R.A. Jones: All Wrapped up in SMARTEAM

Situation

R.A. Jones, a leading manufacturer ofhigh-speed packaging machinery, designscritical custom equipment that must reachthe customer on time.

“We are always working to reduce thetime it takes to get an order to a customer,”explained Dave Hamblin, CAD/PDM

Systems Engineer at R.A. Jones.

“Shipments of our machines often coincidewith some sort of downtime or window ofopportunity within the customer’s plant.

So any time our shipment schedule wouldslip, it could negatively affect ourcustomer.”

The implementation of SMARTEAM®, a

Dassault Systèmes’ Product Lifecycle

Management (PLM) solution for managingproduct knowledge, has enabled R.A.

Jones to streamline the productdevelopment process, eliminateredundancy, and save time and money.

By managing design revisions with

SMARTEAM, ensuring that only the mostcurrent versions of every part are used,

R.A. Jones not only maintains on-timedeliveries but also the excellence for whichthe company is known.

The Challenges

Before implementing SMARTEAM, R.A.

Jones designed packaging machinery in

2D CAD and managed documents usinga simple database on the back end. Whenthe company migrated to a 3D solidmodeling environment, R.A. Jonesneeded a more powerful solution up frontto manage the exponentially growingnumber of files.

Challenge: Managing Revisions

“Faced with a growing volume of designdata, R.A. Jones decided they needed asystem to manage that data, trackrevisions and help engineers find exactlythe files they need," said Hamblin.

Before SMARTEAM, the engineers wouldhave to go through time-consumingmanual checks on each part to make surethey had the most current version, andlaborious comparisons between printsand CAD files to make sure everythingmatched. "We wanted a system thatwould ensure release of the correct partdesigns to the assembly floor every time,avoiding costly errors,” added Hamblin.

Challenge: Locating Previous Designs

In the past, R.A. Jones was unable totake full advantage of already existingdesigns due to difficulties in locating therelevant documents. The new systempromotes efficient standard part design,reducing part procurement andmanufacturing costs.

“Before SMARTEAM, an engineer wouldprint out a BOM, and give it to a dataentry person who would key it in. Thedocument would then go back to theengineer, who would catch a mistake --and this would go back and forth severaltimes,” Hamblin explained.

Solution

When R.A. Jones moved to 3D CAD, theyinstalled SMARTEAM to handleengineering document management andrevision management. Using SMARTEAM -Editor with 2D and 3D CAD integrations,engineers can access current and legacydesign data via one unified system.

The fact that SMARTEAM is increasinglycompatible with Microsoft® platforms andapplications, as well as any third-partytools that run on the platform, makesSMARTEAM easier to deploy, integrate,maintain and use.

In conjunction with SMARTEAM, R.A.

Jones is currently running Microsoft Windows®NT, Microsoft Windows 2000, Active Directory andMicrosoft SQL Server 2000. All engineers use the MicrosoftOffice System, including Microsoft Office Word 2003, the Microsoft Office Excel®2003 spreadsheet software, andMicrosoft Office Access 2003.

“The alliance between Microsoft and

Dassault Systèmes (DS) is an advantage

to us as a customer,” confirmed Mike

Kuntz, Director of Information Systems for

R.A. Jones. “For R.A. Jones, SMARTEAMis a mission-critical application and SQL Serveris a mission-critical database platform.

SMARTEAM’s ability to work within a

Microsoft environment makes it a morerobust tool.”

“SMARTEAM was a critical componentin our move to a 3D modelingenvironment,” Hamblin said.

SMARTEAM is now embedded in all R.A.Jones engineering processes. In additionto its primary role in the Engineering

Department, it runs in a read-only formaton the shop floor as well, allowing theproduction team to view a 3D assemblyand resolve issues themselves. Themachine shop uses SMARTEAM toaccess the most up-to-date revisions tocreate machining programs from the solidmodel, saving valuable engineering timeand avoiding errors. The manuals groupalso uses SMARTEAM to retrieve CADfiles to create illustrations for manuals.

“The software has been very stable forus,” Hamblin confirmed. “The couple oftimes we had issues, the SMARTEAMtech support team has been great. Theylog into our system, take control and solvethe problem.”

Benefits

“We integrate SMARTEAM with a numberof third-party software products and in-housedeveloped tools via the Microsoft .NETdevelopment environment,” said Kuntz. “Itis much easier when the products are allrunning on the same database platform,

in this case, SQL Sever 2000.”

