CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
May 29, 2007
Implementation Investments
Pivot International Streamlines Overseas Collaboration with PDMWorks Enterprise
Pivot International, a world leader in product design and development engineering services, has deployed SolidWorks PDMWorks® Enterprise product data management software to streamline its global contract engineering program. With PDMWorks Enterprise, the Kansas City company is designing better products and anticipating significant time savings by harnessing control of its CAD data.
Pivot International is a domestic product development firm with offshore tooling, procurement, and manufacturing services. It specializes in embedded electronic systems ranging from wireless communication products to handheld imaging systems and custom display applications. The company works concurrently on designs across international boundaries around the clock. The company holds 12,000 parts and assemblies as well as ISO manufacturing quality documents in its PDMWorks Enterprise system.
PDMWorks Enterprise is facilitating Pivot's concurrent design processes across multiple international sites. Prior to deploying PDMWorks Enterprise, Pivot International's design engineers took great pains attempting to ensure design changes carried across all affected parts and assemblies. Too often, however, engineers discovered they needed to check and recheck files to catch errors as parts went to production. Meanwhile, employees in Asia were spending two hours a day transferring large files from Pivot's Kansas City headquarters across slow Internet links.
"We've conquered these obstacles and have dramatically improved our accuracy, and productivity by deploying PDMWorks Enterprise," said Connie Gray, Pivot International's IT manager. "We're enabling our design engineers to always have the right design within reach and ensure revisions carry through all affected assemblies and products. With PDMWorks Enterprise, everyone is always on the same page working from the same files in the same vault. If you're working on a part, it automatically updates across all related designs. And you can't duplicate a part without ample warning."
Instead of requiring time-consuming bulk file transfers, PDMWorks Enterprise automatically replicates design files across every location and transfers only the changes. Pivot International has used PDMWorks Enterprise's open APIs to integrate with its manufacturing resource planning system, which manages part numbers and bills of materials. Better organized part and assembly files enable engineers to save money by incorporating established designs into other product designs. New workflow systems based in PDMWorks Enterprise automate the movement of design files from design engineer through project leader and quality reviews. In the future, Pivot International will extend PDMWorks Enterprise capabilities to their customers so they can review designs through a portal.
"Pivot International has a worldwide design-to-manufacturing structure that relies on efficient sharing of designs across hemispheres," said Rainer Gawlick, SolidWorks vice president of worldwide marketing. "PDMWorks Enterprise enables companies like this, with thousands of designs containing hundreds of parts each, to stay organized, execute with accuracy, and bring better products to market."
Pivot International relies on authorized SolidWorks reseller FISHER/UNITECH for ongoing software training, implementation, and support.
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