We’ve written a number of blogs on the benefits of PTC Windchill. But we also know there’s no greater power than proof in the pudding. You don’t just want another article telling you that PTC Windchill is the best Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) tool. You want to see the proven results too. That’s why we’ve wrapped up a couple of our own customer use cases and their actual business outcomes in this blog. Check out the PTC Windchill reviews below, or click here to explore the full selection.
A quick overview of PTC Windchill
If you’re already familiar with PTC Windchill PLM, jump to the next section. However, if you’re exploring new PLM alternatives for your business, here’s a quick summary of PTC Windchill to consider.
PTC Windchill is a powerful Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) software that offers a wide range of features and benefits to companies across various industries. It provides a centralized platform for managing product data, documents, and processes, which helps organizations streamline their product development and manufacturing processes, reduce time-to-market, and improve collaboration among team members.
PTC Windchill Reviews And Business Outcomes
SRAM PTC Windchill Review
Headquartered in Chicago, SRAM is a global manufacturer of bicycle components. The company is composed of several brands, including Rock Shox, Avid, Truvativ, Zipp, and Quarq. The company started 25 years ago with the advent of the Grip Shift, Today, SRAM continues to grow its business to supply a full line of bicycle components for casual and expert riders.
The company’s rapid growth through acquisition resulted in engineering and development groups that were not able to communicate and share information across departments. The company needed a solution that would support its holistic business process approach to the creation and management of product data, with PLM integrating processes, technology and people into an information backbone to facilitate a lean enterprise. Nucleus found that PTC Windchill PLM enabled SRAM to create uniform product data management and workflow practices, resulting in increased engineering productivity, improved customer satisfaction, and more accurate decision-making across the enterprise.
SRAM deployed PTC Windchill PLM to integrate and unify the engineering processes for all its brands. By deploying PTC Windchill, SRAM saw key benefits including:
- 128% return on investment.
- Payback within one year.
- $1.4m average annual benefit.
BAE Systems PTC Windchill Reviews
Next up is the PTC Windchill review from BAE Systems who are a global defense, security, and aerospace company. They deliver a full range of products and services held to high standards for safety, reliability, and quality in accordance with Department of Defense directives.
However, with Government spending cuts, BAE knew they needed to adopt a leaner approach. They knew this would require innovation to also still meet the same standards expected by their customers. Their key objectives included:
- Providing and delivering defense-related products. They also needed to be supportable, reliable, available, maintainable, transportable, and affordable.
- Address reliability drivers earlier in the product lifecycle (before system-level testing), to increase the cost-effectiveness of driving reliability into products.
- Increase focus on methods to drive out failures.
- A better understanding of how data relates across the enterprise.
BAE Systems knew they needed a solution that provided:
- Early identification of failures through methods that provide for interdependencies among related data.
- Connectivity across analysis types.
- Prediction results drive maintainability analysis.
- FMECA drives testing. test results modify FMECA and results roll up to Prediction, where the failure rate is improved and cascades to related maintainability analysis.
To achieve this, BAE Systems implemented PTC Windchill. And, these were the results:
- Improves system reliability and customer satisfaction.
- Demonstrates consistently, through progressive assurance throughout development, that products are meeting their reliability, maintainability, availability, supportability, and cost goals, to assure customers that their needs are being met.
- Decreased costs needed to improve products by addressing reliability needs before system-level testing.
- Meet government requirements.
So, PTC Windchill helps companies reduce errors, improve collaboration, and enhance quality control. But, how does PTC Windchill receive consistently great customer reviews and help businesses achieve these kinds of outcomes?
The metrics PTC Windchill uses to deliver customer success:
1. Increase Market Share
PTC Windchill is a powerful solution that can help companies increase their market share by introducing new product offerings through product platforms. This is just the beginning of the benefits that PTC Windchill can provide. PTC Windchill also measures the quality and regulatory compliance management, which helps to improve Changes Management processes. Additionally, PTC Windchill is highly effective in supporting collaboration between engineering and downstream stakeholders, including partners and suppliers.
PTC Windchill also delivers innovative products such as Model Based Systems Engineering (MBSE), which can manage and optimize the design of complex products that incorporate multi-disciplinary systems and systems of systems. This is essential in ensuring that products are designed with serviceability best practices in mind. Tools such as Product Data Management (PDM), MBSE, and service readiness can be utilized to ensure that products are designed in the most efficient and effective way possible.
2. Provide Value for the Price
In 2022, PTC was recognized as a leader in PLM software, and using their software can bring a range of benefits to your business. One of these benefits is the assurance that you’re creating high-quality products that can command a premium price. PTC uses several metrics to measure the effectiveness of their software in this regard, including:
- Improving quality processes and receiving closed-loop feedback through Quality, Risk, and Compliance Management, Enterprise Change Management, and Secure Collaboration.
- Enhancing Changes Management processes to ensure that changes are implemented smoothly and effectively.
- Improving collaboration between engineering teams and downstream stakeholders, such as partners and suppliers, to promote a more efficient and streamlined workflow.
- Providing Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) to optimize the design of complex products, including systems and systems of systems.
Using PTC’s PLM software can give you the confidence that you’re producing quality products that will stand out in the market and earn you a premium price. With their suite of tools, you can streamline your workflows, optimize your designs, and collaborate effectively with your team and partners.
3. Reduce Time to Market
Efficient processes and workflows are critical in reducing time to market. PTC’s customer reviews, such as STRATEC’s, demonstrate how Windchill can excel in this area by utilizing a lean approach to increase productivity.
Additionally, PTC strives to enhance the following areas through the use of Product Data Management (PDM), Enterprise Change Management, and Secure Collaboration:
- Improving Change Management processes
- Enhancing Design Management, communication & collaboration
- Improving collaboration between engineering and downstream stakeholders (including partners and suppliers)
- Quality, Risk & Compliance Management
- Concurrent engineering and design for manufacturability and serviceability
4. Reduce COGS
PTC Windchill reduces the cost of goods sold by enabling companies to reuse parts, software, requirements, designs, processes, and tooling. Some of the PTC tools that enable this are Platform Configuration Management, Product Data Management (PDM) and Supplier Management.
Additionally, quality and regulatory compliance management, effective Requirements, Validation, and Verification and Secure Collaboration are measured by PTC in this category.
5. Reduce IT Cost
Short and sweet, but very important. PTC Windchill reduces IT costs through software consolidation, upgrades, maintenance, and hardware with Windchill Plus.
6. Increase Design and Enterprise Efficiency
Lastly, through Product Data Management (PDM), Enterprise Change Management, Model Based Engineering (MBE), Manufacturing Engineering and Service Readiness, PTC Windchill enables Concurrent Engineering and design for manufacturability and serviceability. Additionally, it helps to streamline processes and workflows through the entire lifecycle and enhance collaboration.
Conclusion
PTC Windchill is a powerful PLM software that offers many benefits to companies across different industries. It provides a centralized platform for managing product data, documents, and processes, which helps organizations streamline their product development and manufacturing processes, reduce time-to-market, and improve collaboration among team members.
Two examples of companies that have benefited are SRAM and BAE Systems with their PTC Windchill reviews noted above. Both companies were able to achieve significant returns on investment, adopt leaner approaches to delivery and didn’t compromise on quality or compliance.
The software’s features, such as centralized product data management, workflow automation, improved collaboration, enhanced quality control, and scalability, make it an ideal solution for businesses of all sizes. So, if you are looking for a PLM tool that can help your organization achieve greater efficiency, reduce costs, and improve customer satisfaction, PTC Windchill is definitely worth considering.
Contact us here if you need advice on choosing a PLM for your business.
