Pro/INTRALINK Advisor


	Pro/INTRALINK Advisor

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	What’s New in Windchill 9.0: Process Matters “What!? Manufacturing wants to change it now?!” “We can’t start making our technical illustrations until the design is final.” “It’s tough to keep information organized for all of my partners and suppliers.” Have you said any of these things before? These issues might represent some of the many pains you feel as you navigate the choppy waters of product development. In some way, these problems share a common bond: they all represent a breakdown in some sort of process. Regarding the importance of process, a wise man once said “If you can’t describe what you are doing as a process, you don’t know what you’re doing.” The man was W. Edwards Deming, one of history’s leading thinkers in matters of industrial science and manufacturing. Deming’s is an extreme statement for sure, but perhaps there’s something to it. Since the concept of “process” is so pervasive in product development, it demanded and received some attention from PTC. In fact, the enhancements of Windchill 9.0 have been planned with process in mind. Specifically, Windchill 9.0 helps customers make improvements to key product development processes. - Manufacturing Process Management. With this release, PTC introduces Windchill MPMLink, which enables simultaneous development of product designs and manufacturing process plans to eliminate miscommunication issues and shorten development cycle time. - Change and Configuration Management. Windchill 9.0 introduces additional product configuration capabilities through a new configurable user interface that streamlines many daily tasks. Change Management capabilities have been increased to offer improved support for ECN’s without requiring ECR’s, change modification tracking, and manufacturing variances. - Detailed Design. Pro/ENGINEER data management capabilities have been further refined since the introduction of Pro/INTRALINK 8.0. You’ll hear more about those in a separate blog. Windchill also more consistently integrates with other MCAD tools, using the Workgroup Manager for Pro/ENGINEER as a framework. - Variant Design and Generation. Windchill PDMLink 9.0 lets you establish a generic product platform with embedded logic, and then spawn validated product variations from it to meet customer-specific requirements - Design Outsourcing. Windchill 9.0 improves its replication capabilities with “predictive caching,” which means the replica server (now called the File Server) “learns” and adapts, setting rules based on user behavior. There are also new role-based user interface capabilities. - Technical Publications. Windchill ProjectLink 9.0 now understands the notion of dynamic documents created by Arbortext Editor And that’s not all! There are many other fundamental capabilities that span all processes. Want some examples?: - Many common operations have proven to take 50% fewer mouse clicks than in Windchill 8.0. Some key enablers of these usability improvements are better collection tools and “smart paste.” - ProductView Lite 9.0, the embedded visual collaboration capability of Windchill has an entirely new use interface and some HUGE performance improvements. E.g., It loaded a 11,000 part customer assembly on a laptop in under 20 seconds - This release also offers enhanced reporting capabilities based on Cognos 8. Out-of-the box there are reports on change management activities, user task status and project progress. So, whether you’re keen on taking a process approach, just looking for big new features, or want a mix of both, Windchill 9.0 has something for you.

Tom Shoemaker
VP of Solutions Marketing

Tom works on product marketing for PTC's Windchill and ProductView solution families. Prior to joining PTC in 1992, Tom worked as a Process Engineer for Teradyne in Boston. Free time is spent in search of the perfect beer and in thinking of creative ways to annoy Red Sox and Patriots fans.


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