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Global Product Development
A PTC Solution
Geographically distributed engineering, design, and manufacturing teams position a company to satisfy product demand across international markets. The strategic advantages of global product development (GPD) are many, but often there are no clear guidelines for the specific processes, tools, and functional capabilities necessary to accomplish effective GPD. Seven key areas have been identified as essential to achieve competency in GPD. This paper takes a deeper look at and highlights both the tactical capabilities of each area as they benefit
GPD and the PTC Global Product Development solution’s matching features.
Product development has gone global. Economic realities have driven product development firms to geographically distribute design and manufacturing teams in order to lower costs. Regional teams can better respond to local product feature requests and meet product demand across international markets. While business consultants promote the strategic importance of distributed development, they often fail to provide a comprehensive list of the processes, tools, and functional capabilities necessary to accomplish effective global product development.
Although numerous technical considerations are important to support product development, excellence in seven key technical areas is necessary to achieve competency in GPD:
• Management of a product’s computer-aided design (CAD) data in a multi-
CAD environment
• Bill of material (BOM) data management
•
Multiple configuration data management
• Effective change management process flow
• Collaboration capabilities
• Component parts classification
•
Approved vendor/manufacturing supply-chain management
These key areas enable a company to develop a cost-effective product solution and minimize risk.
As a leader in product-development tools, PTC delivers their PTC Product
Development Solution based on PTC Windchill. It provides the capabilities and processes to enable a company to support and optimize their GPD efforts.
During development, users need to know they are working with the most recent version of the product’s in-process design information. CAD data complicates the challenge and increases the difficulty of generating an accurate product
Seven key areas drive effective global product development.
PTC Windchill is the foundation of PTC’s GPD solution.
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2014 by CIMdata, Inc. 1

Global Product Development
A PTC Solution
BOM. The PTC solution enables developers to have a single, managed source of product information for all the product’s constituents—mechanical, electrical, software, and documentation—and the ability to manage that data to build accurate product BOMs.
Global markets demand product variation. PTC’s configuration management tools offer users a structured path that enables them to define and manage product variation that results in both improved data quality and a better interface with manufacturing systems.
Dealing with change is fundamental during in-process product development; an inefficient process with poor visibility into change status will delay scheduled development and will often result in quality issues. PTC change management capabilities enable standardized automated change processes leading to improved decisions with improved reporting.
Effective communication and secure data sharing between globally distributed development teams are at the core of GPD. The challenge of collaboration may be the most demanding of all the seven key areas in GPD. The design authoring world is inherently multi-CAD; the cross-disciplines of mechanical (MCAD) and electrical (ECAD) must also join together. PTC recognizes this and supports the management of BOMs composed of multi-CAD mechanical and electrical data. Within the PTC Global Product Development solution data can be tagged as protected intellectual property (IP) with access restricted to specifically authorized users.
Many product manufacturing companies are plagued by bloated repositories of duplicate parts. PTC’s solution includes integral parts management capabilities to classify existing parts, establish part libraries, provide multiple search options, and promote reuse of existing designs.
Sourcing also plays a significant role in product development, yet companies often lack information to standardize and manage data across their manufacturing and supply chain partnerships. PTC Windchill includes parts classification and search capabilities that enable a company to define and manage a hierarchical classification system for outsourced components and supplier profiles.
As product manufacturing companies look to expand their customer base they have turned to a more global response with design and manufacturing sites geographically distributed in their target markets. By doing so, they face greater challenges in coordinating product development and controlling product data. A product manufacturing company looking to expand their reach by establishing design and manufacturing sites globally should investigate the PTC Global
Product Development Solution as a vehicle upon which to chart their course.
Research for this paper was partially supported by PTC.
Collaboration is the most demanding area in GPD.
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2014 by CIMdata, Inc. 2

Global Product Development
A PTC Solution
The global economy drives product development. Firms have geographically distributed design and manufacturing teams in order to lower costs.
Additionally, limited expert engineering resources are shared across multiple locations. Regional teams are formed to better respond to new product feature requests and to meet product demand. Where before companies sought to improve cross-functional collaboration between siloed disciplines at one centralized development site, they now strive to unify diverse global teams into a cohesive product development organization.
A wealth of business literature touts the strategic importance of global product development and its bottom-line business advantages, but it often lacks a list of the processes, tools, and functional capabilities necessary to accomplish effective GPD. What are the specific functional capabilities companies should look for in the tools they use to support GPD? Industry leaders identify seven key areas necessary to achieve competency in product development across global sites. The first four deal with the definition and control of product data.
