PLM software helps manage electronics development

A PTC - Parametric Technology (UK) product story

Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team Nov 9, 2007

Windchill PDMLink provides SEC with an engineering information exchange environment for product specifications, drawings and change management with its extended supply chain.

Samsung Electronics has selected PTC Windchill as its digital product development data repository to manage an integrated BOM of mechanical, electrical and software data across its globally distributed product development environment.

Windchill is the standard enterprise PLM solution at SEC because of its web-based support of key product development processes on a single technology architecture and execution environment.

SEC is a global company that provides digital products and services to the world market.

SEC first adopted 4500 seats of Windchill PDMLink in 2002 for the collaborative product development of moulds and printed circuit boards.

Windchill PDMLink, a core component of the PTC Product Development System (PDS), provides SEC with an engineering information exchange environment for product specifications, drawings and change management with its extended supply chain.

With the PTC PDS, SEC has optimised its product development processes and re-inforced the security of its design information, improved product quality and reduced development lead time.

Because of these measurable benefits with the PDS, the company has expanded its Windchill implementation to its LCD division.

SEC has also expanded the use of Windchill to its global software development organisations.

In its Software Information System (SIS) project, Samsung has connected thousands of software developers across divisions and geographic locations to improve development costs and quality through increased software design re-use.

The first key component of this project was to integrate multiple IBM Rational ClearCase software configuration management systems to Windchill using PTC's Ready for Rational certified Integration to Rational ClearCase, enabling visibility to software designs across divisions.

Second, Windchill provides a standardised approval process to turn software designs into re-usable software components.

Lastly, the solution provides a searchable catalogue of re-usable software components, allowing engineers to find re-usable designs easily instead of duplicating work done by other divisions.

The system can track how many times each component has been used, allowing greater management visibility into the success of their re-use initiatives.

Recently, SEC expanded its business partnership with PTC by implementing an additional 3600 seats of Windchill for its Bill of Materials (BOM) project, which is scheduled for completion in 2008 and ties directly into its corporate strategy to provide a single, configurable BOM for each product that manages options and variants and engineering BOM to manufacturing BOM relationships.

SEC expects to improve the quality of BOM information, improve time to market of products and improve its operational efficiency.

When this project is fully implemented, SEC will be one of the largest Windchill customers in Asia.

"If we hope to continue our efforts to provide high-quality products and services to our customers, we must ensure that our product development processes are well managed and the relevant data is easily shared with our geographically dispersed teams".

"Windchill is a core component because it enables worldwide collaboration", said Hee-sun Park, CIO of Samsung Electronics.

"We have been in a strategic partnership with PTC for six years and the tremendously successful results have proven that PTC is a company that provides the best solutions for us, which is why we continue to select and implement their PLM solutions throughout the SEC organisation".

"Samsung selected Windchill in order to better align its product development initiatives with its strategic corporate goals", said Richard Harrison, President and Chief Executive Officer, PTC.

"PTC and Samsung share a similar vision for product development in the electronics and high-tech industry and will continue to work together to advance the successes that Samsung continues to achieve in product innovation".