Denel Aerospace Systems goes for PTC Windchill PLM

South African combat helicopter, missile and guided weapons and defence vehicles systems manufacturer Denel Aerospace Systems (DAS) says its $1m investment in collaborative design and PDM (product data management) systems will slash design times and improve product. The company has added to its existing Pro/Engineer CAD/CAM environment, with two of PTCs’ Windchill bundled PLM solutions to complete its product development system (PDS). It says that’s already providing advanced collaboration ability for what are geographically dispersed teams, and strengthening its ability to manage product information and product development processes throughout programme lifecycles. “PTC Windchill will allow DAS to collaborate in real-time on all aspects of the product development process internally, as well as externally with world-wide partners and suppliers, while also improving our process efficiencies,” says Malcolm Blunden, group manager engineering services at DAS. “We expect to improve our design speeds and time-to-market by as much as 30% within the next two years by having a full product development system. The ability to deliver our products better and faster will increase our competitive advantage,” he adds. DAS had began evaluating PLM solutions in response to increasing pressure to improve cycle times and to become more competitive. The company has gone for PTC’s Windchill PDMLink and ProjectLink for data management and collaboration. “Adoption of Windchill was a logical step for DAS in meeting their evolving globalization needs,” says Dayne Turbitt, managing director of local PTC reseller productONE. “The integral capabilities of Windchill enable DAS to leverage their existing Pro/Engineer implementation to create an advanced product development system.”