Posted by IoT Central Team

By: Kelly McNelis

We have faced unprecedented disruption from the many challenges of COVID-19, and PTC’s LiveWorx was no exception. The definitive digital transformation event went virtual this year, and despite the transition from physical to digital, LiveWorx delivered.

Of the many insightful virtual keynotes, one that caught everyone’s attention was ‘Digital Transformation: The Technology & Support You Need to Succeed,’ presented by PTC’s Executive Vice President (EVP) of Products, Kevin Wrenn, and PTC’s EVP and Chief Customer Officer, Eduarda Camacho.

Their keynote focused on how companies should be prioritizing the use of best-in-class technology that will meet their changing needs during times of disruption and accelerated digital transformation. Wrenn and Camacho highlighted five of our customers through interactive case studies on how they are using PTC technology to capitalize on digital transformation to thrive in an era of disruption.

Below is a summary of the five customers and their stories that were highlighted during the keynote.

1. Royal Enfield (Mass Customization)

Royal Enfield is an Indian motorcycle company that has been manufacturing motor bikes since 1901. They have British roots, and their main customer base is located in India and Europe. Riders of Royal Enfield wants their bikes to be particular to their brand, so they worked to better manage the complexities of mass customization and respond to market demands.

Royal Enfield is a long time PTC customer, but they were on old versions of PTC technology. They first upgraded Creo and Windchill to the latest releases so they could leverage the new capabilities. They then moved on to transform their processes for platform and variant designs, introduced simulation much earlier by using Creo Simulation Live, and leveraged generative design by bringing AI into engineering and applying it to engine and chassis complex custom forged components. Finally, they retrained and retooled their engineering staff to fully leverage the power of new processes and technologies.

The entire Royal Enfield team now has digital capabilities that accelerate new product designs, variants, and accessories for personalization; as a result, they are able to deliver a much-shortened design cycle. Royal Enfield is continuing their digital transformation trend, and will invest in new ways to create value while leveraging augmented reality with PTC's Vuforia suite.

2. VCST (Manufacturing Efficiency, Quality, and Innovation)

VCST is part of the BMT Group and are a world-class automotive supplier of precision-machined power train and brake components. Their problem was that they had high costs for their production facility in Belgium. They either needed to improve their cost efficiency in their plant or face the potential of needing to shut down the facility and relocate it to another region. VCST decided to implement ThingWorx so that anyone can have instant visibility to asset status and performance. VCST is also creating the ability to digitize maintenance requests and the ability to acquire about spare parts to improve the overall efficiency in support of their costs reduction goals.

Additionally, VCST has a goal to reach zero complaints for their customers and, if any quality problems appear to their customers, they can be required to do a 100% inspection until the problem is solved. Moreover, as cars have gotten quieter with electrification, the noise from the gears has become an issue, and puts pressure on VCST to innovate and reduce gear noise.

VCST has again relied on ThingWorx and Windchill to collect and share data for joint collaborative analysis to innovate and reduce gear noise. VCST also plans to use Vuforia Expert Capture and Vuforia Chalk to train maintenance workers to further improve their efficiency and cost effectiveness. The company is not done with their digital transformation, and they have plans to implement Creo and Windchill to enable end-to-end digital thread connectivity to the factory.

3. BID Group Holdings (Connected Product)

BID Group Holdings operates in the wood processing industry. It is one of the largest integrated suppliers and North American leader in the field. The purpose of BID Group is to deliver a complete range of innovative equipment, digital technologies, turnkey installations, and aftermarket services to their customers. BID Group decided to focus on their areas of expertise, an rely on PTC, Microsoft, and Rockwell Automation’s combined capabilities and scale to deliver SaaS type solutions to their own industry.

Leveraging this combined power, the BID Group developed a digital strategy for service to improve mill efficiency and profitability. The solution is named OPER8 and was built on the ThingWorx platform. This allowed BID Group to provide their customers an out of the box solution with efficient time-to-value and low costs of ownership. BID Group is continuing to work with PTC and Rockwell Automation, to develop additional solutions that will reduce downtime of OPER8 with a predictive analytics module by using ThingWorx Analytics and LogixAI.

4. Hitachi (Service Optimization)

Hitachi operates an extensive service decision that ensures its customers’ data systems remain up and running. Their challenge was not to only meet their customers uptime Service Level Agreements, but to do it without killing their cost structure. Hitachi decided to implement PTC’s Servigistics Service Parts Management software to ensure the right parts are available when and where they are needed for service. With Servigistics, Hitachi was able to accomplish their needs while staying cost effective and delighting their customers.

Hitachi runs on the cloud, which allows them to upgrade to current releases more often, take advantage of new functionality, and avoid unexpected costs.

PTC has driven engagement and support for Hitachi through the PTC Community, and encourages all customers to utilize this platform. The network of collaborative spaces in a gathering place for PTC customers and partners to showcase their work, inspire each other, and share ideas or best practices in order to expand the value of their PTC solutions and services.

5. COVID-19 Response 

COVID-19 has put significant strain on the world’s hospitals and healthcare infrastructure, and hospitalization rates for COVID brought into question the capacity of being able to handle cases. Many countries began thinking of the value field hospitals could bring to safely care for patients and ease the admissions numbers of ‘regular’ hospitals. However, the complication is that field hospitals have essentially no isolation or air filtration capability that is required for treating COVID patients or healthcare workers.

As a result, the US Army Corp of Engineers has put out specifications to create self-contained isolation units, which are fully functioning hospital rooms that can be transported or built onsite. But, the assembly needed to happen fast, and a group of companies (including PTC) led by The Innovation Machine rallied to help design and define the SCIU’s.

With buy-in from numerous companies, a common platform was needed for companies to collaborate. PTC felt compelled to react, and many PTC customers and partners joined in to help create a collaboration platform, with cloud-based Windchill as the foundation. But, PTC didn’t just provide software to this collaboration; PTC also contributed with digital thread and design advice to help the group solve some of the major challenges. This design is a result of the many companies coming together to create deployments across various US state governments, agencies, and FEMA.

Final Thoughts

All of the above customers approached digital transformation as a business imperative. They all had sizeable challenges that needed to be solved and took leadership positions to implement plans that leveraged digital transformation technologies combined with new processes.

PTC will continue to innovate across the digital transformation portfolio and is committed to ensuring that customer success offerings capture value faster and provide the best outcomes.

Original Post Link: https://www.ptc.com/en/product-lifecycle-report/liveworx-digital-transformation–technology-and-support-you-need-to-succeed

Author Bio: Kelly is a corporate communications specialist at PTC. Her responsibilities include drafting and approving content for PTC’s external and social media presence and supporting communications for the Chief Strategy Officer. Kelly has previous experience as a communications specialist working to create and implement materials for the Executive Vice President of the Products Organization and senior management team members.