windchill : product lifecycle management for product · pdf fileoctober 2002 i parametric...

October 2002 i Parametric Technology Corporation (PTC)

Windchill: Product LifecycleManagement for Product FirstManufacturing Companies

Introduction

Over the next five years, global manufacturing is expected to invest upwards of $6 billion dollarsin product development solutions. Why? Because, after making massive investments ininfrastructure and the physical supply chain with mixed results, leading manufacturing companiesare re-discovering ‘what matters most’ for business success in the 21st century. Within this newglobal economy, product development processes have been elevated as a leading competitiveweapon. This competitive advantage originates from the intersection of three critical capabilities– create, collaborate, and control – that form the foundation of a new category of software calledProduct Lifecycle Management (PLM).

In the following paper, learn about PLM and the critical issues related to developing andmanaging digital product content in a value chain environment. The paper introduces theWindchill® solution family, a core component of PTC's comprehensive PLM suite of solutions andthe key to improving the product development process. The Windchill solution family deliverscapabilities in many areas, including product data management, project management andcollaboration, dynamic design configuration, component management and parts catalog andmanufacturing collaboration.

This paper is intended primarily for line of business managers and IT managers who want tounderstand PLM and learn the specifics of PTC's Windchill offering.

Introduction to Product First: What Matters Most?

Today, more and more manufacturers are realizing that success begins with -- and is sustainedby -- great products. Great products define markets, drive revenue growth, generate profitability,create powerful brands, and delight customers, employees, and shareholders alike.

“Product First” companies – those who now realize that success is rooted in great products –view their product development process as their greatest competitive advantage. Despitesuccessful initiatives that improve operational effectiveness, companies that lack a strong focuson product leadership may continue to struggle with products that lack compelling differentiation,miss market requirements, are priced out of range of competitors, or otherwise fail to delight thecustomer. By refocusing on products and their product development process, manufacturersrealize they have a new weapon to dramatically impact product differentiation, quality,predictability, time to market, manufacturability, serviceability,cost, and customer satisfaction.

To consistently produce great products, companies need a product development process thatbecomes, in itself, a competitive differentiator. While some see product development assynonymous with engineering, a truly effective product development process engages a variety ofcross-functional participants from marketing, engineering, procurement, manufacturing, sales,and service departments. Ever-increasing levels of outsourcing have driven suppliers andmanufacturing partners into direct roles in the product development process, at the same time astrong customer focus has necessitated the customer’s direct involvement as well. As a result,

October 2002 ii Windchill Overview

attempts to optimize product development naturally evolve from a departmental focus withinengineering, to an enterprise focus, and ultimately to a distributed value chain focus.

During the product development process, this cross-functional value chain works collaborativelyto generate the intellectual property that represents a new product or product variant. Thisintellectual property, when captured digitally via software applications, begins to form a digitalrepresentation of the product. This “digital product” is typically a company’s most strategic asset;it defines at a minimum what products are, how they perform and differentiate, the cost envelope,the suppliers that will be involved, and the manufacturing processes that will be used. Becausethe release of the digital product is a prerequisite to production, the digital product must becomplete, compelling, stable, and agreed to by all stakeholders before any serious manufacturingwork can begin.

Developing digital products in a value chain environment – and under intense time and costpressure – is certainly not easy. While many manufacturers have made great strides improvingoperational effectiveness across their enterprise and supply chain as it relates to manufacturingand logistics, most companies will admit that their product development processes are rife withproblems. They are now beginning to realize that an even greater level of opportunity forimprovement is available by better managing the digital product definition at every stage in aproduct’s life. The digital content that describes products during the development processtypically gets fragmented across organizational boundaries, with each group having differentforms of product definition stored in different systems, and many with incompatible formats. Noeasy-to-use capability exists to share information in a controlled manner and collaborate aroundprojects with external customers/ suppliers/ partners.

Managing the change of product information across a product’s lifecycle and maintaining controlof design and manufacturing processes is often considered an unattainable goal. Simply put,most manufacturing companies currently lack a suitable enterprise infrastructure to effectivelyaggregate and manage the diverse digital product information and to support efficientcollaborative product development processes. Given the strategic imperative of productdevelopment, it is time to think about ways to improve.

The Rise of PLM

This recognition has given rise to a new category of software solutions known as product lifecyclemanagement (PLM). Leading industry analyst firms including AMR Research, Gartner, Giga, andYankee Group have identified PLM as the necessary enterprise infrastructure to successfullyaddress these issues and improve the effectiveness of the product development process. PLMdescribes a comprehensive framework of technology and services that permits manufacturingcompanies and their partners and customers to collaboratively conceptualize, design, build, andmanage products throughout their entire lifecycle. PLM has emerged as the primary means bywhich manufacturing companies can achieve step-change improvements in their productdevelopment processes. AMR Research reports that, within manufacturing environments, PLMwas the leading category of information technology spending growth in 2002, bucking the overalldownturn trend in investment.

