PTC Helps Acorn Product Development Grow

By L. James Ashley

Acorn Product Development is like many small and medium businesses. It has just 30 employees and it had already adopted a global product development strategy to compete with larger companies successfully. But it wanted to do more to support its global product initiatives and sustain its current rapid growth. To achieve that, Acorn decided it needed an enterprise PLM (product lifecycle management)  solution that would enable it to increase the efficiency of its processes for getting new products to market. And to support this strategy, Acorn chose to expand its investment in PTC solutions to include Windchill content and process management software.

From its headquarters in Fremont, California, and additional offices Boston and Dongguan, China, Acorn designs and develops mechanical and electro-mechanical products for its client companies across industries from consumer goods to computing and networking to medical devices. For example, recent Acorn projects include new product releases for Logitech,  Network Appliance, Siemens, and Sun — designed using Pro/ENGINEER of which the company deploys 30 seats.

But unlike many traditional engineering outsource design companies, Acorn offers its clients an optimized range of product development services from architectural analysis through manufacturing floor support worldwide. A key differentiator is that Acorn incorporates mechanical engineering analysis and manufacturing orientations within product design at the earliest stage.

Already an established user of Pro/ENGINEER as well other PTC products,  such as Pro/Mechanica, Acorn picked Windchill in part because it enabled them to manage data across a distributed product development environment with advanced controls for data that can be accessed by multiple entities inside and outside the company. In a recent presentation to the press and industry analysts, Acorn co-founder and CEO Ken Haven CEO also cited the software’s collaboration, file and configuration management, and change control capabilities.

“The single integral technology architecture of PTC’s Product Development System was the key differentiator for us because it simplifies product development while also providing the power and scalability to support our continued growth,” says Haven. “As we open new geographies, we feel confident that the remote staff, using Windchill, can immediately participate and contribute to product development.”

PTC’s Product Development System is a suite of integrated product and service offerings that enable manufacturers to create, collaborate,  control, mange, and share designs and product information within organizations and with partners, suppliers and customers throughout a product’s development processes and lifecycle.

The Acorn implementation was driven by NxRev, a PTC channel partner based in Santa Clara, California. Currently, Acorn has begun its enterprise-level upgrade to PTC Windchill PDMLink, which has been newly purchased for all Pro/ENGINEER seats.

 “The Combination of PTC technology with the experience of our value added reseller NxRev,” said Haven, “provided the most compelling solution to help us implement a global product development strategy in order to sustain and increase our competitive advantage.”

L. James Ashley is a freelance writer based in New England. Send your comments about this article through e-mail by clicking here. The article was based on information received from PTC and other sources. Please reference “Acorn Grows” in your message.

Acorn Product Development
Fremont, CA
 
NxRev, Inc.
Santa Clara, CA
 
PTC
Needham, MA