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.

Stephen Covey’s landmark book ‘The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People’ lists the 7^th critical habit as “Sharpen the saw.” It references a parable of a lumberjack and a stranger. The woodsman is very busy cutting down trees. As he completes more and more work his effort increases and his productivity goes down because his saw dulls over time. The lumberjack, exhausted and cursing the labor, is approached by the stranger. “What’s the problem?” asks the stranger. “My saw is dull and won’t cut well” responds the lumberjack. “Why don’t you sharpen it?” asks the stranger. The lumberjack responds “What kind of question is that? Because I would have to stop sawing, and I’m very busy.”  The stranger responds “But, if you sharpened your saw you could cut more efficiently than before. You could get even more work done.”
It’s important to sharpen our saw. We need to keep working to improve our knowledge base, approach, and overall situation. This may involve attending a training class, reading a book, mentoring and being mentored, or joining a peer group. I understand this can be difficult in the world of product development / engineering / design / manufacturing / and service. There is always pressure to get to market, get to the trade show, meet customer demands, etc.

Efficient engineering, design, manufacturing, and service requires efficient use of the supporting technologies for each role. Our training group consistently proves a return on our customer’s investment in training and development. That’s because technology keeps getting better. If you don’t know how to take advantage of the full functionality of your tools like PTC Creo, PTC Windchill, PTC Arbortext, and PTC Mathcad…you’re cutting with a dull saw.

We consistently schedule key PTC certified training classes and training courses that help people throughout organizations make the most of their technology. We deliver everything from Windchill Administrator courses to training classes for specific PTC Creo tools and functionality.

Do me a favor. Take time to sharpen your saw. A few days in a training course could save you hundreds of hours down the line. Take a look at the EAC Training Calendar. Maybe you’ll find the perfect PTC training course to put a new edge on your saw. Contact our training group to learn more about our training and mentoring delivery options (Like EACLive!) and full course catalogue. And check out this blog to learn more about how to select a PTC Training Course and Training Class provider.