Global Manufacturer Ensures Product Development and Quality Processes Deliver Real Value

Background

With a product-centric company came the necessity for a PLM system to ensure that product development resources and processes deliver real business value.

• DiversiTech realized that everyone contributing to product development, regardless of location, needed secure access to one system.
• Engineers didn’t need a complex project management tool that required dedicated staff for data entry and managing projects.
• Product development workflows were inefficient, and all departments were not always using the most accurate and up-to-date information.
• It was difficult to keep track of quality actions, coordination with vendors, and history of activities for quality issues.
• IT determined that customizing and using their JD Edwards ERP system would be too cumbersome and costly.

Challenge

DiversiTech wanted a tool that executives, engineers, marketers, and salespeople could use, that supported their unique processes, and required minimal IT support.

• DiversiTech employees are distributed across multiple locations, and each department had its own tools to manage product development work.
• At any point in time, several new products can be at varying stages of the development lifecycle.
• Different departments are involved, and employees need to know exactly what is happening in real-time in order to contribute efficiently.
• Management required executive summaries of each project and overviews of all the work in progress to effectively make decisions and prioritize resources.
• CAD drawings, manufacturing, marketing, and sales documents go through their own revision and approval processes. Keeping track of who approved what revisions and the location of the final version was difficult.
• Engineering change notices involved a unique group of employees across departments for approvals, and tracking the revisions, status, and reviewing the history of ECNs caused inefficiencies.
• Vendor responses to quality issues were buried in an engineer’s inbox.

Solution

TwinEngines built an enterprise PLM system for engineers to easily track product development and quality activities with management views and reporting.

TwinEngines first mapped the processes in the product development lifecycle and in quality control and defined the workflow automation for each role at DiversiTech. The IT infrastructure was reviewed, third-party software evaluated, integration to existing systems identified, and a PLM system designed for the best fit and value.

• The solution provides a single source of information for all workgroups
• Engineering Change Notices flow through automated workflows with automatic logging.
• Quality activity is tracked and vendor communications logged for each CAPA, VC, FR, and NCR action.
• Executives receive automated emails with project summaries and links to executive-level views of information.
• Applications can be easily added to the platform leveraging the same information architecture, user permissions, and integration to internal systems.
• A click-once deployment feature that automatically ensures each employee has the latest version.
• A central repository of documents with automated workflow for approvals and archiving.
• TwinEngines customized a third-party project management tool for easy use, including Gantt charts.
• Built-in functions extend settings and configuration change management to administrators without requiring additional programming.