R.A. Jones has integrated SMARTEAM with their Syteline ERP system, enablingthem to load new items, product structuresand BOMs exported to Excel spreadsheetsinto the ERP system. Integration betweenSMARTEAM and the print distribution system allows the company to electronically release and distribute final images of drawings to the shop floor and to vendors. Each one of these integrations provides great value by streamlining processes and eliminating extra steps and error-prone, time-consuming manual tasks.

“We receive significant ROI by having

SMARTEAM manage our 3D data, coupled with the integration with other applications, to streamline engineering changes and releases,” Kuntz noted. “The results add up to thousands of hours a year in terms of productivity increases. Moreover, our total cost of ownership of IT is lower, thanks to economical Microsoft platforms and tools.”

Tracking Revisions Effectively

SMARTEAM now tightly manages documentrevisions and status for all R.A. Jonesdesigns, and is integrated with thecompany’s print distribution system. Whenengineers make a revision to a drawingin SMARTEAM, the part under revisionis flagged, and thus they prevent the shopfrom accessing that print, avoiding scrapand rework. There are fewer issues onthe shop floor due to wrong versions ofparts being used.

“By integrating SMARTEAM with our printdistribution system, a part is ready foruse within the print system within 30seconds to a minute after the engineerreleases it,” Hamblin explains.

R.A. Jones also uses SMARTEAM tonotify the production and inventory controldepartments when there has been achange to a drawing. The engineer cansimply check a box to stop all relatedorders until the part is ready to be re-released.

“SMARTEAM also helps when engineersare working on the same file concurrently,”he added. “The SMARTEAM controlsensure that a release does not happen iffiles referenced in the release are stillbeing modified by others. The new designcannot be released until that conflict isresolved.”

Valuable design knowledge stored in the

SMARTEAM repository is also protectedfrom inadvertent deletion or modification.

“Files are backed up nightly on the server,”said Hamblin. “We don’t have to worryabout someone accidentally deletingthem. This is especially important forproducts such as industrial machinerythat have long lifetimes, where often a need may arise to access an old versionof a design.”

Automation Improves Accuracy,

Saves Time

“A goal of our company is to streamlineour processes and reduce wasted stepsand effort,” said Hamblin. “SMARTEAMand 3D modeling together have gone along way to reduce redundant effort atR.A. Jones.”

SMARTEAM’s compatibility with othersystems allows R.A. Jones to export datato other systems, such as their ERPsystem, minimizing errors and reducingtime spent on manual data entry,verification and correction. Now it is justa button click to send accurate data tothe ERP system.

Performance, Reliability and Minimal

Maintenance

By upgrading to SQL Server 2000, R.A. Jones has benefited from the minimized administrative effort needed to manage the database and from increased system reliability, as well as from a boost in performance for end-users

— all trademark advantages of Microsoft that enhance SMARTEAM.

“In moving to the platform we are on today, which includes Microsoft and SMARTEAM, we have seen an increase in performance and a decrease in administration,” Kuntz explained. “Overall, our environment is very stable and robust, and we don’t experience any downtime.”

“We have gained data integrity and fast access by employing SQL Server as a common platform and as a repository for data from a variety of different applications,” he added. “Compatibility with SQL Server is one of the reasons we chose SMARTEAM.”

Simplifying Daily Activities for End-Users

“We are a Microsoft house,” said Dave Hamblin. “The fact that SMARTEAM is Windows-compliant makes it a lot easier to bounce back and forth between applications, because the same basic short cut keys work in all the Office programs, SMARTEAM and in our 3D CAD system.”

“SMARTEAM’s Microsoft compatibility makes it very convenient for the users,” Kuntz said.

“The user interfaces are consistent. Our users go between Word [2003], Excel [2003], [the] [Microsoft Office] Outlook® [2003 messaging and collaboration client], SMARTEAM and the authoring tools – and there is a lot of commonality in terms of look and feel because they are all Windows-based.”

“In addition, the Microsoft environment makes SMARTEAM quick and intuitive to learn. It all works together, and that is why we are Microsoft-centric,” Kuntz concluded. “The integrations we have customized, and the built-in integration between the tools, make it easier for users to manipulate data, working within a common Microsoft framework.”

Facilitating Design Reuse

Each machine R.A. Jones designs hasstandard core parts along with a varietyof custom parts. Design reuse is veryimportant to them because it significantlyreduces cost and time in the productdevelopment process.

“SMARTEAM makes it easier forengineers to do searches and quickly findany existing parts they can use, including2D legacy data. We know that we savea substantial amount of money and timeby being able to reuse parts thanks toSMARTEAM.”

For sophisticated packaging machinery,incorporating many hundreds of parts andsub-assemblies, especially when eachcustomer may request variations in anyof thousands of parameters, finding achange is no small task.

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