Common Toolsets

Standardizing on Pro/ENGINEER® laid the foundation for our product data strategy. As ITT Fluid Technology Vice President and CIO Dan Vantucci says, Pro/ENGINEER is a “not-wrong” answer. In other words, although there are no "right" answers for everyone in the organization, there are certainly wrong ones. Companies that purchased and standardized on CAD products that went out of business, were phased out by several software company acquisitions, or were simply inadequate know what I mean. We know Pro/ENGINEER works and, broadly speaking, that it never fails to assist us in completing a project. Oh yes, in some rare instances, it makes it very difficult, but there is always a workaround or two (see Pro/PHOTORENDER images below).

Examples of Bell & Gossett (top) and Goulds (bottom) Brands pumps

While Pro/ENGINEER is currently installed in all major ITT Fluid Technology and ITT Motion and Flow Control locations, usage varies widely across sites. Issues remain with culture, training, network infrastructure and the plain fact that not enough new designs are originated in Pro/ENGINEER. We are very encouraged, however, that many units are starting to take greater advantage of other Pro/ENGINEER modules such as Pro/PLASTICS™, Pro/NC™, Pro/PIPING™ and Routed Systems Designer. Expanding the use of these capabilities will further enhance the value of the tools to the end customer.

Pro/INTRALINK® is also installed at most sites to manage and facilitate the sharing of Pro/ENGINEER files. Transition issues related to legacy systems still exist at many sites, although they should become less and less problematic as more designs are created using PTC products.

As we continue to develop and integrate common toolsets for product data, e-commerce and transaction systems, we see improvements in data integrity and user operability. Some of these efforts are based on off-the-shelf technology and some require automation and/or customizing.

Starting with Pro/INTRALINK

The following example illustrates how we used Pro/ENGINEER and Pro/INTRALINK to enable the beginnings of our Single Source Data vision. In this case, Foundry–Engineering: Manufacturing Integration, Ashland Operations (IPG-Ashland) integrated its product data with ITT Engineered Valves (EV)—an entirely different type of business in a different value center.

IPG-Ashland, located in Ashland, PA, used Pro/INTRALINK to directly access EV’s Pro/ENGINEER models and drawings vaulted in Lancaster, PA. It is important to note that IPG-Ashland was the first company to complete a production implementation of Pro/CONVERT to migrate from Pro/PDM to Pro/INTRALINK back in 1998 (see Pro/files Summer 1999). EV, on the other hand, implemented Pro/INTRALINK from scratch but in our first file replicated environment. Using this topology, EV’s main site in Lancaster can seamlessly share the same (Single Source) data with its remote sites. Using this environment, Ashland users collaborated with EV engineers to enhance the casting of parts with solidification software and create fully associative Pro/NC models. They went on to use various Pro/ENGINEER modules to complete the fixture design.

Pro/INTRALINK Topology and Electronic Vault (click to enlarge)

What is really remarkable is that, as the tool paths were being created, NC code produced, and post processors modified, all the information was stored back in EV’s vault for future access. Not only did EV get a finished part (that it could arguably get from any reputable supplier), but it also received all the data (the Pro/ENGINEER model including tool paths, Vericut simulation files, and post processor files) to manufacture the part at one of its own sites at some future date. EV could even choose to collaborate with another ITT location with Pro/INTRALINK and Pro/NC. This was all completed using an internal and secure network, since information integrity is very important and these models capture the entire design intent!

We learned many valuable lessons from this experience. The first is that efficiently integrating with a supplier—whether internal or external—is hard to do paperless, but the benefits more than make up for the challenges. Another is that the Windchill® Global Engineering Change System (a related but as of yet unintegrated application, discussed below) deployed by EV should be expanded to include the manufacturing site. We also learned that we should leverage our NC simulation tools (in this case, CGTech's Vericut software) to effectively communicate manufacturing intent to the design engineers before metal is cut. This would serve to streamline the process. The most important lesson, however, is that Single Source Data can extract additional value out of our internal manufacturing capabilities, while at the same time leveraging our significant capital investments.

Was the experience perfect? No. Are there still issues? Yes. This project was tough procedurally and technologically, as well as culturally. The good news is that we learned from every obstacle and we continue to make it better. Even when the obstacles seem large at times, they are modest compared with the value that this kind of product data integration can bring to a global enterprise.