Thawing out WindChill

Parametric Technology Corporation is a large vendor of CAD systems, whose core product, proE, has some 28,000 customers. A traditional 3-tier client/server product, it is functionally mature (more or less) and has achieved as much penetration of its target industries (aerospace, high tech, and electronics) as it is going to get. With sales of $928.4 million last year, that’s no mean feat, but Parametric would still like to grow at the rate that’s expected for software companies.

Its bid for growth is a new product, Windchill. This all-Internet product was announced some three years ago, at the beginning of the e-commerce craze.

The core idea of Windchill is a good one: to make engineering drawings created on a proprietary CAD tool (such as proE) available to anyone over the Web, even if they don’t have the CAD package. To do this, one needs a visualization tool, one that can "read" drawings produced by CAD tools and display them on a browser.

The applications of a visualization tool are many. One can move provisional design ideas forward to marketing or to the end consumer and get reactions before everything is etched in stone. You can move them backward to industrial engineering or to suppliers, who can help the engineer to use cheaper parts or make the design more manufacturable.

With typical software company ambition, PTC sold Windchill as a full-scale collaborative design package. It was a vision sale, and the purchasers were companies like EMC that were seeking a competitive edge.

Two years, however, have now gone by, and visionary buyers are scarce in this economic climate. It is not surprising, therefore, that both the Windchill organization and the Windchill product are now going through some changes.

The Product

The core Windchill product, now in Version 6.0, has some forty modules. These modules fall into three broad areas:

• Document management (vaulting)
• Workflow
• Visualization

Windchill is a "net-native" application, so any of these functions can be performed over the Internet and, with appropriate management of roles and permissions, between companies.

Value

Inter-company, over the Internet, the benefits are roughly the same. They include:

• Disciplined development, through rigorous use of version control and approvals (same as intra-company, but harder to manage)
• Rapid development, through reuse of previous designs (same as intra-company, but harder to manage)
• Application of higher-level skills, because more skilled people are brought into the process (even more true of inter-company, collaborative design)
• Faster time to market, because suppliers are more involved (more available with inter-company, collaborative design)
• Lower component cost, because suppliers can suggest modifications (more available with inter-company design)
• Greater manufacturability, because suppliers can modify parts for manufacturability (more available with collaborative design)

Unfortunately, with the core Windchill product, companies attempting to gain these benefits took a long time to do so because of the time it took to build applications from the toolset.

Assessment

POSITIVE: Companies that see a clear benefit to sharing drawings in a structured way with people not ordinarily included in the process may well be able to get benefit from Windchill’s combination of net-readiness, workflow, and visualization tools. Two prerequisites: have pro/E or some other compatible CAD system as the source of the documents and don’t expect the people viewing the documents to be doing changes in their systems. Companies who see a potential benefit in simple sharing of CAD documents should recognize that the costs of building from a toolkit can easily overwhelm the benefits. The most likely buyers would be those who can use ProjectLink or SupplyLink.

NEGATIVE: The core differentiator for Windchill is its ability to present engineering drawings to people who have only a browser. This is an important capability for some businesses, but it is only one of many capabilities needed to set up a full-fledged collaborative design process. Companies who want to start with this visualization capability and get the rest from PTC as it is developed should recognize that development so far has been slow and thought leadership has been limited. To reduce risk, look carefully at current implementations of the new products.

BOTTOM LINE: Companies whose needs in the collaborative design space closely match Windchill’s capabilities should consider the product. These will probably be companies that have are capable of setting up and imposing a structured review process and companies that require browser-based visualization.

A longer version of this report is also available.

For other PLM company assessments, see our archive.