2002 Parametric Technology Corporation

October 2002 Windchill Overview

Table of Contents

The Digital Product Value Chain………….……………………………....…………….…...1

PLM: Create, Collaborate, And Control Capabilities…..…………..………………….....2

PTC’S PLM Offering………………………………………………………………….…..…....5

Windchill: Comprehensive Foundation For PLM…………….………….……………..…7

Windchill Quick Start Solutions……………………………………..……...……………….8

Company Specific Business Process Solutions………….………………………….…15

Windchill: Pure Internet Architecture……………………………..….……………….…..17

Using Windchill In The Product Development Process…………….………………....18

Valuable Business Benefits……………………………………………….....…..………....19

PTC: The Product Development Industry Leader…………………………....………....20

October 2002 Windchill Overview1

The Digital Product Value Chain

What’s the secret of manufacturing success? In a word, products. Superior products drive top-linerevenue, bottom-line profitability, and shareholder value. In this competitive economy, CEOs areincreasingly realizing that their company's viability and future success lies in their ability toestablish and maintain product leadership. Across all industries, companies are embarking onback-to-basics programs that refocus their energies on critical core competencies, with productdevelopment at the top of everybody’s list. In the automotive world, it is the development of newand innovative cars, while in hi-tech it is the design of new devices that converge voice and dataconnectivity. Everywhere, manufacturers are scrambling to bring new, innovative products tomarket faster, and at better cost and quality levels. As Yankee Group has observed, the sheerdiversity of products hitting the market is astounding, greatly exceeding the diversity of productsavailable 25 years ago.

The genesis of any new product can be traced to a periodic alignment that occurs between theneeds of customers and the assets of a manufacturing company. The most critical of allcompany assets are intellectual, as a company must first decide carefully how to apply its know-how, technologies, and capabilities to respond to the opportunity at hand in a manner thatprovides differentiation and competitive advantage. New product development efforts are initiatedfor just this purpose; a cross-functional team is formed to work together to determine the exactrequirements of the marketplace, the design of a product that meets those requirements, thesuppliers who will contribute to the design and manufacture of the product, how the product willbe physically produced, how the product will be distributed to customers, and the service andsupport offerings that will complete the customer solution.

Product development is obviously not the sole responsibility of the product design andengineering group. To the contrary, successful product should be viewed as a collaborative effortinvolving marketing, engineering, purchasing, manufacturing, sales, and support. Yankee Groupstates that: “Collaborative product lifecycle management across business functions and amongpartner companies can reduce costs and drive revenue growth.” The manufacturers that win inthis new game are those that most develop, manage, and leverage product-related intellectualproperty throughout their enterprise.

Product First initiatives ultimately require companies to analyze and improve their productdevelopment processes. During the product development process, cross-functional teams –frequently incorporating external suppliers, partners, and customers – work collaboratively togenerate the intellectual property that represents a new product or product variant. Thisintellectual property, when captured digitally via software applications, begins to form a digitalrepresentation of the product. The complete “digital product” is a comprehensive collection ofelectronic information including mechanical and electrical CAD files; design, quality andmanufacturing specifications; market and technical product requirements; software modules; anddocumentation and other media used to comprehensively define the product and test its behaviorelectronically.

Because the digital product is the deliverable that manufacturing ultimately needs to begin itswork, the digital product must be complete and agreed to by all stakeholders before themanufacturing process can begin. In simplistic terms, the basic role of the manufacturing processis to convert the digital product into a physical product, so having a compelling digital product is aprerequisite to success with the physical product.

Upon examination, most manufacturers will see that their supply chains actually employ a “two-pass model” of operation. In the first pass, the supply chain members work together to create adigital representation of the product. In the second pass, the supply chain members work togethera second time to create the physical representation of the product. While a tremendous amount ofcapital is expended in the physical product value chain, the bulk of strategic product decisions aretypically made in the digital product value chain. It is within the digital product value chain thatdecisions are made which will determine what the product is, what it looks like, how it performs,

October 2002 2 Windchill Overview

and how it will differentiate from competitors. While the product remains in its digital form,changes are comparatively easy and inexpensive to make, while changes made duringproduction result in costly rework and significant delay. Full cross-functional agreement on thedigital product representation is therefore essential prior to its release to manufacturing. In effectany organization involved has veto power because the product will likely be flawed from the startif it fails to meet customer or market requirements, incorporates the wrong suppliers, or cannot bemanufactured effectively. Furthermore, the digital representation must be realistic and well testedvia digital simulations, as any mistakes in the digital product that is released into manufacturingare assured to become further compounded and even more costly as the product moves intoproduction.

Figure 1: Digital vs. Physical Product Value Chain

It is obvious that important decisions made during the digital product value chain processes willaffect top-line revenue opportunity, but there is a more subtle yet dramatic cost impact to bottom-line as well. Though the bulk of expenditures are made during the production process, researchindicates that decisions made in the digital product value chain serve to commit or “lock in” 70-85% of the total product costs as seen by the customer, making cost savings a critical productdevelopment issue.

Given the realization of the existence and strategic importance of this digital product value chain,Product First companies know that truly meaningful improvements to the product developmentprocess must be implemented comprehensively throughout the enterprise, and must also extendto embrace value chain participants.

PLM: Create, Collaborate, and Control Capabilities

The digital product value chain is a reality that is here to stay, and it certainly complicatesconcerns regarding how to most efficiently collaborate and share information in a timely, secure,and structured manner during the product development process. Enter PLM, which uses Internettechnology to manage information and facilitate communication and collaboration across theentire product lifecycle from product concept and planning to final retirement of the product andevery lifecycle contained therein. PLM systems provide a single system-of-record for thecomplete digital product so that different constituents have access to up-to-date information at


every stage in a product’s life. At a high level, the PLM lifecycle can be divided into six stageswith multiple sub-processes as shown in Figure 2:

Figure 2: PLM Lifecycle Stages & Processes

Product development is neither as sequential nor as enterprise-centric as Figure 2 might suggest.Since the decisions made by various departments are interdependent, it is critical that variousconstituents communicate effectively and work in parallel. Furthermore, participants in productdevelopment are in most cases not limited to internal organizations; Yankee Group notes “themonolithic manufacturing establishment, with the ability to conceive, design, engineer,manufacture, and distribute products, is a thing of the past.” Today, companies are becomingincreasingly specialized, creating narrowly focused yet highly effective entities that work togetherin value chains to create the final product. In many industries, suppliers contribute more than70% of the final product design, and in some cases the perceived “manufacturer” is essentiallyjust a systems integrator. In effect, while companies continue to own the complete digitalproduct, contributions are just as likely to originate from external suppliers, manufacturingpartners, and even customers as various internal company departments. The ability of acompany’s digital product value chain to effectively work together to produce great products isbecoming the key measure of competitive advantage.

