How does your company manage product data?

There are things that I see at every company without data management...files are stored out on a network drive, employees are not sure which version of a file is the latest and sometimes having to redo work, employees are working on the same assembly at the same time causing rework, manufacturing is working from print or a pdf without having the benefit of 3D, and finding out why a prior engineering change order was created involves finding a packet or file folder somewhere in a filing cabinet.  If you don’t have a data management system, you are probably shaking your head up and down right now knowing that some or all of these issues occur at your company, but you don’t have the time or money to fix them.

These are the reasons that Insight, product data management (PDM) tool, was created.  Insight licenses come free with Solid Edge Classic so only the installation costs money.  I can minimize downtime by working out the details on my virtual machine before I even go to install the software.  I have installed Insight for Solid Edge at companies with the issues discussed above and have seen the following major benefits at every company:

• Searchable history – search tools are extremely fast and easy to use
• Security – the right people get access to the right data at the right time – only allow manufacturing access to released data
• Single source of data – check in and check out policy
• Instantaneous access to information – as soon as a change is made - it is flagged as new in the system
• Seamless integration – do not have to learn a new software package 

Solid Edge Insight is based on Microsoft SharePoint, the leading business productivity solution that brings information management and access, collaboration and people-driven processes into a familiar environment where people do their work every day. The all new Insight for Solid Edge ST5 is Solid Edge Insight XT. Insight XT builds on 10 years of technical leadership and customer success in the area of Microsoft SharePoint-based CAD file management with Solid Edge Insight. This entry-level solution for managing Solid Edge files was first introduced in 2001, and has been deployed by more than 1,000 customers. Find out more about how Solid Edge customers have improved their CAD data management over the last 10 years.

Join me for a webinar on August 28, 2012 from 10AM-11AM EST covering Solid Edge Insight: Learn how to manage your Solid Edge data with software you already have.

You can register here.

Madison Rye

Application Engineering Manager

Ally PLM Solutions