keytech Software: Trailblazers in Product Life Cycle Management

The manufacturing world is getting increasingly distributed. In tandem with business expansion that transcends borders, more and more manufacturing and engineering firms are moving on from a single R&D site to multiple R&D centers and product development facilities at their international locations. This globally distributed network expedites the need to not just share the latest updates on research, product data and development projects, but also gain comprehensive real-time visibility into every step of the entire product life cycle accessible throughout the international product development network of the manufacturers. Consequently, manufacturers are looking to automate business processes and demand improved documentation of technical processes to better manage and monitor their operations. However, most ERP systems don’t provide real-time visibility into process workflows, thus hindering companies from competently understanding and controlling the process flows to improve them.

Amidst these challenges, the combined forces of keytech and PROCAD bring much-needed enhancement in business process management for manufacturing companies. With in-depth industry experience and a successful track record in process lifecycle management (PLM), the Germany-based companies joined hands – post PROCAD’s merger with prominent configure, price, quote (CPQ) provider ACATEC – to provide their customers improved and faster product releases, updates and services. “keytech is one of the leading providers of PLM solutions for SMEs, and PROCAD is a powerhouse focusing on PLM and product data management solutions (PDM),” says Dr. Reiner Heimsoth, CEO of keytech. As a business process management solution, PROCAD and keytech go beyond enterprise organization, process definition, hierarchies and documentation. “Our focus is on bringing to life the workflows of those processes that the manufacturer wants to get automated,” he adds.

Delivering Enhanced Business Process Management

As fully integrated PLM solution providers, PROCAD and keytech remove data silos and parallel document structures, thereby improving business process management, which translates into enhanced manufacturing quality and output. Taking into account the international manufacturing and R&D sites of their customers, PROCAD and keytech’s solutions come with out-of-the-box functionality that comprises proactive data and information replication and sync-back capabilities.

“We distribute both product management data (meta-data) within our PLM solutions and hold local caches of CAD and other product files that are synced and managed on a global scale by an integrated set of features,” explains Dr. Heimsoth. These features enable manufacturers to overcome network and bandwidth challenges on international networks.

The PROCAD and keytech merger come with the unique advantage of making their individual solutions and technologies available to their combined customer base, making a wide range of advanced workflow management solutions available in one place. While keytech insight, keytech’s CAD-integrated PLM application significantly improves workflows for CAD engineers, thereby adding value to PROCAD’s customers, PROCAD’s platform PROOM delivers immediate value to keytech’s customers by giving them access to PROCAD’s AUTOCAD-enabled software suite.

The centerpiece of PROCAD and keytech’s product suite is the BPMN 2.0 Workflow engine that brings together the data, process control and documentation of process flow in the manufacturing space. The process management engine comes with a web-based task list that provides automatic reminders, escalation procedures and checklist functionalities to track and document the pending and completed tasks and process flows, enabling team leaders and managers to view and analyze the processes. “We have powerful tools to present and analyse workflows in terms of KPIs and a heat map functionality to get everybody a quick first sketch of the workflow performance,” states Dr. Heimsoth. The engine can be deployed as a standalone as well as integrated as part of the customers’ systems, allowing them to continue using their definition tools to manage their product life cycles.

One-Stop Product Configuration Solution

To take PLM to even greater heights, PROCAD and keytech have newly launched PRO.FILE Product Configurator. Powered by ACATEC, PRO.FILE combines PLM and CPQ to create a uniform, low code environment adaptable to customers’ product configuration needs. “We have created PRO.FILE as a one-stop solution for an all-around smart digital product lifecycle – from product configuration by the customer at the point of sale and manufacturing to operation and servicing of the product,” extols Dr. Heimsoth.

As a plus, PROCAD and keytech also offer workflow automation courtesy Camunda, a supplier of OEM product suite comprising of an open-source workflow and decision automation platform. Camunda’s process analysis tools allow PROCAD and keytech to offer a powerful and sustainable workflow solution to their customers.

For instance, PROCAD and keytech built an easily navigable workflow for one of their customers to support their device release. With the keytech workflow engine, they maintained consistency and transparency in information flow throughout the device release procedure by enabling their customer to implement the workflow in just a few steps. “A further phase will be added to the processes in the future, where the workflow engine will connect the customer’s worldwide locations with sub-workflows,” Dr. Heimsoth informs. In another instance, PROCAD and keytech significantly optimized the procurement process for a customer. Converting their analog data to digital, the keytech workflow engine recorded all the digitized system data and connected the concerned personnel to corresponding tasks, thereby making the data available to all process participants at all times.

En route to scripting more successes, PROCAD and keytech will ramp up their product configuration with PRO.FILE and a host of other offerings. “We believe that configuration instead of programming is the new approach that will determine the future of SMEs in the manufacturing industry,” opines Dr. Heimsoth. The companies also plan to take their merger further with a focused product implementation plan to benefit their manufacturing and engineering customers. “We are looking forward to seeing the companies grow together, develop and introduce more efficient solutions and support our growing customer base with our joint PLM expertise,” he concludes.