PLM extends traditional digital product solutions such as computer-aided design (CAD) andproduct data management (PDM) across the digital product value chain and through the entireproduct lifecycle by providing extended enterprise collaboration capabilities. An effective,comprehensive PLM solution enables companies to create detailed, intuitive, and realistic digital


product information; to collaborate to incorporating early input from the various participants toidentify and resolve critical issues; and to control and automate critical processes as release toproduction, change control, and configuration management. Without an integrated infrastructureto drive synergy between these three interdependent capabilities – create, collaborate, control –manufacturers cannot effectively optimize their product development processes. Thus, a PLMsystem enables a manufacturer to pursue a number of business strategies, such as customer-driven innovation, modular product architectures, digital prototyping and simulation, and processknowledge management and optimization.

Figure 3: Optimizing the Product Development Process.

Optimizing the digital product value chain, in short, demands synergy across three primary andinterdependent capabilities:

� Create – To capture and develop ideas and intellectual capital into digital products thatprovide realistic, interactive, and intuitive representations of a product’s construction, lookand feel, and behavior. Creation is critical in early stages of the product developmentprocess and remains important whenever changes are to be made. The “createdimension” is represented by amplitude in Figure 3.

� Collaborate – To communicate effectively with other stakeholders across the productdevelopment value chain to iteratively capture creative input and identify and resolveissues early when changes are easy to make. Ad hoc collaboration is critical early in theproduct development process, but ultimately gives way to more formalized processes inthe endgame as the product nears the release to manufacturing milestone. The“collaborate dimension” is represented by frequency in Figure 3.

� Control – To ensure that the product development process drives toward a timelyconclusion, it is necessary to ensure increasingly tighter alignment of stakeholders atvarious milestones along the way, with complete alignment achieved by the criticalrelease to manufacturing milestone. In a perfect world, no additional changes would bemade after the product is released to manufacturing. Unfortunately the real world doesn’talways work that way, so a formalized process for proposing changes, understandingtheir full impact, making a go/no-go decision, and notifying affected parties is essential.The “control dimension” is represented as a dampening effect in Figure 3.


Some manufacturers mistakenly assume their existing ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning),SCM (Supply Chain Management), or CRM (Customer Relationship Management) systems canmanage this extended collaborative product development process. These systems, however, areintended to manage the physical product and processes that surround it – such as monitoringinventory levels – and not the digital product. Missing is an enterprise-level ability to comprehendthe digital product, to handle rapid change, and control the dynamic product development processfrom product concept and design through manufacturing and after-market servicing. The ability tocollaborate effectively across the value chain requires access to timely and accurate productinformation, even information created at the earliest stages of development. Resolving complexproduct development issues early not only has strategic advantages, it also reduces costs.

Figure 4: PLM Is The Enterprise System-of-Record For Product Information

It takes a PLM system to fully support the way products are conceived, evaluated, developed,managed and supported throughout the digital product value chain. PLM integrates the multipleislands of disconnected product information across the enterprise into a single digital system ofrecord. With PLM, the ERP, CRM, and SCM systems finally have what they have needed allalong – a reliable source for the latest, most accurate, complete product information in a widelyaccessible resource.

PTC's PLM Offering

Many vendors purport to offer PLM solutions, but none has a track record in product developmentsoftware that rivals PTC. For more than 17 years, PTC has been a pioneer in providingtechnology to improve product development and is uniquely qualified to deliver a complete suiteof leading PLM solutions.

At PTC, the critical requirements of manufacturing companies have been translated into acomprehensive suite of software solutions that allow companies to focus on product superiorityand to manage their product development process for maximum advantage. With an integratedPLM solution footprint spanning its flagship Pro/ENGINEER® and Windchill® product families,PTC is the only vendor able to assist manufacturers who need to create innovative products,collaborate with participants throughout the value chain, and control their product developmentprocess.


Pro/ENGINEER is the industry’s leading 3D computer-aided design (CAD) product developmentsolution. It provides unparalleled digital design capabilities, enabling designers and engineers tomore quickly deliver better digital products to the production process. The latest version,Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire, has been architected for the digital product value chain and provides anonline, multi-user environment designed for the realities of today's product development process.Incorporating full Web services support, Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire integrates seamlessly withPTC's Windchill solutions and fundamentally redefines how participants collaborate and howdesign activities are managed throughout the product development process. The combination ofPro/ENGINEER and Windchill solutions enables you to simplify and accelerate the way youconnect to other business systems and collaborate with co-workers and design partners. It givesyou the power to create and seamlessly transfer ideas, feedback, and critical information amongvalue chain participants while bringing order to the product development process.

Windchill is a production-proven set of modular solutions for rapid collaborative development ofcustomer-driven products. In the process, it removes the traditional barriers existing within andbetween organizations and business systems.

Windchill’s scalable and flexible Internet architecture is built on open standards. It acts as thesystem-of-record for the management of the complete digital product from concept to retirementin a CAD-neutral environment. Windchill provides a unified data model that aggregates all formsof product information and easily integrates with other enterprise systems like ERP, SCM andCRM.

