The LiveWorx team interviewed Nirmesh Jain, PLM Program Manager, at Ingersoll Rand about his upcoming session under the “Design” content track. Read more to find out how Nirmesh was steadfast on solving some of Ingersoll Rand’s consolidation of PLM systems, best practices in change management and what you can look forward to learning in his session “One PTC Windchill PLM: Ingersoll Rand’s Successful Journey”. Manufacturers with many engineering and production teams – distributed among many worldwide locations – may wish to heed these hard-won words of advice:
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The Challenge
Having one PLM platform, for shared use by all teams, is better than having many.
I write this from experience. Over the past five years, I’ve helped guide Ingersoll Rand’s consolidation from five different PLM systems to PTC Windchill alone. Today PTC’s PLM platform is very close to serving as our single source of product truth.
I’ll tell of this experience in PLM process improvement – and the key lessons we’ve learned from it – in a case-study presentation, “One PTC Windchill PLM: Ingersoll Rand’s Successful Journey,” at LiveWorx 2016 in Boston on June 6-9.
You may know of Ingersoll Rand, but you may not realize how many market-leading products we provide. Our brands include Club Car golf carts; Thermo King temperature control systems; Trane heating, ventilation, and cooling systems; American Standard heaters and air conditioners for the home; and ARO fluid handling equipment. We also make compressors, pumps, tools, and more under our own Ingersoll Rand name.
Our “one PLM” vision is to be able to “Design Anywhere, Build Anywhere.” And indeed we manufacture our products in 50 plants around the globe. Ingersoll Rand has many more engineering and marketing offices, warehouses, and repair centers in strategic sites worldwide. Yet this wide diversification has complicated our PLM challenge.
Hurdles to Overcome
Within Ingersoll Rand, we had, until recently, some 30 different change management processes. Silos abounded. Teams generally did their own work in their own ways. There was much duplication of data, and an engineering or production team in one location found it hard to leverage the product insights of our other teams elsewhere.
There were supply chain challenges too. For example, the same bolt used in 15 different plants might be ordered by 15 different purchasing teams from 15 different vendors.
But we were determined not to let these hurdles hold us back. We want all of our teams, everywhere – from China to the Czech Republic, from Indiana to India – to be able to work together seamlessly to optimize the design and manufacture of our products.
In the general realm of the Internet of Things (IoT), we also want to use the insights gained from in-the-field use and service of our products to help drive product design improvements in the future.
All of this requires having a single, integrated PLM platform – PTC Windchill – for cross-team, cross-location, and cross-function collaboration throughout Ingersoll Rand.
Phased Rollout
One PLM at Ingersoll Rand has been a methodical process. In the first stages, we focused on alignment. Teams met early and often. We identified our main challenges, set priorities, and agreed on methodologies – in a regular cadence of program planning meetings. This was crucial to our success. Teams could see steady progress to our goals.
Deployment has been equally careful. We’ve rolled out the common PTC Windchill platform in phases. First we tested and tweaked in a few locations, so we could then move confidently on a larger scale. Our most recent phase deployed more factories than the first three phases combined. We’re now about 90% integrated with “one PLM.”
PLM consolidation helps Ingersoll Rand achieve three organizational objectives:
- Growth through innovation. One PLM helps break down the silos to let all teams build on each other team’s ideas. This creates a continual value-adding chain of product design enhancements. Our customers get better products faster.
- Operational excellence. One PLM provides all teams with easy access to the latest product information. Data is more complete, accurate, and consistent. This minimizes project delays and frees up our engineers for creating new solutions and value.
- A progressive, inclusive, diverse culture. Working together effectively advances the accomplishments of all of our engineering and production teams, no matter where they are in the world. At Ingersoll Rand, we all succeed when everyone succeeds.
Better Products Faster
Here’s the bottom line: With one PLM, our customers get better products faster. We earn customer preference, retain and grow their business, and increase our sales and profit. This extends Ingersoll Rand’s leadership in our highly competitive markets. As for our worldwide employees? They reap team and individual rewards from our overall success.
I’ll tell more, with plenty of Q&A, at my One PLM presentation at LiveWorx in June.
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