⎪ Computer-aided engineering ⎪ SA vehicle specialist adopts Windchill 11, the connected PLM solution be tracked and analysed to determine what MechChem Africa talks to productONE PLM solutions’ architect, might be causing failures and what action can Johan Strydom, and sales manager, Francois Du Toit, about the be taken to prolong life and avoid breakdowns. adoption by Paramount Combat Systems of PTC’s latest PLM In addition, real performance data can be fed back to the product designers for iterative solution, Windchill 11. product improvements. “The main role of the SLM, however, is n 2013, defence and aerospace com- Matador and planning for service,” he continues, “establish- pany, the , acquired and, first introduced in ing how this product is going to be maintained. a proudly South African design service 2011, of the Advanced At the starting point of this task is creating Iprovider specialising in the design of High-performance the service bill of material (SBoM). All the military vehicles and systems. “Bringing de- Reconnaissance Light bills of materials, (BoMs) – the engineering, sign specialists into our group means that we Aircraft (AHRLAC), to manufacturing and service BoMs – are all now have an in-house design capability that name but a few. created from the same set of product data, will strengthen our competitive edge and de- “The expanded de- originating from the CAD model itself,” he tells liver cutting-edge solutions,” said Paramount’s sign, engineering and MechChem Africa. head, Ivor Ichikowitz at that time. manufacturing entities have now been Windchill 11, which incorporates PTC In addition, data for the documentation Paramount Group has always been a local merged to form Paramount Combat Systems Navigate for better-than-ever connected- related to service and operation is also engineering house and manufacturer, with a (PCS),” Strydom tells MechChem Africa. ness, collaboration and integration capability. directly accessible from the PLM data. This host of successes: a family of armour-protect- “Windchill 11 is a step change in PLM enables the service operations manuals and ed vehicles including the Maverick, , PTC software a common thread development. As well as offering significantly parts catalogues to be automatically created, PCS’ designers started using PTC’s Creo de- enhanced integration, this PLM solution via a combination of Windchill Service Parts, Above: Windchill 11 can combine information from different sources to provide a targeted dashboard view. sign software – then known as Pro|Engineer strives to be smarter, better connected, com- ISODraw and Arbortext. (Source: PTC). Below: This PLM solution strives to be smarter, better connected, complete and flexible. – from its inception in 2000. Then, in 2004, plete and flexible,” says Du Toit. “It embeds it became the first customer in PTC’s Internet of Things (IoT) platform called PCS’ PLM add-on choices As well as streamlining to adopt PTC’s WindchilI product lifecycle ThingWorx, which incorporates integration With respect to Windchill ProjectLink, the service bill-of-materials, management (PLM) solution. Paramount has functionality via the PTC Navigate applica- Strydom says: “Paramount Combat Systems SLM’s key roles include: also been a user of both Creo and Windchill, tion,” he adds. had a joint venture with a customer in maintaining up-to-date ser- which makes for easy integration of historical Strydom continues: “Windchill 11 offers to build a vehicle locally. vice information; identify- engineering and design data. simple ways for non-regular software users ProjectLink was chosen to enable data to ing and managing product In 2015, just after the Paramount acqui- to get access to Windchill data – and the be securely shared between PCS and the changes; enhancing service sitions, the company added MPMLink and capability exists to use this data to realise IoT manufacturer.” information applicability; ProjectLink to its Windchill PLM suite, fol- type functionality.” Web-based ProjectLink enables col- and defining applicability lowed in late 2016 by Arbortext, ISODraw Through Integrate, users can pass PLM laborators to securely harness the talents and rules to make the most rel- Windchill 11 incorporates PTC Navigate for and PTC’s SLM offering. data into MES or ERP systems from several energy of the entire team – inside or outside evant service information better-than-ever connectedness, collaboration and Now, in 2017, Paramount Combat Systems major software OEMs. This gives an easier their firewall. By creating a virtual workspace, available. integration capability. became the first company in Africa to adopt way of integrating between design and the ProjectLink provides instant access to the In addition, with Arbor­ production/manufacturing, servicing, stock right product and project management in- text, authoring productiv- control and cost analysis functions that are formation at the right time, keeping the team ity is improved, centralised typically handled by ERP-type systems. In aligned, on track and moving forward. management of service in- addition, Windchill 11 can access data from “MPMLink, (manufacturing process man- formation enables the infor- all the commonly used design software for- agement) has added massive benefit in the mation to be organised in a logical, product- stay onsite to help clients to best-embed the mats: SolidWorks, Catia, NX, Autodesk and planning and documentation processes used centric manner, with ISODraw being used by software into their working practices,” Du Toit several more. in the manufacturing facility. It enables a the logistics team to create illustrations for tells MechChem Africa. “While Windchill PLM’s use is best suited seamless exchange of data between, for ex- these service manuals. “Our transformative purpose is to ‘Make to product planning and design data manage- ample, the design teams of the company to the “In general, the Windchill upgrade is be- African Products Great’, says Strydom. This ment, through add on tools such as MPMLink, engineers and then onto on the manufacturing ing very well accepted. At PCS, we have 40 drives us to build longstanding partnerships the manufacturing planning suite, design data teams,” Strydom suggests. licensed users and 20 are already regular us- with our customers based on fully under- managed through Windchill can now be easily “Because Windchill 11 enables manufac- ers who are happy with the new functionality,” standing their needs, both current and future, passed onto manufacturers for direct use,” turing process management (MPM) to be notes Strydom. and developing tailor-made solutions de- explains Strydom. “While this is not new, with done in sync with engineering, by sharing the “We expect training to be completed by signed to cater for each unique business case. Navigate we can make design data embedded same design data, it is possible to positively July/August of this year. Since the individual “Over the years, productONE and in Windchill available for viewing by MES or impact product cost, accuracy of manufac- technologies are not new, engineers only need Paramount have established a mutually ERP systems, for example, simplifying down- turing deliverables, and development cycle to become familiar with the integration as- beneficial relationship based on two-way stream processes,” he explains. time,” he adds. pects of the new version and to be introduced communication. Paramount brings industry Strydom adds: “A key advantage of going “The service lifecycle management (SLM) to the powerful new capabilities,” he notes. expertise and productONE brings product the IoT route is that you can have a digital twin component of Windchill is currently being The training approach adopted by pro- knowledge. This combination enhances the of a product operating in the actual world. This rolled out and, although Paramount users ductONE is to “target the current tasks” so customer experience and helps to build world allows the performance of the product to be are familiar with the standalone Apps, this that users get a real world experience of the class South African products that enable us to Paramount Group is a local engineering house and manufacturer with a host of successes including armour- monitored and compared to the intended is all now being brought into Windchill 11,” software. “We also offer adoption manage- more effectively and profitably compete in the protected vehicles such as the Mbombe 8, unveiled at the Africa Aerospace and Defence show 2016. design performance. This performance can Strydom reveals. ment services following training, where we global market,” Du Toit concludes. q

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