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.

• Q: Do we offer node-locked licenses?
  A: We offer a locked license for Design Essentials and Design Advanced only.

By now, I’m sure you’ve heard the buzz about IoT (the Internet of Things).

‘Start improving the way you do business’, ‘connect with technology’, ‘responsive solutions’, ‘amazing results’.

It’s safe to say that the internet of things along with smart connected enterprises have easily become technology’s theme of the year.

Businesses everywhere have started to look at how they can make more money by inserting this “IoT” thing into their business processes.

The truth behind your success and IoT:

No matter where your journey begins with IoT, it’s essential to recognize good business models rely on technological processes, but technology on its own is not enough.

When it comes to IoT and connected business model innovations, if you don’t have a solid business case, you’re not going to have success.

A connected strategy is about business and business transformation. It’s not just about the technology, it’s about using technology as an enabler.

It’s important to realize there is no value in your IoT platform alone. The real value for you, the success of your business case, lies within your application.

The future is smart and connected. 

Whether you choose to build connected solutions into existing products, enter new markets, change your business model, or connect your manufacturing floor; you need to be ready.

Transforming the way you connect with your products, organization, and customers all starts with smart connected design and the right Internet of Things (IoT) platform. The right platform allows you to connect and scale your business.

This is exactly what our company specializes in, in fact we have even created a dedicated connect services team to design and implement custom connected strategies for any organization.

Being able to monitor a product from design into manufacturing, throughout its complete lifecycle makes it possible to improve product quality, increase production, reduce costs, and even predict failures. 

Building a smart connected strategy that works for you:

Integrating company initiatives with the Internet of Things needs a strategy, this is what we are here for.

Our connect services team works with your organization to deliver workshops, prescribe technology solutions, and create an IoT strategy that coincides with your company initiatives.

We want to help you define a strategy that makes a connection between your products and operations that already exist within your company and the smart, connected world that we live in today.

Manufacturers always try to find a ways to streamline processes and ‘do more with less.’ It drives success in a world full of competition. One way organizations do this is by reducing process complexity with powerful product life cycle management (PLM) or change management software. Connecting your team directly to live operational data increases efficiency in all departments and allows your organization to save money and manufacture products faster.
EAC Product Development Solutions has partnered with PTC, the world’s product development technology leader, to bring organizations the products and services that they need to succeed in their industry. As a PTC Solutions Provider, we provide the maintenance, support, configuration, and training you need to implement change management software as easily as possible.

PTC Windchill Data Management

If you’re looking to do things like keeping better track of files, create and store Bill of Materials (BoMs), put CAD models and drawings in one place, eliminate the risk of two individuals working on a file at the same time, or secure your data without burdening IT – you’re looking for PTC Windchill.

PTC software – specifically Windchill – is a complete PLM solution that provides capabilities such as:

• Bill of Materials (BoM) Management (EBoM, SBoM, MBoM)
• Configuration and Change Management
• Requirements Capture Management
• Early insight into product quality, reliability, and risk
• Efficiently making product variations with a structured platform
• Product Data Management
• Collaboration across all departments with accurate, up-to-date information
• Seamless software integration and defining standards

PTC Windchill is a PLM solution that provides a smooth transition from design to manufacturing with universal access to all critical product data information so that the process isn’t fatigued with delays.

PTC Windchill, Change Management, eBoM Case Study

ALM Positioners, a leading manufacturer of positioner lifts located in Rock Island Illinois, needed PTC Windchill. The company offers unique, customizable weldments and assemblies that require a lot of CAD models and other product information from engineering before manufacturing even begins. Due to extensive product customization and configuration depending on the needs of their customers, ALM needed a better solution to manage product data. They were drowning in paper files – a lot of which had outdated information.

EAC’s implementation team helped ALM Positioners transition to a digital workflow using PTC’s Windchill software. Windchill helped ALM save up to 4 hours per project by integrating EBoMs and MBoMs into their ERP system.

Watch the ALM Case Study on PTC Windchill to see how it has consistently proven to be a leader in the industry and outperformed competitors when it came to product lifecycle management.

If there’s one thing I hope you take away from this post it’s this – there’s no reason to keep product data in your company a secret from other people in the organization that need it to do their jobs. Being able to access accurate data helps everyone in all departments to maximize their output and ultimately reduce costs, increase product quality, and get products to market faster. We offer a few solutions to help you make better decisions and have a transparent view of the data you need to do your job.
According to the International Data Corporation only .05% of data we create is ever analyzed and used. To be clear – there is a lot of data floating around out there and not a lot of us are properly using it. Why should you care? Your organization could be losing a ton of money. Bernard Marr, Strategic Business and Technology Advisor says, “By some estimates, just a 10% increase in data accessibility will result in more than $65 million additional net income for a typical Fortune 1000 company.”

Where does the problem stem from? It’s typical that the author of specific product data is the only one who can access that data. This can result in the author involuntarily withholding it from others in the organization that may need it.

For example, a designer or engineer may have CAD data that a technical publications manager needs to distribute to his team in order to create accurate and easy to understand product manuals or instructions. In this case, why can’t the technical publications manager ask the engineer for that data? Well, they can… if the engineer is immediately available. But what if that engineer is on vacation? Sick? On-site with a customer? In a meeting?

In addition to the challenge of getting the author’s immediate attention to get the information you need – how long would it take for the engineer to stop what he or she was doing to get you that data? What if they’re in the middle of a project? You’re interrupting him or her and throwing off their productivity for the day.

So how do you get around accessing the data without interrupting your peers?

