CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
6 February 2007
Implementation Investments
DesignShare T 2.0 Making Big Strides
Actify Inc. is making headway with its recently released DesignShare 2.0 product. A collaboration solution for manufacturing information workers to communicate all product information including 2D and 3D, DesignShare reduces collaboration expenses and project cycle time, among many other cost and time saving benefits. Actify's SME customers have experienced great success with their deployment of DesignShare, providing an enterprise-wide solution for digital design collaboration.
IBF-Automotive FRUA Ltd., a German based tier two and three automotive and medical instrument supplier, recently implemented DesignShare and has already seen improved communications with manufacturing, resulting in 20% reductions in design review iterations, and 15-30% reductions in manufacturing time. "Before implementing DesignShare, our engineering data was only accessible internally and via VPN. There was no revision/version control, or workflow, and files were being duplicated or changed, and manufacturing was not being informed, or were using the wrong version to produce the parts," said Mr. Hans-Joachim Franze, Managing Director, IBF-Automotive. "Now with DesignShare, all our project data is accessible internally and externally through a web portal, and we have revision/version control of the design data, allowing various departments to work and communicate more effectively and efficiently."
Ronart, another DesignShare customer and a first tier supplier of body stamping dies to automotive industry giants like DaimlerChrysler, Honda, and General Motors, were seeking a business solution for accurately sharing data worldwide. "With a potential joint venture with a division of one of the world's largest automotive companies half-way around the globe, we were desperate to find a solution that would enable access to the latest/greatest design data through a web-enabled portal solution," said Gary Dorband, Director of IT. "Actify's DesignShare solution was exactly what we were looking for, and enabled us to address the major hurdle of how accurate data would be shared between the two companies."
Inalfa Roof Systems, one of the world's largest providers of vehicle roof systems and an early adaptor of the DesignShare solution, saved over $100,000 within 6 months in design development and supply chain costs by facilitating improved collaboration and teamwork across disparate teams, suppliers and locations. Inalfa Roof implemented the Actify DesignShare solution to better leverage their existing investment in Microsoft's SharePoint Portal Server Technology, and to build a secure supplier and customer portal, resulting in reduced cycle times, improved access to 2D and 3D design data, and increased productivity.
"The demand for a solution that allows companies to exchange disparate pieces of information and collaborate efficiently internally or on a global scale has increased and will continue to be of great importance," said Chris Jones, president of Actify Inc. "By leveraging the DesignShare solution which is based on Microsoft's SharePoint platform, our customers are taking their business to a whole new level by increasing collaboration efficiencies, speeding up time to market and improving profitability."
DesignShare and the entire Actify suite of products are designed to enable easy and secure access, communication and distribution of multiple 2D/3D CAD file formats, and other related documents through global enterprises and supply chains, without requiring expensive native CAD products or access to complex data management systems. This allows for paperless distribution and collaboration of complex design data so companies will realize cost savings and productivity gains in product design, procurement, quoting and estimation, manufacturing, sales, marketing and field support.
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