Steve Ammann from Hawkridge Systems contacted me after we had met at SolidWorks World and indicated he wanted to write a blog for our site. Steve is a CAD veteran having pulled a couple of stints at PTC first as an Application Engineer and then as a Channel Manager. He is currently working at Hawkridge as a specialist in PDM sales for the Enterprise PDM product. I certainly respect Steve's opinions and perspective on things and appreciate him taking the time to share his thoughts on small business product development requirements. When he discussed this topic with me and was talking about some of the meetings he was having with these companies I was struck by how similar the conversations are to discussions I have with larger companies. It seems like things are converging as smaller companies seek to emulate larger ones with their product development methodologies. It makes sense but the challenge these smaller companies have is that they lack the infrastructure and resources larger companies have to manage their process.

After returning from SolidWorks World in Anaheim, where SolidWorks and their parent company, Dassault Systems, put on a really good show for the SolidWorks community, I was excited to continue a conversation with the folks at Zero Wait State, a longtime PTC partner after seeing them at SolidWorks World. Their presence was significant for the following reasons:

• They recognize that the SolidWorks community has reached a level of sophistication that requires their services
• They see that the Enterprise Data Management Technology offered by SolidWorks has the architecture to communicate with other enterprise systems in a straight forward manner.
• They are aware that many companies in the SolidWorks community are struggling with how to achieve challenging operational goals without having to spend big dollars on software and services

How about a reality check in the real world of product development? Last week, I was invited to present at a company in the Seattle area and see if they needed help. Turns out they are setting up global design sites and that is forcing them to revise their existing tools and processes to enable that level of collaboration. I have found that if you really want a reality check on whether you have a good product development system in place, try working closely with a partner or outside company. More often than not, the phrase, "well that's just how we do things here, it's not very efficient but that's our system" is heard over and over again.

So back to bullet point number one above, I was now talking to a SolidWorks customer with some challenging operation goals, and a product development tool set in place; SolidWorks, Agile PLM for change management and quality, and an ERP system.

As the conversation progressed, it was apparent that the functionality in the Enterprise PDM (EPDM) tool would keep the SolidWorks data under control, and that EPDM, with its relational Database and workflow, could talk to Agile. It was also apparent that Zero Wait-State, who understands EPDM and Agile intimately, was an important part of the solution.

Brings me to bullet point number two, the EPDM tool has the architecture to talk to tools like AGILE or ERP. With its complete understanding of the SolidWorks CAD data structure, you can have your source CAD data under control and then pass information triggered by workflow to tools like Agile PLM. This is what Zero Wait-State recognized. They also know that other Bill of Material or Manufacturing based PLM tools struggle with controlling native SolidWorks data, especially at the engineering level.

We were now at point of discussing the cost of the tools, the implementation, and maybe more importantly, the cost of ownership moving forward. Since the SolidWorks community grew up with "low cost 3D CAD, and ease of use" as its main value proposition, organizations that adopt SolidWorks want "a lot for a little, and easy to use and implement" in regards to any other SolidWorks technology. Relative to other data management tools, EPDM fits into this pricing and use model. EPDM has the architecture of more expensive tools with a Microsoft Windows Explorer interface for ease of use/adoption and an admin tool set that does not require a full time resource to manage configuration changes as the business needs change.