A primary benefit, Windchill’s modular architecture gives manufacturers the flexibility to select thedeployment option best suited to their unique product development process needs. Windchillsolutions embody industry best practices, and companies can deploy one packaged solution ormultiple solutions at the same time. In tune with today’s IT realities, each Windchill solutionincludes a popular Quick Start deployment option that is a predefined, fixed-price implementationpackage that lowers both risk and total cost of ownership while delivering fully production-capablesolutions within just a few weeks.

Windchill Critical Capabilities:

• Comprehensive digital product data model and secure product information repository• Automation of product development processes with workflow and lifecycle driven processes• Embedded CAD-neutral and Web-based 2D and 3D visualization of product information for all users• Role-based Web access to product and process information with event-based alerts• Project and program management and collaboration• Analytics and reporting for process and activity monitoring and improvement• Best practice change, configuration and release management processes• Parametric searching of parts and designs for optimal reuse• Manufacturing collaboration workspaces for manufacturing design and sourcing• Enterprise integration across mechanical CAD, electrical CAD, ERP, CRM, Web services, etc.


Windchill: Comprehensive Foundation for PLM

As part of a comprehensive PLM solution, Windchill addresses critical business processesthroughout the product lifecycle.

Figure 5: Windchill Solution Offering

The core Windchill offering includes:

• Product Data Management – helps manufacturers control information, ensure dataaccessibility, and manage the product development process throughout the life of aproduct

• Project Management and Collaboration – enables employees, suppliers, and customersto work together on projects through Web-based workspaces, project plan development,milestone tracking, activity assignment and management, and discussion forums

• Dynamic Design Configuration – helps discrete manufacturers address the increasingdemand for design-to-order products through visually interactive, dynamic, collaborativecapabilities including graphical product family modeling, product family catalogpublication, product configuration, and automated generation of digital productdeliverables

• Component Management and Parts Catalog – enables designers to achieve maximumpart reuse through Web-based access to standard, preferred part suppliers, and allowssuppliers of standard parts to provide their customers with rich technical product data

• Manufacturing Collaboration – facilitates release-to-manufacturing processes such asexchange of information and process status through organization-based workspaces,


cross-organization change management, sourcing process management, and supplierdata management

• Customer-specific Business Process Applications– allows companies to create customer-specific, product lifecycle management solutions tailored to their unique businessprocesses and legacy systems

To help manufacturers decrease risk and quickly deploy proven PLM solutions, PTC offers theQuick Start solution program, which delivers packaged implementations of Windchill PLMcomponents in a matter of weeks.

PTC, along with its Enterprise Consulting Partners (ECP’s), offers additional value-addedservices to help companies create product development strategies, realign business processes,integrate legacy systems, and manage organizational change.

Windchill Quick Start Solutions

Windchill Quick Start solutions are turnkey offerings that deliver rapid ROI by targeting specificbusiness processes with pre-packaged software and services. The solutions deliver acombination of create-collaborate-control capabilities built on the common Windchill architectureand platform. Incorporating best practices gleaned from the deployment of Windchill at hundredsof customer sites, Windchill Quick Start solutions are easy to use due to their optimized userinterfaces, pre-loaded standard workflows, and configurable processes. These solutions raise thebar in terms of out-of-the-box functionality by including CAD integration, rich visualization, anddistributed information-sharing capabilities. Each solution provides the necessary functionality tosupport specific business processes, and these solutions can be combined synergistically toaddress the needs of multiple product lifecycle stages.

To further speed ROI, Windchill Quick Start solutions come at a fixed price and include fixed-scope technology services and training from experienced consultants. These implementationscan be completed in a few short weeks instead of months or years as is typical of other enterprisesystems.

Windchill Quick Start solutions include:

Windchill PDMLinkDeployment Time: 5 weeks

Windchill PDMLink aggregates, controls, and leverages digital product information throughout theproduct lifecycle, making it easy for everyone involved in the product development process toaccess current accurate product information in a variety of formats through a single Web-basedsource. Extensive browser-based visualization capabilities are woven throughout, ensuring thatengineers and non-engineers alike can review and markup complex 2D and 3D productinformation on their desktop independent of their geographical location and without need foraccess to the original source applications.


Figure 6: Windchill PDMLink

Critical Capabilities• A master product repository organizes digital product representations (including BOMs,

documents, component attributes, drawings and models, schematics, software modules,specifications, data sheets and revision history) in a Web-based virtual vault; supportspowerful search capabilities and hyperlink navigation of related information.

• Powerful product structure management capabilities enable the management of productconfigurations as they are created and manipulated, including automated capture fromCAD models.

• Phase-gate management of processes and information helps guide the productdevelopment process.

• Fully customizable, workflow-driven product development process automation, includinga built-in CMII-certified change management process (Institute for ConfigurationManagement, www.icmhq.com).

• Release management capabilities facilitate review and sign-off on product data (includingdigital signature support) as well as transfer of product data to manufacturing.

• Lightweight, Web-based visualization capabilities enable viewing, markup and measuringof information generated by various 2D and 3D mechanical and electrical CAD anddocumentation authoring tools.

• Direct integration with Pro/ENGINEER and other 2D and 3D mechanical and electricalCAD authoring systems (CADDS®, CATIA®, Unigraphics®, I-DEAS®, AutoCAD®,SolidWorks®, and Medusa®; Cadence® and Mentor®) enables capture andmanagement of digital product data, as well as interoperability with various CAD teamdata management systems for data synchronization (Pro/INTRALINK®, Optegra®, andCo-Create®)

• Monitoring and reporting of processes enables process visibility and continuous processimprovement.

• Browser-based user access to personalized product workspaces delivers targetedinformation and functionality relevant to a specific individual's roles, responsibilities, andtasks.

