Baby gear manufacturer phil&teds has chosen Onshape as its primary CAD and data management platform. Onshape is an all-in-one cloud design platform that combines CAD, release management, workflow, and real-time collaboration tools to speed up product development.
Based in New Zealand, the company’s innovative baby buggies, travel cribs, bassinets, high chairs, car seats, and other gear are sold in more than 40 countries.
“Even though children aren’t using our products for that long, they do get a hammering,” says Phil Brace, lead designer for phil&teds. “Quality products come from quality designs and Onshape gives me an updated overarching view of everything we have in development. Every morning, I always know the status of our projects and who is working on what.”
“As a designer, what excites me about cloud-based CAD are the opportunities to collaborate with my colleagues and factory partners in real time. Onshape is a huge time-saver. Whether it is making our company twice as efficient or 10 times as efficient, it definitely helps us achieve our goals faster and at a higher level,” he adds.
With Onshape’s real-time data management, whenever an engineer makes a change or edit to their 3D CAD model, everyone on the design team instantly sees it. A comprehensive Edit History also records who made what changes and when, allowing the team to return to any prior state of the design at any time.
“Around the world, parents choose phil&teds baby strollers so they won’t be limited to the sidewalk and can navigate through rough-and-tumble terrain,” says Onshape CEO Jon Hirschtick. “We’re delighted that Onshape helps their engineering team handle tough design challenges so they can be more agile and nimble, too.”
“I’ve used a lot of CAD tools over the years – Pro E, Catia, SOLIDWORKS, you name it,” adds Brace. “The number one thing I love about Onshape is that I no longer have to go hunting for files. I look in one place to find everything I need. Whether it’s a co-worker’s design, an update from the factory or my own work, it’s all there.”
“When we were using a PDM system, the process of checking in and checking out files was a nightmare,” he says. “The factory guys would make some tweaks to a design, but sometimes forgot to update the PDM. With Onshape, we’re always confident we are looking at the latest version.”