A fresh view of the world

We’re changing our view of the world: geography and time no longer matter,” says Peter Welsh, operations manager for aerospace design and NC programming subcontractor, Hytek Services. “We can offer clients access to information 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with the knowledge that remote working no longer generates information hand-over problems.” And Welsh states that the company’s recent purchase of PTC’s ProductView web portal software has meant that, “Confidence is now gained at the desktop and the design is fit for function. The web-based viewing portals disseminate this confidence to our customers and manufacturers.” Hytek has traditionally acted as a design and programming overflow for large engineering organisations within the aerospace and automotive industries. The firm offers clients a range of services, including conceptual design studies, structural and systems design, engineering analysis, production, tool design, NC programming and information technology services. The company is part of the Hyde Group, one of Europe’s largest design engineering and subcontract manufacturing organisations. Hytek’s UK site is in Dukinfield, Cheshire and its annual turnover is roughly £12 million. There are 200 employees in all and the client base at present totals about 40, including the likes of Airbus, Boeing, Saab, Hyundai, BAE Systems, Rolls-Royce and Lockheed Martin. But the events of September 11th and its knock-on effects for the aerospace industry means that times are understandably tough at present for the firm. Four years ago, Welsh says the company decided on a threefold mission statement: to expand its client base; generate global 24 hour accessible design, programming and technical resource solutions; and to create foolproof virtual desktop processes that generate confidence for remote working either for discrete technical functions or for full ‘turnkey’ projects. Progressive IT What drove these changes? Welsh explains that, in the past, the firm received many projects from the same regular clients, all with established systems, and synchronisation was the main driver. “However,” he adds, “the company was not necessarily using industry-best products. Newer projects were employing newer technologies and we knew that we had to adapt.” The firm therefore invested in more progressive technology. PTC software was purchased to support these objectives: Pro-Engineer for 3D design modelling; Division MockUp for visualisation and digital mock-up; and Division ProductView for web-based viewing and mark-up. The company wanted to create a web-centric access portal for all technical, commercial and status information with ProductView, plus it wanted the ability to create full virtual digital models for design verification and simulation. But PTC is not the only software the firm uses. Welsh explains: “We have to use a number of CAD/CAM systems to suit our clients. We have about 200 CAD/CAM seats: 60% Catia, 30% CADDS5 (formerly by Computervision, now part of PTC) and about 5 to 10% PTC.” But PTC’s ProductView is at the forefront of Hytek’s web portal offerings. “Take the engine testing project we’re currently doing for Rolls-Royce,” explains Welsh. “We have Rolls-Royce industrial engineers dialling in to our web portal on a daily basis, manipulating, marking up and commenting on designs in real time. “Rolls-Royce offload design work to us. They give us a specification and we then do two things: we create a full digital 3D assembly and mock-up. We have very fast design access reviews using the web portal and there’s now no need for physical mock-ups. This actually saved Rolls-Royce thousands of pounds in physical prototype costs: I reckon as much as £50,000 in this case.” The results are certainly impressive. Since first implementing PTC’s technology back in 1996, Hytek has more than doubled its client base. Its revenue also doubled between 1996 and 1998, increasing another 25% in 1999. Since that date, revenue has remained fairly constant but Welsh says this is due to, “poor market conditions” rather than company or technology issues. Round-the-clock access But the real benefit for Hytek (and its manufacturing clients) has been the 24/7 web portal access. This has enabled Hytek to expand its customer base beyond the geographical limits of the UK. As Welsh explains: “We used to jump in a car and visit a client at short notice and we would immediately turn our design capacity on its head to meet a client’s need. The inevitable consequence was that we only had clients who were a car ride away. Our flexibility now is quite different.” And Welsh spells out his firm’s vision for the future: “With lead times reducing, manufacturing decisions are being made much earlier in the development process. We need to work even more closely with our clients and manufacturing engineers. Our vision of the future is that the design process doesn’t stop when we go home. We want to go one step further than 3D models. “Nobody designs products on their own anymore,” he continues. “I think we need to start really exploiting the software technology that’s around today. That means having power on demand. If bandwidth was cheap and available to us all, everybody involved in the design process could design their own components, then ‘drop’ them into the full assembly. But we’re not quite there yet.”