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From CAD User Mechanical Magazine Vol 22 No 4 - APRIL/MAY 2009
Advent Communications controls drawings, documents and Engineering Change Requests with DesignDataManager
In 1989, Chesham-based Advent Communications revolutionised television news with the creation of the world's first 'flyaway' satellite antenna: powerful enough to transmit broadcast quality video yet light enough to travel on a commercial airline. For the first time, news crews were within hours of any major story, anywhere in the world, making every story count.
Part of the £100 million Vislink Group plc, Advent designs and manufactures flyaway and vehicle mounted satellite communications systems and fixed earth stations for breaking news, outside broadcasting and defence applications.
No two Advent customers are alike and it is rare that any particular system configuration can be reused. A customer might prefer, say, amplifiers from a particular manufacturer and that will immediately change the electronic controls that govern that configuration. Under these circumstances, it is vital that the right designs are always available to all who need them. To ensure this, Advent has recently implemented DesignDataManager (DDM) from CSI.
FAMILIAR CHALLENGES
The twin challenges faced by Advent Communications will be familiar to many in the manufacturing industry: how to speed up the engineering change request process and how to eliminate the risk of uncontrolled drawings hitting the shop floor.
According to Garry Lelliott, at Advent, "We would not want uncontrolled drawings to find their way onto the shop floor, as there'd be a risk of building equipment to the wrong issue drawing,
which could mean late nights taking remedial action so we could still ship on time." He adds, "There are many other document types that need to be controlled: assembly instructions, user manuals, wiring schedules. When we complete a project and ship it, we include all the information including system schematics on a CD. Things can get quite fraught if we are on the last minute with this."
THEIR SOFTWARE SHOULD FIT YOUR PROCESSES
Garry points out, "Most product, design and document management solutions are biased towards document control as distinct from engineering design so the document control department wasn't constrained to choose a system from our CAD suppliers."
He continues, "Before choosing a solution, we flowcharted all our processes in great detail. We were determined not to change them to suit the software; rather we would expect the software to be flexible enough to handle the processes we had established." Garry adds, "Intensive Internet research revealed four possible contenders
including DDM. One was rejected because it required significant investment in our CAD software, and one was rejected as it did not address the issues of the very rapid and fluid design changes that are a feature of our business.
“We fully evaluated the two remainders and, once DDM was identified as the clear favourite, our IT department spent quite a lot of time looking at what DDM would do, what statuses we could use and the profiles we could create." He continues, "Having said that, in fairness there
were one or two areas where it did not fit exactly with what we were doing."
Advent bought 10 floating licenses of DDM and the system went live in April 2008. What benefits have actually been delivered? According to Garry, "It's certainly saved time in terms of identifying drawing ownership. People no longer have to waste time chasing round trying to find out who is doing what drawings on which particular contract. We can see exactly who has what drawing, its state, its issues and more. It is all there in DDM and everyone in the company can inspect it via the web interface."
LEANER ECR PROCESS
Garry again, "However, one of the key reasons for introducing DDM was to improve our engineering change request (ECR) process. Over the years, it had become very convoluted, very time consuming, not at all user friendly and not open to use in the wider company. Indeed, the process was exclusively managed by the document control department within engineering, despite the fact that many of the ECRs would have originated outside of engineering." He adds, "The ECR process is now much leaner than it used to be. It's saved about 30% on the raising of ECRs and that can amount to several hundred hours saved a year."
Garry also points out, "DDM certainly makes life easier when taking out drawing numbers. It automatically issues drawing numbers, which are fully customisable, to our schema. It also helps you manage your own work, too. You can search for all drawings with your name against them. You can quickly see what issue the drawings are at.
“Things here can get complicated if you are working on more than one contract at a time or if there are several people working on one contract. If you have several people working on a given contract, you can identify those people, you know what products or components they are working on and where in the process they are."
THREE-PPOINT JUSTIFICATION
Asked how the expenditure was justified, Garry replies, "On a three point plan: time saved in administering the drawings, time saved administering the ECR process and time saved servicing the subcontractors." He continues, "We chose very conservative figures. We looked at the number of drawings we created in any given month, the drawing requests from the suppliers, and numbers of ECRs we produce. We then applied a conservative time saving to each of those, and when considering the volumes involved, the savings became quite significant."
According to Garry, "From the outset we wanted to have access to all drawings,
new and old. Whilst DDM has the tools within it to import legacy data, we came to realise very quickly after the initial implementation that from a resource standpoint, this wasn't something that we could do independently, so we asked CSI to help. We had lengthy and thorough discussions with them to agree the scope, structure, content and cost of the import.
To say the least, we weren't exactly popular with our Finance Director at that point as we had to justify the additional spend with CSI on customisation. Having done this, though, the import of the legacy data went very smoothly and the benefits far outweighed the cost."
RESEARCH IS ESSENTIAL
What advice does Garry have? "It is essential," he says, "that you do your research. Identifying product, design and document management solutions in the open market is extremely difficult as the definition is so variable. The generally accepted term of PDM/EDM is recognised but individual suppliers have their own take on it. You might search only for EDM and you might miss the one you really needed."
He also advises, "You must resolve the issue of legacy data no matter what system you are going to implement. That was the biggest issue we came across. In fact, I would strongly advise having a separate quote for that unless you have IT gurus with time on their hands to write a script to do it automatically."
FULLY AUTOMATED ERC PROCESS
Looking to the future, Garry says, "The latest version of DDM will enable us to
give our suppliers individual access to the drawings they need, confident in the knowledge they will always be working from the latest drawings." He adds, "Currently we print out a copy of the ECR and present it to a committee for signature and progress. However, with the latest version of DDM and its graphical workflow engine, we will be able to fully automate the ECR process, involving each person in the process electronically rather than manually."
DDM is predominantly used by Advent's engineering department, though the company is considering extending its use to help sales people produce controlled drawings for quotation purposes. Summing up, Garry says, "We've been on a huge learning curve since April. It's been quite a challenge emulating our document control process electronically, and for people to get to grips with newly acquired visibility of document ownership and status. Previously our document control process was tightly controlled, but ownership and status were never conclusive.
“DDM has been highly beneficial for people outside the engineering department to identify the owner of any given drawing. One thing is clear, though: the business case for DDM has been proven."
images courtesy Advent Communications Limited
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