Implementing a new PDM Software

The previous articles I posted on this subject were intended to educate the reader on why you need a PDM package, and how to evaluate PDM packages so you can choose the right one to suit your needs, the needs of the company you work for, and the needs of others within your company that will be accessing your documents.

In this article I am going to review what you need to do to get that new PDM package up and running on your network so you can start controlling those documents.

Justification, Budget, Purchase.

Before you can make purchase, you need money.  To get the money, you need to justify why you want to spend $10,000’s of dollars for computer software to manage your CAD documents.  To start, we will take a look back at how we defined the need.  Here were the points I outlined.

1. How do you store multiple revisions of a single document?  If documents are stored with the same name in different directories, how can you ensure the correct revision of component is loaded with the parent document?  If documents are stored with different names, you have to reload the component, but that changes references in the parent document.
2. What revision of a component, belongs with a specific revision of a parent document?  There may be times when there is a need to access an older revision  of an assembly.  Without a data management software, how do you know you have the correct components loaded with the parent document?
3. A document was modified, but who changed it, and when?  You can look at the file properties to determine when the file was last saved, and who saved it, but this does not identify how many times the document was changed since it was created, and who did each of those changes.

Now it’s time to evaluate the effects these problems have on other areas of the company.

• Can you easily determine the correct revision of a component that was built for a specific machine that was assembled and sent to a customer?
• How difficult is it to find the correct revision of a component that was built 3 years ago, 6 years ago, etc…?
• If manufacturing were to receive the wrong revision of a drawing?  What is the cost associated with reworking or scrapping a production run (200 or more parts) made to the wrong print?
• If customer service (or the parts department) needed to send out a part to a customer.  What if they sent out a part made to an old revision of a print?  Now the customer has a part they cannot use, or the machinery does not work correctly because the wrong part is installed.  At this point, you may lose a customer.  How much does that cost?

At this point, you should be able to start adding dollar values to each of these issues, and others issues that may occur.  Then multiply this by how many times this happens in a year.  You will most likely end up with a dollar value that is larger than you expect.

If you already have a document management software, you also need to justify why you need to replace it.  In my case, our users lost confidence in the current/previous document management software that was in use, because of the problems we have been experiencing for years.

The use of a Document Management System can reduce these problems by providing a fast means of searching for the correct document you need, ensuring you get the document you need, and prohibit users from seeing any document they should not have access to.

At this point, you have an idea on how to justify your purchase of the PDM package you need.

Planning your implementation.

There never is, nor ever will be, a good time to implement a new piece of software.  Everyone in your department is working on developing new products, improving existing products, providing support for manufacturing, customer service, sales and marketing.  With all of this going on, when is the best time to implement a new PDM package?

Consider this, product documents is created or modified on a daily basis.  The longer you wait, the more documents (or document changes) will need to get moved into the new PDM vault when you get it installed  The longer you wait to get these documents onto, and managed by a PDM vault, you increase the risk of losing this documentation, or risk someone using the wrong version of a document.  These are risks you can do without, and you can avoid by implementing the new PDM package as soon as you can.

It looks like the best time to implement that new PDM package is now.

Planning the implementation of a new PDM package requires working closely with the vendor/reseller.  The people that will be directly involved in this implementation are:

• Vendor/Reseller technician or consultant.
• PDM Administrator(s).
• Corporate or department IS/IT support technician.

When you start planning the implementation, you need to consider the following:

• Schedules of persons listed above to determine availability for work to be completed.  You need to consider pre-planned vacations, consultant schedule with other customers, etc…
• Server purchase, setup and installation.  Plan about 3-6 weeks (depending on vendor) for the server.  This includes order placement, shipping time, setup, and on-site installation of the server.  The IS/IT department will most likely take care of this part of the implementation.
• Time needed to customize software to meet department/company needs.  This includes user/group rights, data cards, workflow, etc…  The PDM Administrator must have a complete understanding of all of the options here.  Especially with the workflow, because of all of the actions that can be controlled here such as changing variables, document transitions, email notifications, user/group rights to transitions, etc…
• Time needed to write document import tools/instructions to migrate existing data into the new PDM vault.  There is a lot of value in this step.  This step is the development of the tools need to move your existing documents into the new vault.  This stage alone will involve a lot of research and testing to ensure the tools can find the proper documents and place the documents into the correct location in the new vault.
• Training for PDM Administrators who need hands-on training on how to customize the software, including user/group setup and rights, Workflow creation and modification, folder and template setup, and customizing document data cards.
• Training for “Contributors” who need hands-on training for using the software, including searching for documents, changing document states, document check-in and check-out.
• “Viewer” training for anyone who needs to access the documents in the PDM vault.  This training needs to coincide with their work, and their participation in the document release process.

