How to Get the Most Out of Your PLM Software

If you’re venturing into the world of product development, you’ve likely heard of Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) software. PLM consolidates planning, development, manufacturing, and product information into one cohesive platform to connect everyone in your organization to the most valuable data. This “single source of truth” is vital for reducing design iterations, cutting unnecessary costs, enhancing product quality, and streamlining operations. But, how do you squeeze every ounce of value out of this digital powerhouse? Let’s find out.

The Key Functions of PLM Software

One of the first steps in maximizing efficiency with PLM software is to fully understand its capabilities. It juggles a mountain of data, manages changes during the product’s journey, and fosters team collaboration across departments. At its core, PLM is all about data management, bringing products to life visually, streamlining processes, and making teamwork seamless.

For example, PLM software like Windchill, a PTC software, manages critical product development data and streamlines change management processes. Fast, secure, and web-based, this business collaboration software enables companies to improve product quality by connecting teams to up-to-date product information.

Familiarizing your team with the functions of your business’s Product Lifecycle Management software will enable you to navigate the software with ease and efficiency.

Empowering Non-Expert PLM Users

PLM software is designed to strengthen collaboration amongst team members – to break down those ever-persistent data silos and bring people together. By working simultaneously, sharing insights and information, and exchanging ideas, your team can achieve greater innovation and make quicker decisions. PTC, a leader in PLM software, offers apps that are built on top of your PLM system to filter information into a consumable format.

ThingWorx Navigate serves as a great example of making PLM data more approachable for everyone. It’s about stripping away the complexity of Windchill data to support team members who might not be PLM wizards but still need to engage with critical product information. This approach is pivotal in fostering a workspace where insight and knowledge flow freely, inviting contributions from all corners of your organization.

However, unlike ThingWorx Navigate, EAC Productivity Apps (Windchill navigation apps) are highly customizable to meet your organization’s needs. Sitting on top of Windchill and Navigate, EAC Apps integrate your Product Lifecycle Management and Enterprise Resource Planning systems so departments across your organization can get access to data in an easily consumable format.

By offering these intuitive, role-specific gateways to important product data, EAC Apps and ThingWorx Navigate equip your diverse team of stakeholders with the understanding they need to navigate the product lifecycle with confidence and clarity.

Streamlining with Smarter Process Management

PLM doesn’t just organize your work; it makes it smarter. By automating workflows, the software cuts out the fluff and focuses on what’s essential, saving you precious time. Lean into this capability and watch your project timelines shrink and productivity soar.

Mastering the Data Deluge

PLM software can feel like drinking from a firehose with its data deluge. Managing this information efficiently is crucial. Keep data clean, consistent, and up-to-date. This ensures that everyone makes decisions based on the best information available, keeping your projects on track. Often this can involve data cleanup to make sure there isn’t unnecessary data crowding your reports. Or more commonly, training on all the capabilities of your Windchill system that you may be missing out on.

Our managed services team recognizes that the journey of PLM implementation doesn’t end with deployment, EAC underscores the importance of ongoing support, business process consulting, and adoption services through their EAC Alliance Program. This initiative demonstrates how businesses can continually derive value from PLM systems by adapting them to evolving business processes, driving home the need for ongoing evaluation, support, and optimization to maximize the software’s potential.

Never Stop Improving with Your PLM Software

Last but certainly not least, treat PLM software as your partner in growth. Regularly evaluate how the system serves your goals and find ways to fine-tune it. With your strategies evolving alongside the software, you’ll find new ways to enhance efficiency continuously.

In wrapping up, making the most of your PLM software isn’t just about understanding its features; it’s about immersing your team in its capabilities, promoting a culture of collaboration, tweaking processes for the better, and always striving for that next level of efficiency. Dive into the world of PLM, and you’ll soon discover the endless benefits it brings to the table.

If you’re looking for direction or guidance at any point along your Product Lifecycle Management transformation, EAC has experts to work with your organization through it all.

We are so excited about being featured in a premier manufacturing publication! This article focuses on the multitude of ways that EAC helps companies take advantage of manufacturing and engineering data and turn it into growth for the company. We cover all things Digital Thread – from data management and Additive Manufacturing to Augmented Reality and AI in manufacturing.

For all Windchill users, maintaining your Windchill system isn’t just about avoiding headaches—it’s about ensuring your workdays flow as smoothly as your designs. Here’s a roadmap to a healthy Windchill environment, based on vital actions you can take today.

1. A Quick Health Check-Up of Your System

Imagine your Windchill system as a hardworking heart in your organization. To keep it beating strong, regularly peek into:

As a site admin, keeping an eye on these metrics is key to preemptive maintenance.

2. Dive into Server Logs

If you’re up for a bit of investigative work, scan through your server logs. This may include:

Understanding these logs is like reading the tea leaves for your system’s health.

