See the whole ball of twine with SharePoint based design management

“We need a link between documents and designs, not information filed away in a folder where someone forgets about it” says Theodore Turner, head of design and development at agricultural machinery manufacturer Theebo Tech. We have heard this request from many of our Solid Edge customers who, in their mission to design products that exactly fit their customer’s needs, are rapidly creating large volumes of Solid Edge CAD files and related design data. Theebo Tech has been using SharePoint based design management for a number of years to get control of their Solid Edge files, starting in 2005 with our original Insight solution and upgrading recently to our new Solid Edge SP solution.





A new whitepaper from independent research firm Tech-Clarity shows how manufacturing organizations like Theebo Tech are using SharePoint based design management software to get control of their CAD files and related documents, and clearly display the relationships between these files. Jim Brown from Tech-Clarity interviewed four Solid Edge customers, all of whom are using or piloting our Microsoft SharePoint based Solid Edge SP (Solid Edge for SharePoint) design management software to get their thoughts on this approach. You can download a full copy of the whitepaper from our website (registration required).

Many manufacturers are already using SharePoint somewhere in their organization, and can take advantage of their existing IT infrastructure and expertise when implementing SharePoint based design management. And for smaller manufacturing companies, the ease of implementation and maintenance of SharePoint is a key advantage. “Especially when you are relatively small you can’t really afford to have a whole IT department or someone dedicated to support the system. I learned just the necessary parts of SharePoint” says Theodore Turner of Theebo Tech.



Providing easy access to engineering data is one of the benefits documented in the whitepaper. Marc Boom, Manager of IT & Engineering for specialist engineered products manufacturer Eurotech Benelux comments on the improved access that everyone in the organization has. “Our part information was only visible for those with our CAD package, now it’s only a mouse click away for everyone. It’s a really easy way to access the information engineers create.”

This summer we ran a test drive of Solid Edge SP at our Solid Edge University event in Cincinnati. The response from Solid Edge users to this design management solution was overwhelmingly positive, with many participants commenting on the graphical way that links between parts, assemblies, drawings and other design documents are presented, and that this graphical presentation is extended to links to ECOs, ECRs and design projects. As Theodore Turner comments from his experience with SharePoint based design management. “We can now see the whole ball of twine.”