They include the management of a product’s computer-aided design data, bill of material data, and multiple configuration data. In addition, the process and product dataflow for change management during in-process development is critical to the overall product creation process across geographically dispersed sites.
The fifth significant area of importance consists of collaboration capabilities between in-company product stakeholders, outsourced design partners, and the numerous multiple-product supply chains around the world. Capturing and tracking product development history across this landscape of multiple computer-aided mechanical, electrical, and software systems becomes essential to delivering a new product on budget and on schedule with expected quality.
Finally, in order to maintain a cost-effective product solution and minimize risk, two key areas must be mastered in a profitable GPD process: component parts classification and approved vendor and manufacturing directories for the supply chain.
This paper takes a deeper look at these seven areas and highlights the tactical capabilities of each as they benefit GPD.
Previously companies focused on improving cross-functional collaboration. They now look to unify globally distributed teams.
As companies transition to more global development, they require tools and processes that enable them to support and optimize their efforts. Recently PTC, 1 a leading product lifecycle management and GPD solution provider, partnered with Oxford Economics, 2 a global forecasting and quantitative analysis firm targeting both business and government, to survey over three hundred global executives on the impact that market and technology changes have on manufacturing firms. In addition to highlighting the expected market shift of
1
2
For more information on PTC and their solutions, see www.ptc.com .
For more information on Oxford Economics see http://www.oxfordeconomics.com
.
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Global Product Development
A PTC Solution increased global competition reported by 59% of the executives, 60% emphasized changing customer requirements. Those requirements included a fragmenting of demand based on global region. Further, the study called out
“Supplier and partner complexity caused by distributed sourcing, engineering, and production, as companies must manage more partners across more dimensions of quality, compliance, and risk.” 3
It is within this environment that companies seek the capabilities they need to manage those complexities.
Where are all the documents and data stored that define the product? That is the primary mystery that must be solved for successful GPD. Critical product information is often scattered across different geographic development sites in local shared drives leading users to question whether or not they are working with the latest version of the product’s in-process design information.
CAD data complicates the challenge. While a full product definition includes a wide range of data types and formats for product attributes such as requirements, engineering analysis results, and materials, CAD data poses a unique challenge.
In an extended enterprise, mechanical CAD data will likely be generated in numerous locations and often in different data formats through the use of disparate systems. Difficulties arise in finding and sharing data. The troubles expand when electrical CAD data is added to the mix. Often there is a lack of data management for electrical schematics and layouts. Productivity suffers when engineers cannot locate necessary information.
Without a means to manage and track the full range of product design data, companies face the challenge of generating and managing an accurate product
BOM. Often that task will be controlled through a spreadsheet in a complicated and error prone manual process. Product development often proceeds in a hybrid of top-down and bottom-up approaches with some portions provided by partner and supplier companies. Managing all these product-structure demands in a spreadsheet can easily lead to errors and delays in development. Companies need a single source of product information including all product constituents— mechanical, electrical, software, and documentation—and the tools to manage that data to generate accurate product BOMs.
Rarely is a product introduced to the market limited to a single configuration.
Global markets demand variation. In order to make a product attractive to a range of customers from different economic strata, companies offer a variety of product options. When, however, product data defining varied configurations and options is scattered across organizations and systems, long delays in decision making can occur and time can be wasted working on out-of-date
3 For a copy of the PTC/Oxford research report, see http://www.ptc.com/topics/manufacturingtransformation/oxford-research/ .
Product information is often scattered across development sites.
Global markets demand product variation.
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Global Product Development
A PTC Solution versions. It becomes difficult to generate complete, accurate BOMs. Companies require configuration management tools that offer their users a structured path to define and manage product variation.
Dealing with change is fundamental during in-process product development.
Whether driven by shifting customer requirements, or dictated by issues uncovered during product analysis and simulation, changes will occur and need to be managed; a slow, inefficient process with poor visibility into change status will delay scheduled development and will often result in quality issues.
Frequently developers will be unable to determine the impact of a change and the resulting confusion requires multiple additional changes to fix an issue.
Companies need change management tools to establish standardized, automated change processes, which will help their product developers make improved decisions and have better reporting and visibility into product development status.
