CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive

7 March 2005

Implementation Investments

PTC Customers Document Success of Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire; Industry-Leading Design Solution Delivers Return-on-Investment for SMB Manufacturers

PTC announced that leading small and medium business (SMB) manufacturers are producing tangible return-on-investment results utilizing PTC's Pro/ENGINEER®. Pro/ENGINEER is a 3D product design solution that helps companies of all sizes develop accurate and complete digital product representations. Pro/ENGINEER customers are benefiting from the comprehensive modeling, surfacing and styling, and large assembly management functionality of PTC's product design and development software.

Jaco, Incorporated, a leader in medical cart manufacturing and precision sheet metal fabrication turned to the solid modeling capabilities of Pro/ENGINEER to improve the quality of its design and design review process, and reduce the iterations of prototypes. Jaco previously utilized a wireframe design tool that made it difficult for non-engineers and customers to visualize the product in the design review process before metal production.

"Prior to using Pro/ENGINEER, a minimum of fifteen resources would be involved in producing a physical model of a cart. By implementing Pro/ENGINEER, the number of resources involved in design review has been reduced by more than eighty percent. With Pro/ENGINEER, everyone can see what the product will actually look like at the design review stage where it is much easier and more cost effective to implement changes," said Tom Bagley, engineering manager, Jaco, Inc. "Pro/ENGINEER also gives us the ability to send solid model representations to our customers via PDF files that they can easily review, accelerating the design process and allowing us to incorporate their feedback in the final design." One year after deployment, 90% of Jaco designs are completed in Pro/ENGINEER.

Control Alt Design, Ltd., is a product development firm offering product solutions to consumer, medical, electronics and industrial goods manufacturers. As veteran Pro/ENGINEER users, the Control Alt Design team eagerly transitioned to Pro/ENGINEER WildfireT to take advantage of its superior interactive surfacing capabilities.

"Surface modeling is a standard requirement for our end customers," said Walter Raczynski, founder, Control Alt Design. "Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire integrates powerful modeling with advanced surfacing and styling capabilities that enable Control Alt Design to get market-winning designs to market quickly." Adds Raczynski, "There's enormous value in having a tool that offers robust functionality combined with ease of use. Why settle for less? There was no need to look further than Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire."

Sport Court InternationalT, a manufacturer of backyard recreation and sports flooring, chose Pro/ENGINEER to replace their former solution which it deemed incapable of supporting the complex understructures of its flooring tiles. Its previous CAD solution would lock up the software and hardware without warning and without saving data, sometimes causing engineers to lose 8-10 hours of work. This often resulted in missed deadlines and lost revenue. When Sport Court began looking for alternative solutions it discovered that Pro/ENGINEER was the standard software in use throughout their supply chain.

"With Pro/ENGINEER, we gained interoperability across our supply chain, eliminating the need to convert files and the risk of losing data. If we lose a measurement in conversion, a mold doesn't work, so this is huge benefit," states Mark Jenkins, research and development engineer, Sport Court. "In my opinion, there is no equivalent solution for handling complex projects and ease of making modifications. With Pro/ENGINEER, comparable projects are completed in one-third less time." Sport Court has also deployed the complete mold design tools and reports that the same mold that took two weeks to complete using their prior solution can now be completed in a couple of hours.

Plug Power Inc., a leader in the development of proton exchange membrane fuel cell systems, an established Pro/ENGINEER user, migrated to Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire to take advantage of the View Manager tool that consolidates large assembly management functionality in one place.

"Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire makes it easy to manipulate and manage our large assembly configurations from one spot," said Jeff Zemsky, PLM program manager, Plug Power. "We get the same results in half the time. It's very effective to have one tool that provides all capability in a single interface rather than having to use multiple tools to get the job done."

"Pro/ENGINEER provides SMB manufacturers with the ability to get the job done quickly and completely, critical to success in today's environment," said Gearoid Smyth, SMB marketing director, PTC. "Robust functionality distinguishes Pro/ENGINEER as the best 3D product design solution available-and clearly, our customers agree."

 

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