Workflow

Windchill can play an important role in increasing a company’s competitiveness by allowing continuous improvements and automation of business processes and procedures. Workflows are defined easily and quickly using the Windchill graphical process editor. Once a workflow is initiated, tasks are automatically distributed to both internal and external participants. And, by visually monitoring and managing workfl ow processes, managers can reassign tasks to balance workload or relieve bottlenecks.

Lifecycle Management

In order to manage how information matures over time, each development phase within the "life" of a part, component or other related content can be defi ned within Windchill, along with the gating conditions that must be satisfi ed to advance to the next step. Such transitions can be automatically controlled by associating workflow processes with lifecycle phases and gates, thus delivering large productivity gains.

Configuration Management

Windchill provides a systematic approach for confi guring, managing and reusing product structures, and associating them with the correct content, such as CAD fi les, documentation, calculations and illustrations, accommodating any level of data granularity. Windchill has the ability to create different confi guration views (as-designed, as-planned, and as-maintained), as well as fl exible and powerful capabilities to defi ne serialized parts, alternates, substitutes and effectivity criteria.

Security

Windchill provides the critical ability to defi ne, implement and manage fl exible access control policies, ensuring that only the appropriate users and groups have access to content within a domain at a particular lifecycle stage. Windchill can use https to provide an effi cient and secure communication protocol. And, Windchill features multiple levels of security, including user, product and fi le levels, which are essential in managing the activities of a large, dispersed team.

Architecture

All Windchill products are integral, sharing a common database schema, business objects, process models and Web-based user interface, including single login. The pure Internet architecture of Windchill is built upon industry standards that can support users from various departments within the company, as well as external users, such as suppliers,partners and customer communities. Lastly, the Windchill architecture is also interoperable, enabling the seamless sharing of product content and processes with other authoring applications and enterprise systems, such as ERP, SCM and CRM.

As the industry’s most comprehensive PLM solution, Windchill offers capabilities to meet the needs of any size business.

Whether you need core product data management capabilities, optimization of processes to meet industry-specific requirements, or support for global product development, Windchill can help you achieve all your objectives.