Effective communication and secure data sharing between globally distributed development teams are at the core of GPD. The challenge of in-process design collaboration may be the most demanding of the seven key areas. At first glance the problems seem straightforward: share product requirements and product design data between geographically dispersed company sites, partner companies, and the supply chain. Reality is quite different and more complex. The design authoring world is multi-CAD. Different companies, and indeed different sites within the same company, may use disparate solutions from different vendors for their product development—each generating data in a different proprietary format. The varied data formats must come together to represent the full product. The cross disciplines of MCAD and ECAD must also join together.
Without multi-CAD support, confusion will reign and components will often be re-authored in multiple systems.
In an effort to protect sensitive IP during collaboration, companies invariably overcompensate and lock down too much data, resulting in less-than-optimal collaboration between distributed teams. A product development company requires a solution that allows data to be tagged as protected IP with access restricted to authorized users.
Many product manufacturing companies are plagued with bloated repositories of duplicate or nearly identical parts. Developers who cannot easily determine if a component required for their current product design already exists will spend valuable development time reconstructing it. The new duplicate model then consumes an additional part number and the proliferation of duplicate parts that grows over time becomes an expensive burden to the company in terms of duplicate analysis and testing, inventory bloat, product design maintenance, etc.
Parts management capabilities are needed to classify existing parts, establish
Communication and data sharing are the foundation of GPD.
Duplicate parts can burden a development organization.
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Global Product Development
A PTC Solution part libraries, offer sophisticated search options, and promote reuse of existing designs.
Sourcing plays a significant role in product development, yet companies often lack information to standardize and manage data across their manufacturing and supply chain partnerships. Without control, designers can inadvertently introduce duplicate or unqualified parts, driving up the overall cost of development. A solution is required that offers parts classification and search capabilities to enable companies to define and manage a hierarchical classification system of outsourced components and supplier profiles. By providing enterprise-level visibility into component and supplier selection, companies can better manage costs and minimize development risks.
Sourcing plays a key role in GPD.
PTC is a leader in providing product development companies a suite of tools and services to manage GPD. The foundation of their solution is PTC Windchill for the management of all product content and business processes. PTC Windchill is designed to be the central source of all product information. It manages, crossreferences, and provides visibility to that content, including MCAD, ECAD, documents, software, and other product data.
Having listed the negative business impacts of a weak GPD approach, what are the specific capabilities in each of the seven key functional areas that a product development company requires for a strong effective solution, and how does the
PTC Global Development Solution respond to those requirements?
The stepping stones to an effective CAD data management solution begin with
CAD version and iteration control. Designers and
CAD D
ATA
M
ANAGEMENT
C
HECKLIST
ü Version control
ü Visual status cues
ü Access to data management functions
ü Search tools
ü Generate lightweight viewables engineers require the most upto-date version of in-process designs in order to avoid errors and wasted effort. Each time a modification, addition, or deletion is made to a product’s CAD design, an updated version of the CAD data file(s) must be placed in a central repository and recorded as the most current version. The data repository system can then track its status and deliver the most recent version of the data to whomever next requests access.
The PTC Global Product Development Solution with PTC Windchill as its foundation enables companies to create a single source of product information storage including all product data types—mechanical, electrical, software, and documentation. Native PTC CAD data and imported foreign CAD data are jointly managed, including MCAD and ECAD formats.
PTC Windchill is the central source of all product information.
Designers and others require up-to-date versions of the product design.
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Global Product Development
A PTC Solution
The current status of in-process design files such as out-of-date , or currently being modified , should be easily recognized through the use of visual cues, such as color-coded or graphically flagged file names or icons. These visual aids will reduce potential conflicts between product teams working on the same design.
Next, access to these CAD data management functions must be readily available to the designers in order to better promote their adoption. Commands should be integrated directly into the CAD authoring environment to facilitate use. The
PTC solution supports both capabilities.
Extensive search tools are necessary to promote design reuse and streamline the development process. PTC’s solution supports searches based on product attribute values. Another checklist item should be the ability to automatically generate lightweight viewing data of the CAD designs for use by non-CAD product stakeholders across the enterprise. The PTC solution supports the automatic publication of a lightweight viewing format upon file saves.
One of the key deliverables in product development is the product’s bill of material. Stakeholders across the enterprise interact with the BOM at all stages of development. An effective GPD system must be flexible in new-product
BOM creation whether built from the
B
ILL OF
M
ATERIAL
C
HECKLIST
ü Direct editing
ü Import from spreadsheet
ü BOM comparison
ü BOM reporting ground up, derived from an existing product, or provided by a design partner.
