You can reduce time to market and cut costs by advancing your digital thread with PTC Windchill, the industry-leading Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) solution. Windchill consolidates data so that your team can work faster and more accurately so you can focus on product innovation.
See how Virnig Manufacturing uses PTC Windchill to change the way their data is delivered within their organization.
Business Initiatives
Located in Rice, Minnesota, Virnig Manufacturing has been designing and producing skid steer attachments for over 27 years. This family owned one-stop shop does all steps of the manufacturing process in-house: engineering, cutting raw materials, machining, welding, and painting the finished product. Virnig dominates the industry by offering high-quality skid steer attachments and continually innovates to maintain a strong competitive advantage in a challenging and competitive market.
Business Challenges
Virnig has grown exponentially in the last decade, prompting the on-boarding of more employees to keep up with the growth. The expanding workforce introduced a new challenge of organizing critical work documents. The process of finding documents every day began to inhibit productivity. The need for a file management system became obvious and critical.
Finding a solution became a top priority as Darin Virnig, Engineering and Production Manager, and his team found themselves taking on projects that required “more time in a day” to complete. Darin stated, “When there were just a few of us looking at files we weren’t quite as concerned about file management and having things get overwritten. But as we had more and more people working we all looked at each other and decided it was time to implement a file management system so that we didn’t start losing data or have it changed accidentally.” Prior to implementing a system, Darin and his team kept product content and design data in large red binders throughout the manufacturing facility. Engineers would leave their workstations to access folders in designated areas – sometimes on the other side of the manufacturing floor. Virnig was losing precious time to their paper-based processes. Darin needed to find a quicker way for his team to access data if he wanted to achieve maximum productivity on the shop floor.
Solutions
EAC Product Development Solutions (EAC) is an engineering and technology services company headquartered in Burnsville, MN. They provide product development solutions that transform the way small to medium sized companies design, manufacture, connect, and service their products. Virnig had partnered with EAC to implement PTC’s simulation software and trusted them with this new file management challenge. PTC is a global technology provider and the maker of tools such as Creo Parametric CAD software and the Windchill line of product lifecycle management solutions. “It was only logical to go with PTC products since we have been doing all of our modeling with their products,” says Darin.
The benefits of going paperless exceeded Virnig’s accuracy and collaboration goals, and provide an ancillary benefit of reducing the cost of paper and printing. The decision was made to implement Windchill, PTC’s product lifecycle management software to streamline operations and control files.
The Paperless Movement
Windchill PDM Essentials, PTC’s Product Data Management tool empowers companies to organize and manage their product content to improve access to accurate, timely product data. Darin and his team have implemented Windchill across their engineering and manufacturing facility with 10 different access points for each department on the shop floor. Darin chuckles as he talks about removing the now-unnecessary red binders, “we took away their file cabinets.” The new process didn’t require any paper documents on the floor – everything was now digitally stored in their workstation computers throughout the facility. The implementation prevented wasted time that was previously used to sort through red binders, and avoided the use of old, irrelevant information.
Darin talks about the success of the new data management system, “Paperless provides access on the floor which has increased accuracy and quality that will give us the competitive advantage we were looking for.” He describes how his team members used to take over 30 minutes a day searching for the data needed to complete a specific task. “It was a company initiative to go paperless in all areas to increase accuracy – the accuracy is where the cost savings would come in for us.” Going paperless has allowed Virnig to take advantage of that 30 minutes a day to add over 325 productive hours to their operation each year.
Learn more about PTC Windchill, contact us, download the case study, or watch the video.
We tend to operate our businesses like we’re playing a game of telephone…and it’s costing us all money.
You don’t have to be a genius to know that within many companies’ sales, marketing, and R&D teams serve separate functions. With different goals, targets and initiatives these teams tend to collaborate among themselves using the same system of record.
For example, within the same company, a department may rely on Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) systems while others may depend on Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Manufacturing Execution System data (MES), and Quality Management Systems (QMS).
Marketing, Management, Purchasing, Engineering, Technical Publications and manufacturing all need to operate off product designs and Bill of Materials (BOM), but while doing so people are likely to interrupt engineering to get information.
