Autodesk DM solutions gaining momentum – Are you falling behind?

As you may have read in some of our recent publications, engineering data management systems for Autodesk Inventor^® have very quickly become a “must-have” for Inventor users, rather than a “nice-to-have”. With Autodesk^® Vault now included as part of Autodesk Inventor, there is now absolutely no reason to go on struggling without the benefits of a system like this.

In the past six months, several Inventor customers have hired us to implement Autodesk Vault for the purpose of managing Inventor data, as well as other engineering documents such as AutoCAD^®, Microsoft^® Word, Excel, etc. Customers are realizing that without a system like Autodesk Vault, it is extremely difficult to manage Autodesk Inventor relationships, find and re-use drawings, models and assemblies, and have discovered that if they rename or move a file, the results are disastrous. We have concluded that a system like Autodesk Vault is a necessity for Autodesk Inventor users, especially where more than one end-user is concerned.

In late May, Hagerman conducted an on-line webex presentation of Autodesk Vault for our customer base. Over 100 people attended this session from over 80 customer sites. This fact alone shows the level of interest and need for this functionality. We hosted another Autodesk Vault webex in late June, and more will likely be scheduled for later dates, due to the popularity.

In addition to Autodesk Vault, Autodesk’s “full” data management solution, Autodesk^® Productstream^TM, has taken off in the first half of 2005. In April alone, Hagerman booked five orders for Autodesk Productstream projects. Autodesk Productstream is seamlessly integrated with Autodesk Vault, and allows customers to manage change processes (ECN, ECO) in an automated fashion, manages BOM data, and integrates with most modern ERP/MRP systems, eliminating the need for manual BOM data entry which is a major issue for many of our customers. Automating the engineering change process and the flow of data between engineering and manufacturing, purchasing, etc., provides tremendous benefits to our customers, such as:

• Guaranteeing proper revisions of drawings are used outside of engineering, which eliminates costly mistakes
• Enabling documents to flow from person to person for approval electronically instead of manually, eliminating the use of paper and greatly accelerating time-to-market (also allowing for regulatory compliance in some cases – ISO, QS, OSHA, etc)
• Eliminating the need for manual BOM data entry (Autodesk Productstream can automate the flow of BOM data between Autodesk Inventor and ERP systems), which often results in typing errors and adds quite a bit of overhead for many customers
• Giving users at remote sites access to data via the web

Autodesk has put a tremendous internal emphasis on the development and success of these data management products. Given the size of Autodesk’s customer base, their chances for widespread success are very good.

However, we fully realize that Autodesk’s data management solutions will not be the right solution for everyone. As most people know, Hagerman & Company also represents Cyco’s AutoManager Meridian^® and TeamWork^® lines of data management software and was in fact Cyco’s largest reseller in the world last year. Cyco’s products offer the Autodesk Inventor user similar capabilities, plus other capabilities to manage all types of company data and to tie together all company departments and locations. We would be happy to discuss the pro’s and con’s of both product lines in order to help you choose the best solution.

Hagerman & Company has the expertise to help customers implement engineering data management. The biggest mistake we have seen customers make is to attempt to implement Autodesk Vault or any other system like this without assistance. We have yet to see this work with good results. Hagerman has developed tried and true methods of implementing engineering data management.

Please contact your account manager to discuss these options. If the benefits of engineering data management, noted above, are interesting to you, please contact us so we can give you more details, and help you to see why many customers are moving forward with their implementations.

Don’t fall behind!