The PTC Global Product Development Solution enables users to take alternative approaches when working with BOM structures. PTC’s product structure browser supports the direct editing of BOM components and attributes. The product BOM can also be imported from an existing spreadsheet when working with external design partners or when leveraging legacy data.
Two important considerations when working with the product BOM are the ability to do BOM comparisons and produce reports of the current state of the in-process BOM. PTC solutions include a BOM Compare tool for side-by-side comparison of product structures to help users understand how the BOM has changed between revisions. In addition, users can produce BOM reports containing component and attribute information to facilitate design reviews and partner collaboration.
Complex products become even more so when dealing with variants. A reliable
GPD solution must relieve a company from having to define and manage the product BOM using manually constructed spreadsheets and updates. A complete
C ONFIGURATIONS C HECKLIST
ü BOM management
ü Track and control variants
ü BOM reporting
ü Copy and reuse variants
ü Share with ERP/MES
BOM management capability supports the full product structure of mechanical, electronic, software, and documentation
Product variants add to development complexity.
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Global Product Development
A PTC Solution product data. The PTC Global Product Development Solution enables companies to manage the complete product structure and track and control multiple product configurations. A development organization can establish and control configuration release state and baseline configurations, substitute components, and serialize the parts.
Figure 1—Exploring Product Structure
(Courtesy of PTC)
For a company that requires more sophisticated configuration control, PTC supports wizard-based tools to generate and modify configurations. Users can create and manage product rules and constraints for each configuration option.
With this flexibility, whenever market demand shifts, the company can leverage existing configurations to generate new product offerings. PTC configuration management tools offer users a structured path to define and manage product variation resulting in improved data quality and a better interface with manufacturing systems.
Best practice calls for change management to be standardized and automated. In order to support consistent and predicable change manage-
C HANGE M ANAGEMENT C HECKLIST
ü Pre-configured change objects
ü Workflow templates
ü Electronic signatures and audit trail
ü Business rules ment workflows. PTC follows best practices and provides out-of-the-box change objects
ü Synchronize with manufacturing systems that can be used to link product data directly to problem reports and change requests. The solution goes further by helping automate the routing of change tasks through the use of templates. Companies can increase efficiency by embedding their specific company change tasks within the templates.
History of change and traceability that includes cross-discipline design decisions is also provided. PTC Windchill supports audit trails, including markups and
Control over change management represents a best practice.
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Global Product Development
A PTC Solution comments attached to product data, as well as electronic signatures for sign-offs.
In addition, business rules can be encapsulated to ensure processes comply with company policy followed by automatic synchronization with manufacturing systems. PTC change management tools enable companies to establish standardized, automated change processes, which can help users make improved decisions and have better reporting and visibility into product development status.
Figure 2—Approving a Change
(Courtesy of PTC)
GPD requires that global teams work together to deliver product.
The challenges they face in
C
OLLABORATION
C
HECKLIST
ü ECAD/MCAD collaboration doing so are constantly
ü Top-down development
ü Access to foreign CAD data mounting as products increase in
ü Filter large and complex designs complexity. Customer demand for new product functions and customization drive development toward increasingly sophisticated electrical design options with complex schematics and heavily populated printed circuit board (PCB) layouts. It is therefore crucial that a GPD system offers strong structured sharing of mechanical and electrical data in a collaborative environment. PTC’s solution is designed to support the integration of mechanical and electrical data and supports cross-discipline communication through its ability to exchange incremental design changes between the electrical and mechanical domains.
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Global Product Development
A PTC Solution
Given the evident growth in product complexity, a GPD solution must also provide and expedite top-down concurrent design. PTC’s Global Product
Development solution enables users to create and reuse existing part and CAD structures, including interfaces between components, which can help shorten time to develop sophisticated products. Managing product structure and interdependencies between related designs can help companies reduce design conflicts across their global product team.
Global collaboration means interacting with design partners and supply chain companies around the world, sharing product data and cooperating on solutions to product design issues. The prospect that all participating companies use the same suite of development tools is highly unlikely. A pragmatic GPD solution has to manage CAD design data generated in different CAD authoring applications, each in a different native data format. PTC’s solution enables a company to store and manage multi-CAD data. PTC’s solution supports incorporating changes made to foreign CAD data throughout the in-processdesign process, and reflects them in the ongoing product design structure.
