SofTech, Inc. News
FlightSafety Selects Workgroup Technology Collaborative PDM to Improve Design Efficiency
WTC Exceeds Pilot Program Expectations for PDM Interoperability, Performance, and Customer ResponsivenessBURLINGTON, Mass., January 22, 2002 — Workgroup Technology Corporation (WTC) (NASDAQ: WKGP), a leading provider of Collaborative Product Data Management (PDM), today announced that FlightSafety International, recognized worldwide for its expertise in flight simulation systems and training, has selected WTC's ProductCenter™ collaborative PDM solution after an extensive pilot program evaluation of the ProductCenter 8.0 software. ProductCenter was selected to replace a competitive PDM solution that failed to meet FlightSafety's expectations for performance, accuracy, and functionality.
ProductCenter will help FlightSafety more reliably integrate, manage, and streamline critical product processes and information in support of flight simulation system design, production, support, and customer training facilities worldwide. After the extensive market research and analysis that FSI completed of PDM vendors, WTC was chosen for its success in similar implementations and its responsiveness, as well as ProductCenter's stability, adaptability, and application integration capabilities.
FlightSafety's procurement of ProductCenter includes the core collaborative PDM system, ProductCenter's AutoCAD® and SolidWorks® Integrators, ProductCenter's BOM Editor and Workflow modules, and ProductCenter's WebLink™, Perl, and C/C++ toolkits. FlightSafety estimates that engineers spend, on average, an unacceptable one-third of their day performing document lifecycle and workflow operations with their current PDM system. FlightSafety plans to reduce that time to less than 15 minutes a day with ProductCenter. Additional improvements gained through use of workflow and bill of materials management automated by ProductCenter will also lend consistency to design practices, accelerating delivery of FlightSafety's complex, highly customized simulation systems.
"Our previous PDM system limited our ability to extend 3D solid modeling technology to other areas of engineering and to the rest of our business as a whole. The performance, accuracy, and user interface issues encountered with the previous PDM's integration to our solid modeling software made expansion to other systems counterproductive," said Bobby Henry, FlightSafety Computer Aided Engineering Support group leader. "WTC's integrators solve this by seamlessly integrating PDM on the application desktop. PDM becomes a transparent part of the design process. Interoperability is supported among critical engineering support systems and users work in the applications that they know. We'll now be able to take greater advantage of SolidWorks 3D solid modeling. Plus, we'll be able to more easily share data with subcontractors, which trickles downstream to improvements in product innovation and quality."
"We performed extensive due diligence on this procurement," adds Henry. "In our pilot, ProductCenter's performance and reliability with live data was impressive. The product requires minimal support, yet, has shown great adaptability. We dug deep, calling many customer references, all with impressive things to say about WTC's responsiveness and the stability and low cost of ownership of its products. We're convinced we made the right choice with WTC."
"We are very pleased that FlightSafety has selected ProductCenter to be their replacement PDM solution," said Jay Pappas, WTC vice president of product management. "Given their extensive experience in PDM implementation, particularly in the area of design integration with SolidWorks and AutoCAD, they were extremely thorough and diligent in their benchmark evaluation. Our ability to work with them to migrate data from their legacy systems into ProductCenter and to operate effectively in a production environment validated that ProductCenter 8.0 is ready for large scale production use."
About FlightSafety International
Headquartered at New York's LaGuardia Airport, FlightSafety International is the nation's senior aviation training organization. Founded in 1951, the company's training customers now exceed 70,000 pilots, maintenance technicians and aviation personnel annually at 42 Learning Centers in the U.S., Canada, France, and the U.K.
The Simulation Systems Division of FlightSafety is one of the world's principal suppliers of flight simulators for civil aircraft. The Tulsa, Oklahoma-based, organization leads the world in the diversity of its FAA-certified full flight simulator production.
About Workgroup Technology Corporation
Workgroup Technology Corporation (WTC) develops, markets and supports ProductCenter™, a web-enabled, extended enterprise Collaborative Product Data Management (PDM) solution that provides Document Management, Design Integration, Configuration Control, Change Management, and Enterprise Integration for optimizing product development. Based in Burlington, Massachusetts, the company differentiates itself on the basis of its controlled and secure accessibility, enterprise integration, and quick adaptability of its software. Thousands of users at mid-sized and global companies are in production and benefit from WTC products, including ABB, Inc.; Baker Oil Tools; Eaton Corporation; General Electric Company; Goodrich Turbine Fuel Technologies; Honeywell; Millipore Corporation; Siemens Energy & Automation, Inc.; U.S. Army; and Whirlpool Corporation. The company's Web site is located at www.workgroup.com.
WTC, the WTC logo, ProductCenter, myPDM, GenView and WebLink are trademarks or registered trademarks of Workgroup Technology Corporation in the U.S. and/or other countries. All other brands, logos, products or company names are the copyrights and/or trademarks of their respective holders.
