing and Validation: This step should include a detailed walk through of day-to-day activities within the PLM system and should involve a cross-functional validation/testing team. Take this step seriously. Lack of testing can result in poor user experience and adoption. Identify tweaks then retest until all parties are comfortable with the PLM functionality.

6: Product Configuration: This is often called the “go-live” event and involves the execution and implementation of everything defined up to this point. All core team members should have signed off on the final configuration and implementation plan.

7: Training and Mentoring: While this topic is listed last, training and mentoring should run parallel with your go-live event. Typically, user training is done prior to the go-live event, but not so early that the users forget what they learned by the time they get access to the new system. We have found that the most successful time for this training is during the down-time in the production implementation phase of the project.

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.

Back in my first blog, I reminisced about my days as a draftsman. For this topic I am going to do the same. Back then we used lead pencils on paper or vellum. When we needed to share drawings with the shop, we made blueprints of them using a very large ammonia based blue print machine that looked like it would as soon eat you as make a copy of your drawings.

I remember being mentored by the senior engineers. One of the things they use to tell me was I needed to always consider how something I was designing would to be made. To make sure I did this, they would have me spend time in the shop. While I would help where appropriate, my main goal was to observe how things were being manufactured. I would watch everything from machining to assembly. This was invaluable experience, as from that point on I would do my best to always ask myself on new designs or design change, “Can this really be made?” And for the most part, I could answer that question. If I couldn’t I would be sure to get with the appropriate people in manufacturing to find out before calling my design complete.

In my current position I now get the opportunity to see various engineering departments. In many places I see a big disconnect between engineering and manufacturing. There seems to be this big virtual “Wall” between the two departments. The engineering group develops a new design. They usually run through a very formal design process. And with new CAD tools like PTC offers in Creo 2.0, they can run through various analyses, simulations and interference checking all from their desk. This new capability as proven to help reduce the number of pilot runs and rework required due to design flaws. Unfortunately, with all this new automated checking, I think sometimes the engineer loses sight of how their design will actually be manufactured. In many cases I have noted that the designer really has no idea how manufacturing actually gets their designs built.

Too often a design goes through a rigorous design process, only to be “thrown over the wall” to manufacturing. Once there, the manufacturing engineer often would require changes. Best case, if they had a good PLM system like Windchill, they would start a formal change process, asking engineering to make the required changes and send the design back to manufacturing. This still costs time and money, but all CAD models will stay in sync with how the product actually gets built. However, in many companies, I see manufacturing modifying the CAD models or assembly to reflect their needs. Usually they then save their version of the objects on a local drive or network drive. These files are then completely uncontrolled files outside the companies PLM system. However, without them the product could not be manufactured. Just as important these manufacturing files do not match the designed version of the CAD files. I am not talking the “as designed” to “as manufactured” bill of materials. These often are different, and they should be. I am talking the CAD models themselves being different. This potentially is throwing all the analysis and testing done in design out the window.

I am sure for most of you I do not have to explain the risk of having uncontrolled manufacturing version of CAD files. Why don’t more engineering departments and individual designers today take manufacturing more into consideration when designing? I have a couple of opinions on this. One possibility could be the shorter and shorter design timelines engineering has to work with. They just don’t have the time anymore to research their companies manufacturing practices. Once again I challenge management to truly consider the time they supposedly save in engineering, to the risk with how things truly get manufactured. Another very good possibility is more times than not manufacturing does not happen anywhere close to the Engineering group, many times in completely different countries. What I used to be able to do when I started out, is no longer an option for many engineering departments.

I can’t say I have a complete answer to this growing problem in our industry today. However, one thing I have seen work well is a true design review meeting that includes representatives from manufacturing. Before releasing any design, it must go through one of these reviews. Any concerns with how the design will be manufactured can be brought up during this meeting, and addressed prior to design release. Another option I have seen is creating an “As Manufactured” or “As built” version of the CAD files in a PLM system. Sometime the manufacturing engineer makes the changes, sometimes they are sent back to the design group to be made.

Let’s tear down that wall! If you’re in engineering, consult the manufacturing group about your designs. If you’re in manufacturing, let engineering know you need to modify files just to get them built correctly. Talk though it, bring attention to it. If you don’t, no one else will. You may not think it affects you leaving things function as they are. But, if you are not helping you company become the best it can be, in the end it will be the employees that inevitably suffer.

How does your company deal with changes required to a design so it can be manufactured? Does your engineering group consider manufacturing during the creation of their designs? How do you train new engineers/designer’s manufacturing methods? Specifically, if your manufacturing facilities are offsite. Does anyone else feel this is a growing problem in engineering/manufacturing companies today? While I get to see many companies, I obviously do not have visibility into every company in the country. So, please, respond with your thoughts, opinions, and how things are done where you work.