Creo System Admin. & Windchill System Admin.

[DamianCastillo]

I am posting this on both the Pro/E System Admin. forum and the Windchill Admin. forum.

I am both the Creo System Administrator and just recently the Windchill System Administrator. I wanted to know if my poisition is unique or if others are in the same situation as me.

I know each on their own can be a full time job but I manage a smaller group of Engineers and only 2 locations with 24 users total. I just started with Windchill and currently migrating data to it, so I don't know how this will work out in the end for me.

Is it possible to be the Creo and Windchill Administrator for a smaler group of users without loosing my mind? I seem to think I can accomplish it but wanted to hear from others who are in the same position.

Thanks

"Too many people walk around like Clark Kent, because they don't realize they can Fly like Superman"

[Lohbauer]

Damian,

Count me among the ranks of both CAD and Windchill Admin. The answer to your question is: You will lose your mind. Accept it and get on with the job. But yes, you will be successful.

We are also a relatively small site with a total of around 35 Engineering and Manufacturing CAD users and slightly larger number of ProjectLink users. We have a site here and in China. My goal is to effect a more comprehensive PLM solution path but currently we are more about nailing down processes than rolling out software. Having a small user base and a relatively new PDMLink system is a nice combination. Everyone is working together to get a feel for the system and understand how best to use these new tools

We contracted out our data migration from IntraLink 3.4 to PDMLink 9.1. That was the only way it would have gotten done, it was money well spent. In addition I’ve gotten to know many of the PTC Tech support engineers very well.

Best of Luck,

Bob Lohbauer

[MikeLockwood]

This has been our situation as well – a few guys that managed Pro/E and then took on managing Intralink 3.x, then have taken on managing Windchill.

But – It’s a HUGE step to take on Windchill, and I for one have had to give up pretty much all efforts to stay current on CAD.

We’ve also been fortunate to have a bigger user base and so a bigger admin team, with various education, knowledge and skills. Two of us went to a lot (40) of all-day Saturday Oracle classes for example, and have taken some classes in Java. There has been no way to do this job without spending a lot of hours at home playing with Windchill on a laptop in order to really understand a lot of things. But – It’s been a labor of love, and the satisfaction of being able to configure things the way you want is in proportion to the frustration of not understanding it at the beginning.

[HugoHermans]

Hi Damian,

No, you are not the only one. Our team is 4 people, we do CAD, CAM, CAE, etc. and PLM. In general, I'm the first interface to our internal clients for CAD and PLM, my colleague is doing CAM and CAM-related PLM. We have approx. 60 CAD and CAM users, and approx. 200 Windchill users, at 4 sites. But ... we work closely together with our VAR. So, when things are getting out-of-controle, they are my backup. Upgrades, deep system configuration, tuning and troubleshooting together with PTC is mostly done by them.
It all depends greatly what you want to do, and how far you want to customize the application?

Met vriendelijke groeten, Best Regards,

Hugo.

[SteveVinyard]

Hi Damian, I have seen many people in this position. Some fail and some succeed. Windchill is a technical program and having some sort of Techie background/personality is almost a requirement if you want to succeed. Otherwise it will see overwhelming and training will be difficult.

You will need formal and informal training to get Windchill working smoothly (happy users and efficient software). I don't recommend you first foray into Windchill be a migration unless you have copious amounts of time to do many test migrations followed by learning from your configuration mistakes after the fact and remigrating. If you can, get this done for you and do training up front as part of the package. They key is to identify how you leverage Windchill before you migrate because that could very well change how your migration goes.

Get formal and informal Windchill training. This means instructor lead training using PTC methods and tools but also, and maybe more importantly, get informal mentoring. This is usually webex/gotomeeting sessions with a consultant a few days a month for a couple of months after Windchill is live. (before is also important). Lots of value in the mentoring sessions, especially for new admins. The trainer can cover best practices, common mistakes, real world Gotchas and help you stay ahead of any user issues before they get bad. Failing to allocate funds for this will push out any ROI for Windchill much further than is necessary.

In the end, the more you dive in the better it gets, especially if your requirements aren't exactly crazy.




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Steve Vinyard
Application Engineer

[amansfield]

I'm in the same boat as well. We have about 35 - 40 users in several locations that I oversee.

If you are using Windchill for managing CAD data only, you can "set it and forget it" to a great extent, so it's possible to do the day to day business functions without investing a huge amount of time to it. You will probably spend a lot more time with user issues (can't check in, etc..) than with Intralink. Doing the system side of things is where it gets reallytricky: Windchill is much more complicated than Intralink and much more time consuming to do things like set up and maintain a test system and perform upgrades, which were fairly straightforward in Intralink 3.x.

In my experiance, CAD administration is essentially the same as it always was.

One of the biggest issues for a one-man show is "single point of failure". What happens when you take a vacation, or if you are no longer available for whatever reason?

CAD admins are easier to find as it's not unusual for an engineer / drafter to become an expert in the CAD software.

Windchill backup is more difficult: system support can be handled by an IT department, but finding a suitable backup for the business admin side of Windchill is not easy. The latter requires a mixture of skill sets that few people have: CAD software, programming, web technologies, SQL, operating system knowledge as well as a clear understanding of how Windchill works. Most of my colleagues treat Windchill as a necessary evil, but they don't really understand it.

[DamianCastillo]

I recieved a reply from many other people via. email who are also in the same situation. Everyone has a different levels of involvement and users to support but it seems that many people do both jobs without loosing their minds.

For the people who support many users and locations, it's more difficult to accomplish and they suggest support from other high end users you can appoint with various duties or to use Consulting services to supplement your efforts.

Most of the responses came from people who do both jobs with a decent amount of users and maybe two or more locations. It seems that you can accomplish both jobs but you will be busy and must be organized.

Thanks for all the feedback. It's nice to know I am not alone in trying to be the Administrator for both sides of the system.

"Too many people walk around like Clark Kent, because they don't realize they can Fly like Superman"

[Lohbauer]

Damian,

You have a knack for putting out thoughtful questions that generate good discussions. It helps to build the sense of community that makes this exploder the great resource it is.

Thanks,
Bob

[DamianCastillo]

Bob,

I know the people on these forums are brilliant and I always try to learn what I can from everyone. Sometimes it seems that some of us are out there on our own dealing with certain issues and it's nice to learn you are not the only one. The people here motivate me to take the challenge head on and provide tips on how to do it without going crazy along the way.

I like to ask open questions at times to see how others are doing things. The forum is great for asking specific questions to a problem but I think it's valuable to ask open questions to seek the knowledge and advice from everyone here.

Thanks

"Too many people walk around like Clark Kent, because they don't realize they can Fly like Superman"