A QPM in Furrow System.
EpiGrid has been in the business of supplying PDM solutions to SOLIDWORKS users for some time; however, with typical engineering environments changing in dramatic ways, EpiGrid is now rolling out a combination of cloud-based service offerings to meet that challenge. Today, engineers find themselves designing in the field and working remotely more than ever. Because of this emerging reality, new CAD infrastructure solutions are required, including virtual desktop interfaces (VDI), cloud-based CAD interfaces and Infrastructure as a Service.
One company that has already benefited from EpiGrid’s new suite is Quality Plus Manufacturing (QPM). QPM is an Iowa-based design and engineering firm that specializes in manufacturing farm equipment. Over the past few years, QPM has found that their engineers are working remotely more frequently, often consulting with clients on the road, far from the office. Conventional CAD infrastructure backing QPM’s engineers wasn’t ready for that reality. In fact, when opening large assemblies in the field, QPM’s designers were facing load times that could reach a half hour. Obviously, that was killing productivity.
After consulting with EpiGrid, QPM realized that moving to cloud-based CAD infrastructure could make a tremendous difference in the way they did business.
“We were faced with very slow performance on large file assemblies, and our engineers could not work remotely as needed,” said Dan Forsyth, president of QPM. “IT issues, delays and excessive server upkeep as well as maintenance costs were also eroding our budgets. After implementing EpiGrid’s solutions, we changed the way we work. We have now seen a dramatic improvement in efficiency, productivity and capacity to create new designs.”
Since adopting EpiGrid’s solution, QPM has seen assembly load times slashed to 2 or 3 minutes when engineers are offsite. What’s more, QPM has been able to streamline its IT processes, eliminating costly and unpredictable CAD infrastructure hiccups. Finally, QPM has also been able to breathe new life into older hardware by leveraging EpiGrid’s VDI devices. With these powerful virtualization solutions, older technology can handle state-of-the-art software.
Although it might seem obvious, having a resilient CAD infrastructure is essential for today’s design teams. As engineering firms find that begin able to design anywhere make more sense, expect increasing adoption of cloud-based CAD and PDM infrastructure solutions.