Pulse Technology System’s Managing Director, Damian Rafferty credits the hard work of the staff at the company for the positive growth over the past number of years:

We are delighted to be included in the prestigious Deloitte Fast 50 Awards. This is our first year to be included on the list and the award is due to the hard work of our development team. They have created an innovative suite of software products that fits the needs of growing manufacturers.

The Fast 50 programme, now in its ninth year in Ireland ranks the fastest-growing technology companies in Ireland. This year, there were 17 companies from north in the ranking. The average annual growth rate of the 50 winning companies was 460%.

Announcing the winners of the Technology Fast 50 programme, David Coates, Associate Partner with Deloitte, Belfast said:

Congratulations to our 2008 Fast 50 winners – their success is indicative of the innovative technology companies present in Ireland. To have 16 new companies in the awards is a true sign of the talent and creative thinking that is present in the technology industry in Ireland. It is this innovation and fresh thinking that will ensure Ireland’s continued success in this competitive industry.

The awards took place in the Guinness Storehouse on October 16th. Industry figures speaking at the event included Jim Breen (CEO, Pulse Learning), John McElligott (Director of Strategy and M&A, eBay Global Classifieds) and David Tansley (Partner, Technology, Media and Telecommunications, Deloitte UK). Details of the final Technology Fast 50 ranking list are available to download at www.fast50.ie.

Pulse PLM Multi Site is a recent addition to our suite of products and allows companies to safely share data across disperse project teams. Sending only the delta chage to the file over to the replicated vault means that network is minimised and changes are seen instantly on the other side. This tool will allow us to target businesses with multiple sites and allow us to grow our already impressive customer base. Damian Rafferty, Pulse Systems

Further information can be found at the Pulse Systems web site or by calling Pulse Systems direct.

The management teams of both Fintec and Extec have vast knowledge of the industry and both companies also possess the most modern manufacturing facilities in the UK. Fintec and Extec will continue to manage their businesses as normal until such times as the new Sandvik management team properly assess the strengths and weaknesses of both companies. These 2 acquisitions provide a very strong base for Sandvik to continue to build on for further expansion into this growing segment of the construction industry.

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.

Microsoft .NET Developers

We currently have vacancies for Microsoft .NET software developers. If you are an enthusiastic programmer who is confident they can contribute positively to our small team, please contact us now. Situated in centrally in Northern Ireland, we are just 30 minutes from Belfast, just off the M1 motorway. Applications and requests for further information can be sent to info [at] pulseplm [dot] com.

We look forward to welcoming new members on board.

Pulse Connect is a key solution within the Pulse PLM Suite of applications. With continuing pressure on organisations to shorten time to manufacturing, the key challenge is to extract important design information from CAD systems and post that to ERP systems in real time. Pulse Connect enables automatic model exporting, saving time re-keying information and ensuring accuracy and consistency between systems.

Pulse Connect provides companies the ability to extract important part and bill of materials data from their CAD system and to compare this data to information that already exists within their ERP system. The ability to export and import bill of materials data in XML or spreadsheet format exists within most CAD and ERP systems, however the ability of Pulse Connect to visually compare the data before it is posted to the ERP system is a key distinction. Damian Rafferty, Pulse Systems Managing Director

The Pulse Connect solution is currently available for the following CAD applications: Pro/ENGINEER, AutoDesk Inventor and Mechanical Desktop, SolidWorks and SolidEdge.

The Pulse Inventor Integrator compliments our other collaborative design integration offerings, including AutoCAD and Mechanical Desktop. These integrations enable companies using Autodesk solutions to easily manage and control their 2D or 3D design data and streamline the release to manufacturing. Companies need to stay one step ahead of their competition and deliver quality products at the highest speed. Shortening design cycle time is the key to survival. Damian Rafferty, Pulse Systems Managing Director

Inventor Integration is a key solution within the collaborative design enabling Pulse PLM Suite. With continuing pressure on organisations to shorten product development cycles, the key challenge is to extract important design information from CAD systems in a form that enables it to be distributed and used by all departments across your workgroup and extended enterprise. Inventor Integrator allows for the automatic extraction of Autodesk Inventor attributes to populate Pulse PLM Suite attributes, saving time re-keying information and for accuracy and consistency between systems.

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.

The two firms are working jointly to solve a key issue facing many manufacturing companies, namely the transferring of Parts and Bill of Materials data from various CAD systems directly into their ERP.

The Pulse PLM Suite product provides a seamless integration to multiple CAD systems, including Pro/ENGINEER, Inventor, SolidWorks, AutoCAD and Mechanical Desktop. With the new Pulse PLM Suite / Syspro set-up, designers can now simply export part and bill of materials data from whatever native CAD system they are using directly into Syspro to replicate that data for wider company use.

The information contained in a company’s CAD system is an invaluable resource, and sometimes the success or failure of a business can revolve around its designs and associated data. Making changes to those designs, controlling the changes and communicating them throughout a company is therefore a critical process. Our solution represents a major cost saving for businesses, because not only does it unlock and transfer information from the CAD system directly into Syspro in real-time, but the transfer process avoids costly and error-prone re-keying in of data. Howard Joseph, Sales Director of McGuffie Brunton

Pulse Systems and McGuffie Brunton are enjoying their first success with the new venture after signing up Extec Screens and Crushers Ltd., manufacturers of the world-renowned range of mobile crushers, screeners and shredders.

As we have already found out, there is definitely demand for this type of type of CAD/ERP integration. It gives us a better way to market, especially in the industrial equipment and machinery market sector. Colin Rafferty, Pulse Systems Business Development Manager

The Pulse solutions are linked to Syspro using e.NET architecture and provide customers with a complete life cycle management solution that reduces product design time, brings down time to manufacturing and improves profitability at various stages throughout product lifecycle.

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.