Business Benefits• Increased productivity and fewer mistakes resulting from enterprise-wide access to, and

control of, data.


• Reduced costs by increasing operating efficiency with best-practice configuration,release, and change management

• Greater design and part reuse• Faster, easier adoption and widespread use through an intuitive user experience

Windchill ProjectLinkDeployment Time: 2 weeks

Windchill ProjectLink provides a comprehensive, real-time project management and collaborationinfrastructure for all members of the extended product development team, both inside and outsidethe enterprise. It drives innovation through Web-based, self-administered virtual collaborationworkspaces that include all the tools necessary to pull globally dispersed project team memberstogether as if working in the same room, including members utilizing Pro/ENGINEER and otherCAD systems.

Figure 7: Windchill ProjectLink

Critical Capabilities• Project and program management capabilities facilitate project scheduling, status

reporting, task assignments, and deliverable and milestone tracking.• Bi-directional integration with Microsoft® Project enables users to load project plans from

Microsoft Project to initially configure project spaces and to automatically regenerateMicrosoft Project plan updates based on current project status, including impact anddependency analysis, based upon Windchill-managed project collaboration activities.

• Step-by-step wizard interfaces make it easy to create projects, invite team members(from within or outside the firewall) with role-specific access, assign tasks to teammembers, and subscribe for automated change notification.

• Centralized project data sharing allows 24x7 real time access to all project-relatedinformation, including both CAD and office documents, with check-in/check-outcapabilities and change history logs for auditing purposes.

• Browser-based uploading and downloading allows sharing of digital product informationand other data among the extended product team, including customers.


• Lightweight Web-based visualization capabilities enable viewing, markup and measuringof information generated by various 2D and 3D mechanical and electrical CAD anddocumentation authoring tools.

• Integrated online communication tools such as discussion forums to capture allow teamsto design decisions and host collaborative meetings (powered by WebEx).

• Integration with Pro/ENGINEER and interoperability with various CAD and team datamanagement systems allows for data capture, sharing, and synchronization.

Business Benefits• Accelerates time-to-market by eliminating geographic and organizational barriers to

collaboration.• Reduces potential errors by ensuring that dispersed project teams have access to the

latest information and are automatically notified of changes• Improves access and reporting of project management information, for better decision

making and tracking• Fosters increased innovation through real-time collaboration inside or outside your

firewall

Windchill DynamicDesignLinkDeployment Time: 6 weeks

An effective design-to-order capability enables products to be varied according to customerrequirements, yielding more satisfied customers and wider profit margins. The applicationengineering process required to modify standard designs in order to deliver design-to-orderproducts, however, can be difficult, slow, and expensive. Windchill DynamicDesignLink fullyautomates the application engineering process, dramatically reducing the time it takes toconfigure digital products, including engineering changes, to meet customer specifications.Windchill DynamicDesignLink reduces manual design rework and helps companies to get highquality new products to market faster.

Figure 8: Windchill DynamicDesignLink


Critical Capabilities• Interactively creates multiple designs of customized products, guided by technical and

business rules that constrain variability.• Automatically reuses existing parts and creates new parts automatically only where

permitted and when necessary to meet customer requirements.• Empowers customers, distributors, and sales representatives to directly configure and

visualize application-engineered products via the Web.• Allows users to store, update and compare product alternatives to best leverage past

designs and intelligence.• Generates necessary digital product information automatically, including CAD models

and drawings, lightweight visualization files, product structure, and manufacturing andsupport documents, based on customer specifications.

• Incorporates lightweight, Web-based visualization capabilities that enable viewing,markup and measuring of information generated by various 2D and 3D mechanical andelectrical CAD and documentation authoring tools.

• Ensures complete understanding and buy-in from the customer, based on the digitalproduct representations, before costly manufacturing resources are committed.

Business Benefits• Creates competitive advantage through advanced, design-to-order automation.• Increases responsiveness to customers by automating application engineering processes

that are otherwise tedious and slow.• Increases profitability through reduction of manual design effort and improved design

reuse.• Ensures complete understanding and buy-in from the customer, based on the digital

product representations, before costly manufacturing resources are committed.• Increases customer loyalty through greater responsiveness and customization to exactly

meet customer needs

Windchill PartsLinkDeployment Time: 2 weeks

A primary business goal for many manufacturing organizations is design reuse and strategicsourcing in order to reduce product cost and time to market. Windchill PartsLink allows theorganization and classification of internal component libraries and makes them available througha Web-based environment that is tightly integrated with other Windchill solutions andPro/ENGINEER. Internal part libraries reduce part duplication and part number proliferationthroughout a company and improve the efficiency of engineers. Designers can easily conductparametric searches for parts, preview them in a 3D Web viewer, and then drag-and-drop themdirectly into a CAD assembly.

Windchill PartsLink also enables the creation of a digital parts catalog which enables part andcomponent suppliers to differentiate themselves by offering content-rich information to theircustomers, including 3D CAD data, which may be downloaded in various formats. With superiortechnical content, manufacturers can positively influence internal part selection processes, andsuppliers can position their parts at the point of design, ensuring that their parts get designed-induring the digital product value chain, and therefore ensuring subsequent purchase during thephysical product value chain.


Figure 9: Windchill PartsLink

Critical Capabilities• Provides a consolidated source of part information for part standardization.• Supports inbound supply chain optimization to enable strategic component selection.• Powerful search capability (parametric, hierarchical, natural language, part number, etc.)

makes it easy to rapidly find and reuse part and part designs.• Industry leading classification development and design tools allow you to organize and

structure your product information.• The ability to serve dynamic parametric 3D CAD models directly to internal users or

customers in Pro/ENGINEER, STEP, IGES, DXF and other standard formats enables atrue “digital parts catalog”.