With this information they ask different questions, have different intentions, and speak different departmental languages.
The reality is; this inaccessible data is about the same product that happens to be housed in a system you can’t normally access.
By resorting to these misaligned processes, we end up operating on data without its entire context, therefore we lose productivity to requests for data and the switching costs of changing tasks.
Besides, these interruptions are generally counterproductive, especially when you’re working on one task and you’re interrupted regarding a completely different topic.
Without a single means to bridge these systems, your company is missing out on valuable information, time savings, and productivity.
We live in a world where siloed departmental communication doesn’t need to be the norm, after all technology is just about everywhere!
By integrating your critical data into a centralized location, your organization will increase visibility, and achieve better, more informed business decisions.
With technology that exists today, your separate departments can pull data from multiple systems into easy role-based dashboards, providing greater visibility and enhanced analysis.
The result is a rapid way for your team to get data from the vast data pool within your organization, and access it in an easy to consume space.
One of the ways we transform the way companies design, manufacture, connect, and service their products is by value stream mapping ‘Product Development Systems’ and looking for ways to ensure people have access to the information they need when they need it.
Tools like Thingworx Navigate, for companies invested in PTC’s Windchill solution, or the standard Thingworx platform and PLM Apps for those that aren’t, are helping companies pull information from different departments, systems, vendors, etc. to make sure every role has a simplified view of the information they need, when they need it, without slowing down any other departments.
Stephen Covey’s landmark book ‘The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People’ lists the 7th critical habit as “Sharpen the saw.” It references a parable of a lumberjack and a stranger. The woodsman is very busy cutting down trees. As he completes more and more work his effort increases and his productivity goes down because his saw dulls over time. The lumberjack, exhausted and cursing the labor, is approached by the stranger. “What’s the problem?” asks the stranger. “My saw is dull and won’t cut well” responds the lumberjack. “Why don’t you sharpen it?” asks the stranger. The lumberjack responds “What kind of question is that? Because I would have to stop sawing, and I’m very busy.” The stranger responds “But, if you sharpened your saw you could cut more efficiently than before. You could get even more work done.”
It’s important to sharpen our saw. We need to keep working to improve our knowledge base, approach, and overall situation. This may involve attending a training class, reading a book, mentoring and being mentored, or joining a peer group. I understand this can be difficult in the world of product development / engineering / design / manufacturing / and service. There is always pressure to get to market, get to the trade show, meet customer demands, etc.
Efficient engineering, design, manufacturing, and service requires efficient use of the supporting technologies for each role. Our training group consistently proves a return on our customer’s investment in training and development. That’s because technology keeps getting better. If you don’t know how to take advantage of the full functionality of your tools like PTC Creo, PTC Windchill, PTC Arbortext, and PTC Mathcad…you’re cutting with a dull saw.
We consistently schedule key PTC certified training classes and training courses that help people throughout organizations make the most of their technology. We deliver everything from Windchill Administrator courses to training classes for specific PTC Creo tools and functionality.
Do me a favor. Take time to sharpen your saw. A few days in a training course could save you hundreds of hours down the line. Take a look at the EAC Training Calendar. Maybe you’ll find the perfect PTC training course to put a new edge on your saw. Contact our training group to learn more about our training and mentoring delivery options (Like EACLive!) and full course catalogue. And check out this blog to learn more about how to select a PTC Training Course and Training Class provider.
Windchill is a mission-critical enterprise system with multiple components and touch points across an entire enterprise. Because of this complexity, you might recognize the need for Windchill Managed Services.
EAC has created a managed services program for your Windchill system – The EAC Alliance Program. The Alliance Program provides PTC Windchill managed services such as Windchill administration and support.
Our team of expert system administrators help improve system performance, optimize server and license configurations, and maintain a stable PLM environment for your organization.
Here’s what customer’s see with our Windchill Managed Services and what you can expect.
Windchill Managed Services Percent of Uptime
95.1% of our EAC Alliance Program customers achieve 100% Windchill uptime. Our customers that do not have 100% Windchill uptime still maintain over 99% availability. This is an overall average of 99.95% or more uptime.
