Honey, I’ve shrunk the PLM software

Even the smallest manufacturer should by now be making good use of the PLM (product lifecycle management) software tools that have become available to manage their processes - and that's all the way from product design to production and on out to after sales support. It needn't be a grand system, or all that sophisticated: at its simplest, all that's needed is a central database to track designs and manufactured products (what goes into them and what happens to them), properly managing both content and processes. This could be, and at one time always was, done on paper. Today, it is perfectly possible to construct a system around Microsoft Office, with access to a database, spreadsheets and a management process based on Outlook. But since there are now relatively low cost specialist tools for the job, designed to automate all that and do it well, it makes sense to go out and buy something - particularly given the extra facilities, sophistication and protection of their tried and tested built-in procedures and permissions. The point is that with design, product and process data all in a PLM system of some kind, manufacturers gain crucial efficiencies and competitiveness. If you're a regular CAD user, it may make sense to stay with your main provider and use its latest tools. Mostly you can. The only caveat: it's still not trivial to switch between systems, so it might also make sense to check out your customer and potentially also supplier preferences and the implications. An example of a mid-sized company using PTC's Windchill PLM system - having progressed through Anvil 5000, AutoCad and Cadkey - is American Standard, known in the UK for its Ideal Standard, Armitage Shanks, Sottini and Trevi brands. According to Wade McNabb, director of its CAD/CAM/CAE Centre of Excellence, Bath and Kitchen, going from sequential product development to a single associative database afforded by Windchill has reduced development times from years to as little as nine weeks. American Standard now has 123 Pro/Engineer CAD seats spread across America, Europe and Asia, and adopted Windchill PDMLink 6.2.6 Change Management and Product Information System in 2003, followed by Windchill ProjectLink 6.2.6 Real Time Project Tracking in 2004. The collaboration that the combined system now allows has meant, for example, that a single ceramic valve cartridge type can be used across a range of different single lever taps. No small feat: despite the apparent simplicity of such designs, each is in fact the result of extensive optimisation work including computational fluid dynamic modelling using CFX. Heat is on Slightly smaller, temperature instrumentation manufacturer Land Instruments in Dronfield is an Autodesk user with just 10 seats of Inventor - but is now running a pilot project on Autodesk's Vault and Productstream PLM tools. Drawing officer manager David Leadley says he has started with a project outside Vault and is moving it inside to study how designers interact with it. He is also working with John Bartle of Autodesk reseller Trionics for moving into Productstream. Land presently has an SAP ERP system, and the company wants to build on that since it depends upon it to manage its international businesses and distributors. Getting that synchronised with Autodesk is going to take some work: currently, every part of the company has documentation on different network drives. Leadley's goal is for "anyone in the organisation to be able to see all data attached to a project, with overseas offices also able to tap in." He also mentions the importance of Autodesk-compatible models from components suppliers. Prior to moving to Inventor, Land undertook a study of effective versus non-effective time (like searching or re-drawing items bought in from catalogues) in its design processes. The findings, he says, were "pretty horrendous." Now, with 3D CAD and PLM in place, and parts accessible via a structured library, it's much better. Incidentally, Leadley says Land now "prefers to use catalogue items with 3D models associated with them." Component suppliers and vendors take note. Land now runs Excel spreadsheets of preferred parts and has recently purchased a Dimension 3D Printer that Leadley says "seriously helps communication." SolidWorks doesn't have its own PLM package, but it's often used in conjunction with SmarTeam PLM, also part of the Dassault Systemes portfolio. Pella, Iowa-based construction and agricultural equipment manufacturer Vermeer is one that does exactly that. Founded in 1948 with Gary Vermeer's Farm Wagon Hoist, the company now produces about 100 products, including trenching machines, and applications specialist Clint Hudson explains that it needed to bring products to market more quickly, improve aesthetics, and improve visualisation of what had become more complex products - beyond what was then possible on its AutoCAD systems. More appeal Hudson says that to progress designs faster, the company first needed to improve the initial designs and thus reduce engineering change notes and rework. A committee of members from each division and centralised department, including tech pubs and IT, evaluated IronCad, Mechanical Desktop and Solid Edge before choosing SolidWorks for its ability to "handle parts, assemblies and drawings consistently." There are now 200 SolidWorks users, including 100 in design engineering, 25 tool designers, 25 manual illustrators and around 40 manufacturing engineers and technicians. There are additionally more than 300 SmarTeam PLM users, all of whom have access to SolidWorks documents. Hudson says that by using SolidWorks, it has been possible to design more visually appealing and sophisticated parts. "Complex parts can mean complex foul ups but we have fewer problems on the floor today," he insists. "PDM now controls which documents reach the shop floor, and the SolidWorks assembly structure drives the BoMs [bills of materials]," he explains. Macros then automate the production of DXFs, Titleblock properties, ECN (engineering change note) documents and PDFs. For him, the main benefits from the implementations have been: more and better documentation, engineers able to do their own data entry, considerable scrap reduction, and better teamwork and communications. So far so good, and the next steps will be getting the tool designers onto SolidWorks and SmarTeam, technical publications storage in SmarTeam, and data taken direct from SolidWorks models through SmarTeam to the company's ERP system. SolidWorks models and drawings will be the basis of further data gathering via the Internet, working with dealerships and work under warranty. The company is also looking at designing electrical and hydraulic circuits using third party software and exploring the replacement of AutoCAD with DWGEditor for 2D applications, such as plant layout, harness layout and schematic drawings. Meanwhile, Smart Engineering and Logistics Solutions (SEAL) has just standardised on the UGS Velocity Series portfolio, which comprises Solid Edge, Femap and Teamcenter Express (PLM). The company is an Australian defence contractor that towards the end of last year signed a contract to supply Land Rover 110 four-by-four safety improvements for Regional Force Surveillance vehicles. The project aims to verify a Commonwealth-designed rollover protection system, and to develop, manufacture and test a cargo restraint system, while also modifying 10 vehicles with the safety improvements to verify the form and fit of the design. "Our biggest challenge was finding a full and integrated PLM system to fit our requirements," explains SEAL engineering manager Ben Hudson. "We needed a system to fit our company's size, timeframe and budget without significant IT overhead. The UGS Velocity Series seems to have been developed with companies like ours in mind. Fast implementation was critical to our decision. In addition, Teamcenter Express' scalability to full Teamcenter as well as its multi-CAD system support means we can electronically collaborate with our suppliers and customers that may use different CAD systems."