• Controlled access to product information in the catalog, based on the end users Webauthentication, ensures security of product information.

• Statistics reporting tools track internal user and customer usage of the product catalog.• Multi-catalog querying capability that complies with RosettaNet e-business standards

makes it possibly to dynamically find and compare alternatives from various vendors.• Powerful tools lessen the pain of cleansing, normalizing, classifying and publishing part

information.• Lightweight, Web-based 3D viewer plug-in enables visualization and measurement of

component geometry.• Tight integration with other Windchill solutions allows an enterprise to make design re-

use a regular part of the product development processes.

Business Benefits• Enables design and part reuse to accelerate time to market and lower costs.• Reduces global procurement costs via decreased overhead, consolidated orders for

volume discounts, and profit from preferred supplier relationships.• Enables part suppliers to capture the critical design win up front and provide an

unprecedented level of customer service by bringing rich technical content to the designengineer's desktop.

Windchill SupplyLinkDeployment Time: 5 weeks


Windchill SupplyLink provides online connectivity to contract manufacturers, suppliers and otherdisconnected manufacturing operations in support of “design anywhere, manufacture anywhere”initiatives. In addition to managing access to digital product definition data, it also facilitates keycross-organizational business processes such as sourcing and change control that involve theexchange and interaction with technical product information commonly managed in a PDMsystem. Windchill SupplyLink facilitates the formation of new supply agreements for engineereditems, and ensures that distributed and external organizations have online access to the correctproduct definition (e.g., CAD, BOM, AML, AVL) relevant to their role in the supply chain. WindchillSupplyLink offers superior integration with Pro/ENGINEER and interoperability with various CADand team data management systems for data synchronization.

Figure 10: Windchill SupplyLink

Critical Capabilities• Provides online product data access and exchange to external or disconnected

manufacturing partners – including documents, models, drawings, BOM (Bill of Material),AML (Approved Manufacturers List), AVL (Approved Vendors List) information.

• Supports and leverages common data exchange standards such as PDX (ProductDefinition eXchange).

• Allows OEMs to selectively disclose product information to manufacturing partnerswithout giving them full access to the product data management area.

• Lightweight, Web-based visualization capabilities enable viewing, markup and measuringof information generated by various 2D and 3D mechanical and electrical CAD anddocumentation authoring tools.

• Organization-specific product and document vaults enable distributed manufacturingpartners to contribute the technical information and work products they author.

• Out-of-the-box sourcing process facilitates product data intensive sourcing events.• Online archive manages supplier information, sourcing event data, and contracts and

agreements.• Online, cross-organizational communication and exchange of product change data

including problem reports, change requests, and change notices which can carry BOMand drawing markups, attachments, and new revision information ensures that all partiesare aware of changes and are using correct information.


• The ability to manage multiple, independent manufacturing partner relationships bycapturing “as-planned” product information and by having multiple manufacturing BOM’sassociated back to a shared engineering BOM.

Business Benefits• Speeds time-to-market by coordinating information flows and accelerating design-to-

manufacturing reconciliation of the product, materials and supply chain definition• Reduces operating costs by enabling benefits capture for manufacturing sourcing

decisions• Results in higher quality products due to better collaboration between design and

manufacturing operations

A Broad PLM Footprint

Together, the Windchill Quick Start solutions represent a broad PLM footprint that addresses thecritical issues that occur throughout the product development process.

Figure 11: Windchill Solution Coverage of PLM

To provide maximum implementation flexibility, Windchill solutions can be deployedindependently or in combination to address the needs for cross-functional collaboration andprocess management that occur throughout the entire product development lifecycle.

Company-Specific Business Process Solutions

Windchill also includes several modules that may be utilized in various combinations to delivercompany-specific solutions to address unique needs within complex manufacturing organizations.Windchill’s open architecture makes it practical to modify and extend a Windchill-based PLMsolution to accommodate special business requirements both upon initial implementation andover time as business needs evolve. Unlike other product information management applicationsbased on proprietary architectures and toolsets that discourage customized configurations, theWindchill modular architecture and toolsets explicitly enable manufacturers to extend the datamodels, functionality, and user interfaces as they see fit.


Windchill Foundation offers a number of critical capabilities that are incorporated into standardWindchill solutions but also available as the baseline for customer-specific solutions:

• Document Management and Vaulting allows users to construct and manage complexpublications that may consist of multiple files, at multiple revision levels, and in varyingformats, including outsourced files that are linked to the publication by URL reference andare managed externally. Core capabilities include data vault, check-in and check-out,version control, and history management.

• Integrated Search Engine incorporates standard Web search engine technology as ameans to perform fast and simple cross-system queries given that multiple, dissimilardata repositories are likely to exist in any extended enterprise solution. The searchengine allows users to quickly find product information of almost any type (e.g., partnumbers, ECOs, documents, etc.) independent of its structure or location in theenterprise.

• Lifecycle Management defines the product lifecycle as a sequential set of phases thatidentifies the current state of an object and the gate conditions needed for that object tomove on to the next phase. This allows lifecycle-managed objects to be moved throughtheir lifecycle automatically by associating workflow processes with lifecycle phases andconditions. The automation provided by workflow support of lifecycle transitions candeliver large productivity gains. For any type of managed object, users can easily modelthe major states through which an object passes as well as the gate criteria that must bemet in order to move to the next phase.

