Maybe it’s time to stop chasing CAD files and verifying that the right revision is making its way to suppliers, and instead spend that time implementing a real solution.  So what are you waiting for?  Isn’t it time you stopped wasting time with workarounds and realized the benefits of PDM?

What Are Your Time Wasters?

Has this ever happened to you?  You adjusted your schedule to block out a solid four hours to work on a complex design.  Then, less than an hour into it someone comes to your desk and asks you to find a drawing for them, or print something out, or make a pdf or jpeg. 

Or how about this?  You’re having a great day.  You may actually get this design done early.  But, then the phone rings.  It’s your Buyer.  She tells you that the supplier called and the drawing he just received doesn’t match the revision level that’s listed on the purchase order.  The rest of the day is spent verifying the current release and tracking engineering change history.  You’re working with the Quality department to see what parts have come in already, what’s being used on the production line, all while trying to shake the blame for the wrong drawing being sent to the supplier because you know it wasn’t your fault. 

Or maybe this scenario rings a bell.  You’re ready to start production on a new project.  Vendors have received purchase orders with pdf versions of your drawings to quote, and Supply Chain has made the final selection of suppliers.  Now they are calling to get a copy of the solid model for tooling.  But, the solid model file is too large to email them.  You can copy the file to disc or flash drive and ship it to them, but that’ll take a 3-5 business days resulting in a day-for-day slip in the schedule.  You can’t afford that.  So instead, you ask IT to set up an FTP site.  They say sure.  Five days later, they tell you the FTP site up and ready. 

PDM Can Help

Let’s take a look at each of the three scenarios above and see how Product Data Management can remove the time wasters.

In most cases, coworkers who come to you for prints, images, or similar tasks do so because a) they don’t have the software installed to do it themselves or b) they are lazy. 

Believe it or not, PDM can help with both.  With a suitable PDM system, only designers and engineers in the company need to be proficient at CAD.  PDM can handle the rest: file management, searching, viewing, printing, etc.  Your coworkers don’t have to be CAD gurus to get the output they need from the CAD files.  And the right PDM system can be so easy to use that lazy people don’t have any excuse not to use it.  It may actually be easier than coming and bothering you for information. That doesn’t mean they won’t try, but at least they don’t have an excuse anymore.  That’s a real time saver.

Revision control is an automated feature in most, if not all, PDM systems.  With some elements of PLM added into the PDM functionality, cross-functional departments from Design, Planning, Purchasing, Receiving, and Production can all be assured that they have access to the right revision in the right place at the right time.  Your time is no longer spent verifying change histories and tracking document revisions.  That’s a real time saver.

Sharing data with customers and suppliers while protecting intellectual property is a challenge for every organization.  Emailing is not secure, and neither is FTP for that matter.  The chance for mistakes is high and the likelihood of changes being implemented while the files are in transit is high as well.  PDM allows for access controls, so organizations can control who has direct access to the files they need. But, not all PDM systems allow for remote access. One way to guarantee remote access is by going to the cloud.

Cloud Adoption, Maybe You’re Already Using It

Uploading your intellectual property onto someone else’s servers seems like a terrible way to protect your IP, but maybe you’re already using the cloud.  Do you use Dropbox, Google Drive, or Office 365?  What about Salesforce?  Or maybe you are using a cloud-based design tool like Fusion 360 from Autodesk or Lagoa for rendering.  Is a cloud-based PDM that much of a stretch?

Smaller businesses are usually faster to adopt cloud-based solutions, but many departments within large organizations have solved their own problems by implementing cloud without first having a corporate strategy.  (You can read more about the State of the Cloud and Cloud Portfolio Management through these two reports published by RightScale in 2014.)

There are many aspects to the cloud.  There are public clouds, such as those listed above.  There are private clouds, which some even consider as an integration of virtualized environments.  And then there are hybrid clouds, which is a combination of public and private.  Finding the right cloud solution is key to a successful implementation.  Whatever you do, don’t dismiss the technology just because it says cloud.  Not all clouds are created equal.

The Urgency for PDM, and How the Cloud Can Help

By now, it should be clear that ad-hoc data management or no data management is a huge time waster.  Spending time and other resources working around the shortcomings of a home-grown file management system is costing more than the metrics show.  There is an urgency for faster product development, and one way to help is to decrease the hours spent on data management.  So how does a company do that without implementing an enterprise-level solution?  A simple answer is to try it on the cloud first.

Cloud-based enterprise applications are finding their way into product development.  Using a SAAS solution, PDM, like GrabCAD Workbench, can be implemented in a very short timeframe and users can get started immediately with little to no training.  And unlike traditional PDM systems, there is no large upfront cost.  If more employees need to use it, scale the seat count up immediately.  If fewer employees need to use it, scale the seat count down at the end of the (monthly) term.  For minimal risk, you can eliminate your greatest time wasters.

What are you waiting for? Try it now for free at grabcad.com/workbench.

Additional information on removing time wasters with PDM, managing CAD files with cloud-based PDM, and determine the ROI for managing CAD files.

GrabCAD has paid a fee to ENGINEERING.com to promote their cloud-based PDM solution. They have not had editorial input to this post. – Scott Wertel