PDM recommendations

Ryan,

Windchill does have a WGM for Solidworks, and from my research concerning other PDM software working completely with Pro/E files, it would appear that Windchill is still the best bet.

Altho you may want to check out Aras software too: http://www.aras.com/

I have never used it, but it looks interesting.

-marc

<u>http://www.linkedin.com/in/marcdebower</u>

Have you considered PTC's Windchill ProductPoint solution (http://www.ptc.com/products/windchill/productpoint/)?

This was developed as a low cost PDM solution for small companies. It currently supports Pro/ENGINEER, Mathcad, and AutoCAD; and Solidworks and Inventor will be available soon.

There is even a customer case studybeing presented atPTC/USER (<u>http://www.ptcuser.org/2010/windchill.html</u>)titled: "ProductPoint: So Easy a Caveman can do it"

Pro-E family tables can be issues for many PDM software packages, therefore evaluate your models and etc to make sure that you don't have to change your entire design department just to add a PDM package. Also you get what you pay for is very true on this. Many customers can tell you stories on how they went the cheap route only to go back and spend more to just to have the functions they need. I know for a fact that Windchill will handle your requirements. Your main focus needs to be ROI, security, and how easy it will be to customize if needed.

Good luck

Eric Mills

Design and Project manager

http://www.rapidoconsulting.com

eric.mills@rapidoconsulting.com

John,

Would you be willing to expand on what drove you to change? We're currently on WF3 with Intralink 3.4 and evaluating our options. We are a small company, and are mostly interested in data management, as opposed to lifecycle management. We also are not necessarily interested in using a PDM system for our change management. I would be interested, and I'm sure many others would, too, in hearing your experiences with Aras vs PDMLink.

Thanks.

In Reply to John Frankovich:

We currently use Aras and it is an interesting tool, I will agree. We use it for our CMII change management process. However, we had to spend a lot of time and money to make the "built in" CMII change process usable in the real world. We thought we would get to a point where we used it as a true PLM system and perhaps even a PDM, but that didn't happen. The CAD integrations are all third party so that was a concern as was the growing cost incurred on necessary customization. We've ultimately moved to PDMLink and are exploring the move of our change process from Aras to PDMLink.
I have seen some interesting tools built on its framework by IT departments with the time, skill, and wherewithal to get it done. And in the right situation I think it can be a very good option for tying disparate systems together or providing a tool where there are none. It just isn't the panacea. If you are small, in need of more than just a PDM, and can be disciplined about managing CAD as if they are just documents, I think you could get by mostly OOTB. If that is not your reality, then I would stick to a dedicated PDM.

John Frankovich
The GSI Group LLC

Sometime in the last couple of weeks I got an email about CheckOut 5.2. I don't know anything about it, but it looks like it's only a data management program.

Here's the link to their website http://www.hcs-checkout.com/index.html. You indicated in another reply that you were only interested in data management so this might be an alternative.

Best Regards,

Don Duncan

Applied Engineering Services, Inc.