PTC Plans Major PLM Update

By Sara Ferris

In early June at its annual user conference, PTC announced Windchill 9.0. This new version of its PLM (product lifecycle management) software is scheduled to ship in September 2007.

Windchill provides tools for collaboration, control, and configuration of product content. It allows companies to reuse designs, manage work-in-process tasks, and synchronize activities among workgroups and throughout the enterprise.

What’s new in Windchill
Design detailing benefits from improvements to CAD data management capabilities. A new configurable user interface in Windchill 9 streamlines many daily tasks and provides added product configuration capabilities. Change management features now support change modification tracking and manufacturing variances.

Windchill 9 supports variant design and generation, so users can define and validate product variations without increasing costs or lengthening delivery time.

MPSE-Full: Windchill MPMLink develops the Manufacturing Bill of Material (mBOM) by establishing and maintaining equivalence links to the Engineering Bill of Material (eBOM).

“Windchill PDMLink 9.0 offers new capabilities for developing product variants from generic products quickly and easily through a wizard-based user interface,” says  Dominic Hand, manager of Windchill application development, climate control technologies, at Ingersoll Rand. “Since so many of our products are engineered-to-order, this capability is essential for optimizing Ingersoll’s variant design and generation processes.”

Technical publishing is streamlined through the ability to manage Arbortext content within Windchill ProjectLink. Companies that outsource design work can provide outside partners with secure access to product information while controlling what they can view, edit, print, and copy.

Windchill 9 provides embedded visualization capabilities in the form of ProductView Lite, which offers performance improvements in loading, manipulating, and distributing visualization data. It also includes out-of-the-box reporting capabilities such as change management activities, user task status, and project progress.

“Continual customer demand for product innovation, higher quality and greater price concessions makes for an increasingly complex manufacturing market,” said James Heppelmann, executive vice president software products and chief product officer, PTC. “Windchill 9.0 gives manufacturers a complete solution that goes beyond departmental boundaries to allow sales, marketing, manufacturing, purchasing and partners to more effectively participate in product development and contribute towards realizing business goals.”

Manufacturing module
The new Windchill MPMLink for manufacturing process management enables product designs and manufacturing process plans to be developed simultaneously in order to shorten product development time.

Windchill MPMLink is based on technology developed by Polyplan, which PTC acquired in June 2005. The Polyplan product has been redeveloped as an integrated Windchill module. Using Windchill MPMLink, manufacturing engineers can develop manufacturing processes from product data as defined by engineering, eliminating problems caused by maintaining duplicate product information. This integration also streamlines the change management process.

Windchill MPMLink supports the creation and management of associative BOMs (bills of materials) and digital process plans. Users can define plant-specific sequences and operations that describe how parts are manufactured, assembled, reworked, repaired, and inspected. The product manages product configurations with features such as revision control, lifecycle management, and access control. Visual shop-floor work instructions can be generated on demand according to a given process plan configuration. Windchill MPMLink integrates with ERP and MES systems, delivering routings and manufacturing BOMs electronically to the ERP system when process plans are approved.

PTC worked with customers in key vertical markets to define the capabilities of Windchill MPMLink. “Because Windchill MPMLink is an integral part of Windchill, I don’t have to worry about integration issues or problems with incompatible versions,” said Ron Watson, global product data manager, ITT.

Work Instruction-Full: Windchill MPMLink automatically creates visual work instructions from process plan.

“Digital manufacturing is a key component of PLM and is essential for any manufacturing company that wishes to pursue a comprehensive product development strategy,” said Heppelmann.

Wild about Windchill
Shortly after unveiling the new release, PTC announced several Windchill deployments. Two of the customers—Airbus and Toyota—partner with PTC on joint development products designed to meet the needs of a specific PTC customer. The thinking is that this will benefit other customers as well.

Airbus has deployed its Windchill PLM product for content and process management related to product development in its extended enterprise environment. PTC also says that Airbus is likely to use Windchill for new aircraft programs in the context of a multi-year partnership in which Airbus and PTC are working closely together on implementing a strategic enterprise PLM roadmap.

Airbus is increasing its use of out-of-the-box Windchill solutions to make it easier to integrate new capabilities in the future. PTC manages the overall Windchill implementation at Airbus to optimize operating performance.

“Global manufacturing companies are trying to balance the pressure to be more efficient and cost-effective with customer demand for increased innovation, more product variants, and shorter time-to-market,” said Richard Harrison, PTC president and CEO. “Companies are changing the way they develop products as a result, but they must invest in new technologies to support this change. In a typical aerospace development program, for example, the OEM brings together millions of components made by thousands of suppliers around the world, with varying configurations depending on its airline customers.”

Toyota Motor Corp. deployed Windchill PDMLink 8.0 as part of a strategic process improvement initiative for its Powertrain Division. The initiative aims to optimize product development processes in order to improve quality, increase productivity, and reduce powertrain development time.

PTC and Toyota worked together to analyze process improvements and determine which technology should be adopted to achieve the targeted results. Ultimately, Toyota expects Windchill to form the foundation for engineering data management for its powertrain division.

NEC Personal Products Business Appliances DMS Division implemented Windchill PDMLink 8.0 and Windchill ProjectLink 8.0. The company, which manufactures OEM electronic devices, first adopted Windchill in 2000. The recent upgrade was part of a larger initiative to update its technology infrastructure. NEC wanted to take advantage of new product features that could replace hard-to-maintain customizations. The DMS Division has also been developing a Windchill-based knowledge database that includes the experience of individual designers and knowledge developed during product development projects. Its goal is to gather and store such data so it can be used for future projects.