• Workflow Management allows users to proactively guide and monitor their uniquebusiness processes within a flexible process management framework with the goal ofdelivering superior products, while reducing time to market and development costs.Sample workflow templates help manufacturers rapidly tailor and deploy commonbusiness processes. The Windchill graphical process editor defines workflow processesquickly and easily. The workflow process manager visually monitors and managesrunning workflow processes and investigates processes that have been completed orwere manually terminated. Detailed information about workflow processes and activitiesindicates an activity's current state, when it began and ended, its duration, participants,and variable values.

Important capabilities embedded in standard Windchill solutions are also available in a modularform to extend the capabilities of a customer-specific solution to further manage andcommunicate information about product structures and related changes. These include:

• Windchill PDMenables multiple, related BOM representations to be created andmaintained to ensure the product is consistently represented throughout its evolution. Inaddition, it defines and manages configuration and change management activities acrossmultiple disciplines and systems, which streamlines product enhancements and updates.

• Windchill ProductViewallows users throughout the enterprise to view all types of digitalproduct information-- from documents such as Microsoft® Word files, to 2D drawings, to3D models-- in a familiar Web-based framework. Users can view models and navigatethrough product structures and associated information in a single, integrated Web-basedenvironment without knowing which applications created the files or how and where thefiles are stored. Users can view and markup various types of 3D and 2D standard andnative formats to create supporting materials for engineering change orders (ECOs) andfor online reviews.

• Windchill Workgroup Managers captures and manages critical digital product data as itis being created with standard available interfaces in any of eight major MCAD packages(including Pro/ENGINEER®, AutoCAD®, CATIA®, and SolidWorks®), three team datamanagers (Pro/INTRALINK, Optegra, CoCreate), and two ECAD packages (Mentor,


Cadence). Windchill is, by design, CAD neutral and Workgroup Managers provideintegration to the authoring tools by embedding Windchill menus and capabilities directlywithin the native CAD application user interface. The integrated menus place capabilitiessuch as check-in/out, upload/download, and revise at the fingertips of the engineers, andallow for the user to directly operate on the authoring data from within the native CADapplication. By the virtue of the integration, mission-critical engineering information fromvarious applications will no longer be confined to the engineering community, but will beelevated to an enterprise asset providing visibility throughout the entire enterprise.

• Windchill Information Modeler provides professional, object-oriented, rapid applicationdevelopment (RAD) tools for customizing Windchill and for creating and deployingcustomer-specific PLM applications. It offers a model-driven application developmentenvironment and embeds best-in-class tools for object-oriented analysis, design, andapplication development. This approach reduces the administrative overhead andmaintenance typically associated with application development.

Manufacturers can begin with one or more Windchill Quick Start solutions or start with WindchillFoundation and then complement it by choosing from additional Windchill modules. And sinceWindchill Foundation-based applications are built on the same Windchill technology as the QuickStart solutions, companies can combine their business-specific functionality with any out-of-the-box Windchill Quick Start solutions. Manufacturers are no longer forced to choose betweenstandard applications and business-specific requirements – both can be realized within Windchill.

Windchill: Pure Internet Architecture

Architecture matters when trying to optimize product development in the digital product valuechain. Windchill was the first PLM solution developed specifically for Internet deployment;Windchill is pure Internet technology from the ground up. Windchill is based on the JavaTM 2Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE) standard for developing multi-tier enterprise applications, andnaturally offers full capabilities in its native Web environment. A history of large customerimplementations proves Windchill’s ability to scale and perform to the most exactingrequirements. Windchill remains the industry’s only PLM solution architected under a commonbanner, with competitive alternatives invariably representing a patchwork of acquiredtechnologies based on multiple architectures and lacking meaningful integration.

With Windchill’s pure Internet foundation used consistently across all solutions and modules,integration between solutions is seamless and cost of ownership low. With a zero-footprint Webbrowser client, manufacturers can provide any user having Web access with the ability to log intothe full functionality of Windchill solutions, such as collaborative project spaces for the sharingand visualization of valuable product knowledge, and participation in complex multi-enterprisechange requests.

With full support for Web services standards like SOAP, XML and WSDL, Windchill also quicklyintegrates with a range of enterprise and desktop applications (such as ERP, SCM, CRM, CAD,and legacy) and external partner systems, regardless of location or native format. In addition tofull Web Services support provided through the Windchill Info*Engine technology, PTC providesrobust support for traditional enterprise application integration through its strategic technologypartnership with EAI vendor TIBCO.

The Windchill architecture utilizes a multi-tier approach to ensure the scalability required toaccommodate the largest of implementations. The Windchill runtime architecture is divided intomultiple tiers: client, application and data, and integration.


Figure 12: Windchill Pure Internet Architecture

At the client tier, users access Windchill solutions with any commercially available Web browser,such as Microsoft Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator, to view HTML pages over the Internetvia a connection to a standard Web server.

The application and data tier consists of the Windchill Java Application Server, which handlesbusiness logic and processing along with the necessary security services (user identification andauthentication), database communication, and system administration tools. The data portionincludes the scalable Windchill data schema, which provides a comprehensive enterpriserepresentation of the product structure and its associated digital product content. This tier alsoincludes Windchill ProductView, which provides visualization services and conferencing and theWindchill Workgroup Managers for the supported engineering authoring application integrations.

The integration tier consists of messaging services that integrate with EAI middleware forconnectivity to enterprise systems and the Windchill Info*Engine adapters for connectivity to othersystems, including native support for Web services via XML, SOAP, and WSDL; JMI, JNDI,JavaMail, 3270/5250 mainframes and other native APIs.

Using Windchill in the Product Development Process

Manufacturers use Windchill to facilitate collaboration and manage information throughout variousstages of the product development process. The following examples show how organizationstypically use Windchill to facilitate collaboration and management of common businessprocesses:

• Engineering Change Requests (ECR) – The processing of an engineering changerequest initiated by a procurement manager using product data management capabilitiesis streamlined by inviting the appropriate supplier and design engineers into an ad-hoccollaboration effort to investigate the impact of the change before the request is agreed toand implemented.