When collaborating on extremely large and complex products, it is essential to reduce system overhead. An efficient GPD solution allows an individual CAD designer to identify the relevant subset of design data needed for their next task and delivers only that portion of the full product design to their CAD environment. The PTC solution enables users to filter product data based on a combination of criteria such as product attributes, options, variants, and spatial position. By limiting the amount of CAD data that needs to be transmitted to the user, the overall system helps improve development productivity and efficiency.
A company’s intellectual property, be it product knowledge or process knowledge, is the lifeblood of its future success in business. Identifying and
S
ECURE
IP C
HECKLIST
ü Tagging with IP designation
ü Authorized groups
ü Timed agreements managing access to IP protects the company and its assets. Yet often information deemed to be sensitive
ü Content simplification needs to be shared with new product design partners to facilitate the product’s development. A GPD solution must allow data to be tagged as secure. PTC’s solution provides multiple security labels such as high, restricted, and ITAR, for controlling varied levels of access.
4 Within the solution data can be tagged as protected IP with access restricted to authorized users.
The definition of specific groups with predefined security-level access allows a company to standardize IP access and match individuals to IP items. The PTC’s solution supports a user-group approach and extends it to give authorized users temporary access to sensitive data, by agreements of specified, time-limited access, and with full traceability and access history.
4 For more information on the US Department of State’s regulations on the international traffic in arms
(ITAR), see https://www.pmddtc.state.gov/regulations_laws/itar.html
.
Top-down design is a key ingredient in GPD.
IP is the lifeblood of a product company.
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Global Product Development
A PTC Solution
CAD tools may allow for derived copies of the product model that have been simplified by removing sensitive components. The PTC solution supports the creation and management of these simplified derivatives for broader access to non-authorized designers.
Most product development companies focus on their internal data management and workflows knowing that the attention will help improve and support their product development
S
UPPLY
C
HAIN
I
NTEGRATION
C
ü Hierarchical classification
ü Standardized attributes
ü Search capabilities
HECKLIST
ü View and compare
ü Define and manage supplier relationships
ü Control preferences process. Yet, when considerable portions of their products are outsourced, that management and control disappear. A practical GPD solution must support the creation and exploitation of supply-chain parts directories and the supplier and manufacturer profile information.
The GPD system must offer a parts classification capability and allow the mapping of a product’s current components to that classification system. PTC solutions provide capabilities to support that requirement. Users can standardize their component attribute lists and allow attributes by category. Search tools support a range of user-selected options, and users can view and compare both component characteristics and supply chain vendor information.
Outsourced parts need as much control as internally developed parts.
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Global Product Development
A PTC Solution
Figure 3—Defining and Managing Hierarchical Parts Classification
(Courtesy of PTC)
As product manufacturing companies look to expand their customer base they have turned to a more global response with design and manufacturing sites distributed geographically in their target markets. In doing so, they face greater challenges coordinating product development, and controlling product data.
However, with the proper tools and processes in place they can overcome the barriers inherent in global product development.
This paper has identified seven critical areas in product development tools and the required capabilities needed in each to affect a strong GPD solution.
CIMdata’s review of the PTC Global Product Development solution against the list of demanding requirements reveals a viable answer to all those needs. It has been noted that communication and data sharing are the foundation of GPD, and the PTC solution is designed to enable companies to effectively enable and manage both.
Any product manufacturing company looking to expand their reach through establishing design and manufacturing sites globally, or who are struggling with the product development process in an already existing global organization, should investigate the PTC Global Product Development Solution as a vehicle upon which to chart their course.
The proper tools can overcome the barriers in
GPD.
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Global Product Development
A PTC Solution
CIMdata, a leading independent worldwide firm, provides strategic management consulting to maximize an enterprise’s ability to design and deliver innovative products and services through the application of Product Lifecycle Management
(PLM) solutions. Since its founding over thirty years ago, CIMdata has delivered world-class knowledge, expertise, and best-practice methods on PLM solutions. These solutions incorporate both business processes and a wideranging set of PLM-enabling technologies.
CIMdata works with both industrial organizations and providers of technologies and services seeking competitive advantage in the global economy. CIMdata helps industrial organizations establish effective PLM strategies, assists in the identification of requirements and selection of PLM technologies, helps organizations optimize their operational structure and processes to implement solutions, and assists in the deployment of these solutions. For PLM solution providers, CIMdata helps define business and market strategies, delivers worldwide market information and analyses, provides education and support for internal sales and marketing teams, as well as overall support at all stages of business and product programs to make them optimally effective in their markets.
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