3. Disk Space & Back-Up

Aim to keep at least 15% of your server drive-free. Think of it as keeping your workspace tidy for efficiency. And, don’t forget to monitor the storage available for backups – your safety net needs to be ready at all times.

4. Matching Users with Licenses

Are you aware of how many people access Windchill and if you have the licenses to cover them? Regularly review the following to avoid legal trouble with software manufacturers:

Aligning your user count with your license agreement is a fundamental compliance matter.

5. Clean Up Log Files

Low disk space can lead to performance issues. If your log files are growing:

Old log files can often be archived or deleted to free up space.

6. Clean Up Unreferenced Files

Lastly, clean up the unreferenced files in your file vaults. This process removes orphan files that consume valuable space. Refer to Windchill Help for detailed instructions, but remember:

BEWARE! Once these files are deleted, they’re gone forever.

Adopting these six steps in your regular Windchill system check-up can drastically improve your system’s health and performance. Stay proactive to keep the cogs of your Windchill system— and therefore your production—running without a glitch.

If you are looking to check in on your Windchill system, but are unsure where to get started, you can contact one of our experts to learn more.

The majority of businesses aspire to achieve sustainability but often lack clarity on where to begin. Many perceive adopting sustainable practices as a daunting task, believing it necessitates a complete overhaul of their production processes to make a significant impact. However, let me assure you that this is not the case.

So, where should you start your journey towards creating more sustainable product design and manufacturing processes?

To genuinely embrace sustainability, focus on making design decisions at the outset. Designing for repair, reducing material usage, refurbishment, remanufacturing, recovery, reuse, and recycling is crucial. It requires a holistic approach that considers a product’s environmental impact throughout its lifecycle.

Over 80% of a product’s environmental impact stems from design decisions made early on.

Here are three ways design changes can drive sustainability:

Sustainability in Design for Dematerialization

Dematerialization, or material usage reduction, emerges as a crucial strategy for sustainability, aiming to reduce material consumption and weight without sacrificing strength and durability. Leveraging cutting-edge technologies like Generative Design, engineers can optimize designs to use only the necessary amount of material, tailored to specific loads and constraints of each application.

Creo Simulation Live offers a seamless platform for quickly assessing how different materials or reduced material usage affect design performance, enabling adjustments earlier in the design process.

Moreover, with solutions like Creo AMX, designers leverage additive manufacturing capabilities to build structures in the most efficient direction, generating automated supports, and showcasing the potential of lattice structures.

These innovations not only allow for a material reduction but pave the way for lighter, more sustainable products that maintain the required level of performance. As we continue to prioritize dematerialization in manufacturing, we edge closer to a future where sustainability and efficiency are seamlessly integrated into every aspect of product development.

Sustainability in Design for Waste Reduction

Designing for manufacturability and minimizing material waste, such as through minimal stock allowance, ensures efficient use of resources from the outset. By leveraging die casting for near-net shape production throughout the manufacturing process, material waste is significantly reduced to maximize material utilization and minimize scrap generation.

Additionally, utilizing numerically controlled (NC) strategies optimized for fast machining and lower energy consumption, such as high-speed machining (HSM) roughing and finishing, contributes to waste reduction and energy efficiency.

Moreover, designing for ease of service and assembly extends product lifespan and reduces the demand for new products. While some parts of a product may wear faster than others, creating products for easy disassembly eliminates waste because you do not have to throw away the entire product to extend the lifespan.

Accurate documentation of assembly and disassembly instructions empowers users to maintain and repair products, minimizing waste and promoting a more sustainable approach to product lifecycle management.

Sustainability in Design for Energy Efficiency

Engineers globally actively address questions such as, “Can we reduce noise and unneeded energy consumption in design?” and “Can we make our design more thermally efficient?” to pave the way for eco-friendly innovation.

Their goal is to pinpoint areas where energy is wasted, but don’t have the most efficient tools to accomplish that task. Modal analysis and thermal analysis enable more streamlined and environmentally conscious designs. Additionally, tools like Creo Flow Analysis optimizes flow efficiency to ensure that products operate with maximum efficiency, minimizing energy requirements without sacrificing performance.

Furthermore, selecting materials that demand less energy to manufacture and recycle adds another layer of sustainability to the design process and reduces the overall environmental impact from production to end-of-life disposal. Through these proactive measures, energy-efficient product design becomes a tangible pathway towards a more sustainable future.

Sustainable Design Solutions

Our suite of Creo design tools supports sustainable practices:

Designing for sustainability benefits both the environment and businesses. Companies can significantly reduce their environmental footprint by considering dematerialization, disassembly, and behavioral modeling.

By partnering with EAC for solution identification and utilizing PTC’s comprehensive Creo design tools, companies can pave the way for a sustainable future while improving their bottom line. Let’s talk about how EAC can help you identify solutions to help your company embrace sustainable design practices today!