ThingWorx Navigate

PTC recognized this exact problem and developed ThingWorx Navigate, role-based apps that allows users to access that data that they need within their organization. In most cases, there is no need for a Windchill (product lifecycle management software) upgrade or training for individuals in your organization to use the apps. ThingWorx Navigate is meant for anyone who wants a convenient platform to securely access product data with simple tailoring that is easy to deploy and adopt.

Role-based offerings, like ThingWorx Navigate, which are targeted to different organizational roles and use cases, are essential to optimizing access to up-to-date product data across the extended enterprise. – CIMdata

EAC Productivity Apps

EAC Productivity Apps takes ThingWorx Navigate to the next level and provides customized tailoring to your specific organization’s data accessibility needs. These apps promote adoption and amplify the return on investment in your Product Lifecycle Management (or Windchill) system and allows more robust functionality and visibility into Windchill PDM, ERP, CRM, and QMS in single role-specific dashboards for increased interdepartmental collaboration.

We offer the following EAC Productivity Apps (and are constantly developing more!):

Quick Access

Quick Access was created to provide an improved user experience, and by extension, user productivity for shop floor personnel requiring streamlined access to critical and select data sets. 

This EAC Productivity App allows downstream users to feed critical quality information back to engineering with minimal effort. The simplified interface and consolidated task workflows help users easily submit new problem reports, new change requests, and new variances with product data management (PDM) and product life cycle management (PLM) software.

BoM Reports

BoM Reports app provides users with a visual representation, a cost rollup for materials, and detailed listing of the current status of an end item or product. This app displays information about each part contained in the bill of materials (BoM) and groups them in a chart for simple viewing and cost comparison.

This EAC Productivity App allows users to quickly assess Bill of Material (BoM) costs and helps projects stay on-time and on-track. The simplified view helps ensure products are built with the appropriate design iterations. 

Part Associations

Part Associations provides a “shortcut” for non-mainstream Windchill software users and shop floor personnel to access critical computer-aided design (CAD) files and documentation associated with part data.

This EAC Productivity App allows users to quickly access all drawings, parts, assemblies, and other documents associated with CAD files and part data. If you’re having issues searching for specific information or content in Windchill, this app consolidates results into a single screen.

Custom App Development

Not finding what you’re looking for with ThingWorx Navigate or our EAC Productivity Apps? We have application experts at our organization that are dedicated to creating custom applications just for your organization.

If you think your organization is ready to save time and money by boosting your organization’s productivity with one of these data management solutions – then reach out to us and we’d be happy to give you a demo and answer any questions you may have.

Part II – (You can read part 1 here) Evolving your BoM strategy, tools, and abilities. “EBoM vs. MBoM” transforms into “EBoM integrates with MBoM.” This integration includes associativity to one another, time saving tools, elimination of error prone manual steps & more.
Imagine eliminating the common disjointed processes, additional time, and error prone manual steps involved in the creation of downstream BoMs from Engineering into Manufacturing, Production and Service management.

Concepts & examples such as Manufacturing Bill of Materials (MBoM) are shown below, all under one system, integrated & associated, and created with a single click. Then they’re easily edited to meet downstream BoM needs.

BoM creation can be streamlined & improved by associatively creating downstream BoMs (S or M or other) and eventually, connecting them to your ERP system. For now, we’ll focus on the first step of this business transformation concept; the creation of the second, or downstream M or SBoM, starting with a simple EBoM example, created in minutes, and easily viewed & tracked.

Who should be involved in this topic at your company? Ideally, your Configuration Manager role should be leading or heavily involved in this process.

The starting point & tool is PTCs Windchill and your willingness to change & improve.

Once your CAD data is ready to check into Windchill, there is an option (check box) to auto-associate the EBoM to a downstream BoM such as an MBoM. It is a 1:1 relationship for starters. Options can branch out from here into many CM (Configuration Management) directions. Such as multi-level BoM management, uses, visualization and more.

Once created, you can manipulate & edit the default 1:1 downstream BoM to your needs; adding bulk items, manufacturing specific sub assemblies, (build throughs) even new service end items. You can also flatten out an EBoM to meet assembly or production needs. BoM items such as adhesive, lubricant, paint or coatings, packaging items, all things that typically are not on an EBoM, can and do belong on the M or SBoM.

If this fits your company’s needs? consider using Windchill’s auto-associate feature.

This article covers a couple examples. If this is not deep enough…here are even more tools to consider. Topics such as creating associated manufacturing instructions, work instructions, work plans and more. Change Management is shown as reference only, it is an optional element of Windchill for another blog.

There are many options to this topic, these are common examples that fit a lot of needs and is considered a starting point.

1^stexample shows all BoM & change components all connected in one system vs. manually done in silo fashion, which is industry’s most common method today. These examples are shown in PTCs Windchill reference viewer tool, which ties all related objects into view for easy visibility with just a few clicks.

1. 1. EBoM structure (highlighted in green) 
2. 2. Change requests, notices and tasks (highlighted in red) 
3. 3. MBoM structure (highlighted in blue) with their own, or connected Change Management Requests, Notices & Tasks

2^ndexample shows an EBoM, SBoM (Service Kit in this example), with a saleable end item service kit, as well as components for service or manufacturing BoMs. It also shows Changes, these can also be created, edited, routed, approved or rejected, and even include the SBoM if need be. 

Please connect with EAC to learn more, to discover your company’s transformation opportunities with an assessment, maybe see a demo, or attend a webinar. The goal is to help your company transform how you design, manufacture, connect to and service your products.