• New Product Introduction (NPI) – During the product design process, design engineerscan create an ad hoc project collaboration workspace where members of a cross-functional team can take the design through multiple iterations and track their progressagainst a pre-determined project schedule. If the initial concept is based on an earliermanaged version, this product information can be passed into the project forcollaboration among the team and then passed back to product data management forlong-term lifecycle management.

• Product Sourcing (RFx) – Sourcing processes can be dramatically improved byfacilitating bi-directional information exchange between organizations. The buyingorganization (OEM) can compile a specific package of digital product definition, invitemanufacturing suppliers, collect responses, and create agreement documents. Invitedbidders are granted online access to a secure workspace with visualization, and markupcapabilities within a sourcing process context.

The following examples show how organizations typically use Windchill to share and controldigital information across the entire digital product value chain:

• Release to Production – Managers can direct the promotion of the digital product fromthe as-designed configuration created in product data management to the as-plannedconfiguration defined in collaborative manufacturing in preparation for release tomanufacturing, and do so with a complete audit trail and design feedback. The feed ofdigital product information to ERP systems can be accomplished automatically after theinformation passes through the online review and release process.

• Design & Component Reuse – As part of a product design process, design engineerscan search on key criteria to determine if existing parts or designs can be reused fromthe internal enterprise component library or from external online supplier catalogs.Identified components can be added to the configuration being managed by the productdata management system.

Valuable Business Benefits

Unlike traditional enterprise applications that require heavy, top-down data modeling and lengthyimplementation cycles, Windchill, with its flexible Internet-based approach to PLM, delivers anumber of benefits that improve product quality, speed product development, and boostefficiency.

As documented by Giga in a study entitled “Total Economic Impact of Collaborative ProductDevelopment”, the benefits of using an enterprise PLM solution can be:

• Reduce product development lifecycle time by 40%Accelerates information sharing between design engineers with robust collaborationspaces aggregating required information, project timelines and activity assignments.

• Reduce number of process errors by 50%Ensures that participants are using the most up-to-date and accurate product data.

• Reduce product development travel expenses by 65%Powers collaboration spaces that aggregate all required information and includediscussion forums and meeting spaces to conduct design reviews and other virtualmeetings.

• Reduce engineering change order processing time by 85%Delivers automated, standards-based engineering change processes (spanning request,


analysis, and notification) containing supporting data, assignments and activity trackingfor monitoring.

• Reduce time to market by 40%Bridges the communication and exchange of product data between design andmanufacturing to meet time-to-market requirements.

To deliver these benefits, Windchill provides enhanced enterprise capabilities in a number ofareas:

• Integrated strategic system of record for product and process informationo Makes information accessible to disparate business systemso Enhances the value of existing IT investments

• Increased customer, supplier, and partner collaborationo Facilitates customer-driven design and innovationo Enables engineer- and build-to-order practiceso Leverages supplier and partner innovationo Natural, intuitive user interface (simple and secure browser-based Web page)

• Improved product and corporate agilityo Creates new customer interaction and service opportunitieso Enables the rapid addition or removal of suppliers and partnerso Facilitates design anywhere, build anywhere practices

• Lower total cost-of-ownership / easy implementationo Offers prescriptive and low risk, clear ROI deployment optionso Enables rollout of additional functionality with modular architecture

PTC: The Product Development Industry Leader

There is no single best way to develop products, and product leadership can be fleeting. Wheregreat products once provided advantage for years, today the advantage may last only months ascustomers demand yet more up-to-date technology and the latest product capabilities. With thespeed of business itself much quicker, companies must strive for sustained competitiveadvantage by refining their product development processes to consistently yield superior productsfaster.

Putting product first has emerged as an imperative for the success of customer-focusedmanufacturers. A Product First focus places product development at the center of theorganization – driving customer satisfaction, operational efficiency, and the business goals of thecompany. Product First, as envisioned by PTC, establishes the unifying framework for otherbusiness process systems that manage supply chains, customer relationships, and resourceplanning to contribute to corporate growth and success and drives the passion and zeal forexcellence of everyone in the organization. Windchill enables companies to begin putting productfirst by facilitating the product development processes that occur throughout the digital productvalue chain. It provides the process and the enabling infrastructure for Product First.

PTC has been a pioneer in providing technology to improve product development, continuallycreating solutions that help manufacturers not only create great products faster but also turnthose products and the information that defines them into assets that deliver value time andagain. As the world’s largest software provider devoted entirely to product lifecycle managementsolutions and with over 33,000 manufacturing customers worldwide, only PTC is qualified to offera complete suite of leading PLM solutions.


For More Information

For more information about Product First or PTC’s PLM solution set, please visit PTC on the Webat http://www.ptc.com.

Copyright © 2002, Parametric Technology Corporation (PTC) -- All rights reservedInformation described herein is furnished for informational use only, is subject to change without notice, and should not beconstrued as a guarantee, commitment, condition or offer by PTC.

PTC, the PTC Logo, Product First, The Product Development Company, Product Development Means Business, CreateCollaborate Control, Windchill, Pro/ENGINEER, Info*Engine and all PTC product names and logos are trademarks orregistered trademarks of PTC and/or its subsidiaries in the United States and in other countries. Microsoft is a registeredtrademark of Microsoft Corp.; AutoCAD is a registered trademark of Autodesk, Inc.; SolidWorks is a registered trademarkof SolidWorks Corporation; and CATIA is a registered trademark of Dassault Systems.

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