Windchill Managed Services Predictive Maintenance
Our Alliance program executes planned (weekly, monthly, etc) Windchill maintenance. Predictive maintenance is more efficient and the preferred approach to system maintenance. Roughly 1/4 of Alliance customers choose to implement PTC System Monitor (PSM) as a way to bolster EAC’s already rigorous proactive maintenance.
Speed/Performance of Windchill with Managed Services
100% of EAC’s Alliance Program customers see an improvement in the speed and performance of their Windchill system. Out of the box, Windchill leaves a lot of room for performance tuning and server optimization. Our EAC Alliance Program Team are skilled in analyzing and optimizing system resources to suit your individual needs
Windchill Managed Services Security/Patches
100% of our EAC Alliance customers receive (or are notified) of patches. This way you can be assured that your system is running with maximum security at all times.
Want to learn more about what our EAC Alliance Program has to offer? Download our Alliance Program Brochure and check out the top 10 questions we get about our Windchill Managed Services.
Help us help you! We know your Windchill System is critical, that’s why we designed a program just for you.
Some estimate that 70% of companies do not regularly perform routine maintenance on their Windchill System. Were on a mission to change that.
In an effort to provide on-going technical support, business process consulting and adoption services; EAC offers the Windchill Alliance Program (Services). This is a service package intended to provide professional Windchill maintenance and administration services, regardless of a customer’s stage of adoption.
Our team of expert technicians will improve your system performance, optimize server and license configurations, and ultimately maintain a stable PLM environment for your organization.
After receiving your FREE Windchill System Checkup and becoming a customer, here’s what you will receive:
System and Application Administration
This includes everything from starting and stopping your Windchill environment to cleaning up unreferenced files and cache folders. Let our team do the busy work of monitoring and managing your system so you can get the most out of your Windchill investment.
Database Administration
The EAC Alliance team will review, restore, and analyze your database growth and performance. Our database administration covers anything and everything from network administration, security administration, and backup services. Put us in-charge of performing and verifying your scheduled system backups to ensure your system is running properly.
Business Administration
We will take care of all your Windchill business administration needs such as adding new roles, updating accounts, operating system maintenance, network administration, license usage reporting and more.
End-User Support
Our end user support consists of everything from help desk support, to advice on best practices, to user mentoring, to Alliance Program review meetings and more. We want to help you with all your system questions and needs.
Still want to learn more? Check out our article on the Top 10 Questions we get about our EAC Alliance Program.
Also, Here’s what customer’s see with our Windchill Managed Services and what you can expect as an EAC Alliance Customer!
Our goal is to help you increase your Windchill system uptime, eliminate corrupt workspaces, improve sluggish system performance, safeguard your security, and guarantee your system is up-to-date. Take a proactive approach to maintaining your Windchill environment today!
We have had a long-standing relationship with a local manufacturing company over the years and are proud to share their success story with the rest of the product development world. PTC Windchill, PTC’s PLM solution, helps Virnig Manufacturing go paperless, streamline operations, and save over 325 hours per year.
What stands out about this case is the fact that the company was able to reduce or eliminate paper trails in all departments in less than one month thanks to a single tool. Why is going paperless such a big deal? Companies go out of their way to eliminate unnecessary processes in order to operate at a maximum efficiency. Most companies will invest in a Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) system to streamline the flow of product data through the organization, improve quality and efficiency, and better manage their business. PLM systems organize a company’s product data in one place so there are no obstacles between departments and accurate product, manufacturing, and service information.
Virnig Manufacturing has been designing and producing skid steer attachments for over 27 years. Due to an expanding workforce over the years, Virnig faced a new challenge of organizing the over-flowing piles of critical work documents. Darin Virnig, Engineering and Production Manager, and his team kept all work documents in large red binders throughout the facility and in each department. Due to the recent growth and expansion of the business, Darin needed to find a file management solution.
Download the case study to see how Virnig Manufacturing is leveraging a right-sized PLM solution — PTC Windchill — to overcome some of their biggest challenges.
If you don’t have PLM in your organization at all, reach out to us. We have a team of experts ready to answer any questions you may have. They would love understand your situation and the benefits of implementing PLM in your organization.
Click above or watch the video here.