Test and Trial Period

Incorporate about 2-3 weeks for a “Test and Trial” period into your implementation timeline.  Use this trial period for the following:

• Develop, test and verify the results of the document migration tool.
• Encourage users to get hands on experience with the vault to test out various scenarios on a test vault that will eventually be removed.
• Fine-tune those workflows. You will need 2-3 meetings with engineering management and project managers to determine all of the procedures that need to be implemented into the workflows.  Also look at providing limited access transitions that bypass steps in the workflows for those ECNS that have been approved, but not checked-in to the old PDM package.  Make sure you test those workflows to verify they work as expected. 
• Write and test procedures on how people should be using the new PDM package.

Going LIVE!

When you first put together the implementation timeline, you made a commitment to have the new PDM package on-line by a predetermined date.  Before this can happen, you need to make sure all of the following has been completed and is ready to go.

• All customizations have been copied from the test vault into the new vault.  Pay special attention to data cards, templates, workflows, and any scripts that were written for the test vault.  Also look at and verify all file locations.
• All documentation is migrated from the old PDM software, or other places, into the new PDM vault.  Make sure this documentation is being moved into the proper states in the workflows.  You should have an idea from the test vault, how long this will take.  Based on the number of documents involved, and in an effort to minimize the impact on productivity within the department, you may need to do this over the weekend.  Before you start this migration, make sure you disable the check-in/check-out capabilities of the old vault before you start creating the migration tools/instructions.
• The PDM Administrator needs to have a high comfort level with customizing the software, understand how the PDM package is setup, how the workflows are setup, creating and modifying workflows, and resolving issues that may occur.  If you have multiple PDM Administrators, make sure all administrators know how everything is setup, but limit all changes to be completed by one PDM Administrator.  This helps reduce troubleshooting efforts down the road.
• The PDM Administrator also needs to make sure they have support resources that are ready to help them resolve issues that may occur.  These resources include corporate IS/IT technician, vendor/reseller consultant and customer support, and engineering management that has confidence in the PDM Administrators knowledge and skills to resolve issues as they occur.

When you have officially moved over to the new PDM vault, keep in mind that not everyone will be jumping in and using it right away.  Because of this, not all features will be used right away, and an unforeseen issue may not occur for several weeks.

As of my writing this article, the company I work for had “Gone Live” with the implementation of PDMWorks Enterprise about a week ago (early October 2008).  Everyone in the Engineering department understands that the implementation of this new PDM package is a learning experience for the users and the PDM Administrator(s).  Even though everyone has been trained, and has a working knowledge of checking documents in and out of the vault, there will always be some situations that require special handling.  An example of this is an ECN that was started before the new PDM vault was setup, and the revised documents do not exist in either vault.  In this case, the old revisions of documents need to be checked out of the new PDM vault, and the revised documents need to be checked in. Keep in mind that these steps may be different than what the user initially learned during training.  In these situations, the users need to know that the PDM Administrator(s) are available to guide them thru these special circumstances, and if necessary, they can create, or already have access to, special tools (Workflow transitions) that can handle these situations.

You could spend weeks trying to come up with all of the possible scenarios that users may run into, but no one can think of everything. Because of this, the PDM Administrator(s) needs to be comfortable with their own troubleshooting and problem solving capabilities to overcome any problems that may occur.

Good luck on your implementation!

Comments

[Patrick]

Lenny, Great insight for getting started with PDM. You have captured the basics of what is required here for any implementation and then the ultimate go live.

One of my favorite anlogies about implementing PDM is it is like a baseball game, one inning at a time and the game can go into extra innings too.

Look forward to the next update and good luck...

-Patrick