However there was the problem of sharing and managing files and assemblies within and across the engineering department. There was no way to control access to the files and people were inadvertently overwriting other designer’s work. The engineering change process was paper based and time consuming and designers spent ages trying to find the correct files to work on.

Pro/ENGINEER was at the centre of our design and engineering department but we needed some system to manage this information. Damian Kitson, Group IT Director

Instantly Powerscreen could see that Pulse PLM offered the functionality and features that they needed. Fundamental to Powerscreen’s need was the integration and ability to work within the Pro/ENGINEER environment. The Pulse PLM suite offered this feature as well as item and document management, engineering change control, structure management and product configuration.

Now Powerscreen now has all it engineering data stored and managed by Pulse. Drawings, specifications and technical documents are all captured. Instead of unprotected and sensitive drawings residing in a network environment, all this data is held in a secure vault, with the Pro/ENGINEER drawings are available for viewing in a PDF format. An added benefit is that this information is available to everyone across the company.

We found that our designers were constantly being interrupted by people from our purchasing and marketing departments, who were looking for product specifications and sales drawings. Our engineers were becoming frustrated by the constant interruptions. Now all the information is available from Pulse PLM and as it is controlled and managed everyone in the company is sure that they are looking at accurate and up-to-date information. Pulse PLM is now the control and management tool we use for all our product related data. We intend to expand the solution, in the near future to manage all of the company’s documents.

Powerscreen have plans to expand the software with a view to providing a web interface enabling dealers and customers to access certain information and are happy to continue their relationship with Pulse.

The Pulse people know what they are doing. They have worked in the industry for years and know what we need. The service supplied by Pulse has been excellent and the implementation has ran very smoothly.

Recently Fintec has announced an Invest NI-backed investment by Swedish-based Sandvik AB. The cash injection will enable the company to develop a new range of products for the world market.

The partnership will see Fintec’s workforce grow to around 100 over the next three years and speed up the development of the Fintec range of mobile crushing and screening machinery. At the heart of their new product development will be Pulse PLM.

The net result of the investment by Sandvik and Invest NI will be an increased demand on Fintec to bring new product development to market, faster than our competition. The mobile crushing and screening market is becoming increasingly competitive and we see this investment in Pulse as money well spent. Eamon Higgins, Financial Director at Fintec

Terry McDevitt, the Engineering Manager at Fintec described what they were looking for when they went searching for a solution to their data management issues.

We were looking for a system that would not only manage our CAD and drawing files but a system that would manage and control our product data throughout the lifecycle of the product. We produce vast quantities of data from initial design stage throughout production and manufacturing, and even after the product leaves the factory we still need to capture any information and feedback from customers.

Pulse PLM provided an ideal fit to Fintec’s needs. After a successful implementation in the company’s engineering department, Fintec plans to roll out the product further to encompass other departments and mission critical systems. Getting better, more profitable products to market, faster than the competition is key to the success of any manufacturing company. Pulse PLM Suite is a key building block in Fintec’s bright future.

Finlay has multiple product lines with each product having 1000’s of parts and assemblies. Implementing new designs and changes are necessary in the competitive business world. Ensuring these changes are carried out fast and keeping track of design changes to all these items is serious business.

We had a great design team using the latest in 3D modeling software. But we were still using paper based systems for some of the most crucial tasks, like engineering change control. Through no fault of their own our designers were not being totally productive, they were spending more time searching for information and chasing paper than they were designing machines. Tony Devlin, Engineering Manager

Finlay purchased Pulse PLM during 2001 and has been delighted with the results. Pulse PLM uses a familiar Microsoft Windows interface and common functions like drag and drop, cut and paste. Users were trained in a few days and were productive almost immediately. Pulse PLM Suite is a one-stop shop for all the engineers’ information needs and works within the Pro/ENGINEER environment.

Pulse PLM provides the correct information to those who need it, in an organised way. Allowing them to control the information, putting it where it needs to be, finding it quickly, easily and efficiently.

Finlay also purchased the Manufacturing Integration. Once a machine has been designed in Pro/ENGINEER the bill of material is automatically exported into Pulse PLM. The process can stop here and various reports can be produced. However Finlay were running the Sage CS3 (Line 500) program for all their accounts and stock recording and needed the live link between Pulse PLM and Sage CS3® (Line 500), so that there would be continuity between the two systems.

McHale Engineering have invested heavily over the years in state of the art production facilities including laser cutting and robotic welding to streamline production. They have also invested in Pro/ENGINEER® as their 3D CAD software and Syspro® for all their accounting and ERP needs. McHale were using a file management system to manage their ProE data but were not happy with its performance and some aspects of functionality. They began the search to update their data management systems.

After some time McHale had narrowed down the list of possible solutions to two. PDMLink from PTC and Pulse PLM from Pulse Systems. After extensive demonstrations and testing McHale chose Pulse PLM.

Speed was a crucial factor in our decision. Retrieving models from the old system was very slow. Engineers would often leave their work stations while an assembly was being pulled from the server. In talking with other customers using Pulse PLM we believed that Pulse PLM could improve this download time. Now that we have gone live we can’t believe the improvement. With the old system an assembly would take over 20 minutes to retrieve, now with Pulse this is down to 2 minutes. James Heaney, the Design Office Manager at McHale’s

Phase one of the roll out involved McHale using Pulse PLM to manage their engineering change process and the final step in Phase 1 was the integration of ProE, Pulse PLM and Syspro (supplied by Information Engineering Group IEG Ltd).

Pulse were able to demonstrate integration with Syspro and this was a key requirement for McHale. We wanted part and BoM data entered by the engineers in ProE to be transferred to Syspro and we also wanted others outside of engineering to create part data in Pulse and for this to be transferred in real time into Syspro. Pulse’s relationship with Syspro gave us the confidence and reassurance that not only would the current integration work well but that future releases of Syspro would also be covered. Brian Moran, Financial Director at McHale

McHale plan to roll out further modules of Pulse PLM Suite to encompass the after sales service management for their farm equipment. Giving McHale the ability to manage their products throughout their lifecycle from design through to in field service. McHale have indeed got their PLM needs ‘all wrapped up’.

In 1986 after extensive research and prototype development work, the Moffett Mounty truck- mounted forklift was launched. The Mounty is a revolutionary 3 wheel forklift which is transported at the rear of a truck. Since then it has rapidly achieved world-wide market dominance. Moffett Engineering has achieved many accolades over the years for engineering excellence . Most recently, the company won the prestigious ‘Irish Exporter of the Year’ award, with 95% of production exported to over 40 countries across five continents. After years of family ownership the company is currently owned by Finnish company Partek Cargotec.

Moffett have an engineering department of around 15 people using both Pro/ENGINEER and AutoDesk’s Mechanical Desktop. They purchased Pulse PLM primarily to manage and store the drawing files being produced by these 3D drawing packages. Now, in addition to storage, version and release control, Moffett are managing just about all forms of product data through Pulse PLM Suite.

What we like most about the Pulse system is it’s integration with Pro/ENGINEER and Mechanical Desktop. The Pulse system has become an essential part of our working environment because it fits so easily into our drawing packages. Our engineer’s required very little training and were productive using the Pulse system in a matter of hours. Kevin Turnbull, Engineering Manager with Moffett Engineering

Pulse PLM Suite is fast becoming the central software system for the company’s operations. Moffett are now enjoying the benefit of being able to enter information only once at the initial design stage. From here the information flows through to all aspects of the design and manufacturing process. This reduces time wasting re-keying of data and makes the information available across the enterprise.