Dassault Systeme’s PLM Technology Provides Black & Decker a Competitive Edge
by Glenn Gise

The following article is an overview of a featured presentation at the COE Spring 2002 Conference & TechniFair

Black & Decker^® and DEWALT are brand names that rarely need an introduction. Our power tool presence is worldwide and all our competitors have us clearly in their cross hairs - but we are consistently and successfully defending and gaining market share. We took a huge step in enabling this defense by initiating a strong offense back in 1994. The company supported a project of implementing a PDM system and Black & Decker^® thus became a pioneer in the PDM environment. We started small but have evolved into a global network that captures four major design centers and 11 manufacturing sites. Our company has consistently used one CAD system over the years. Perhaps the similarity of basic power tool design has always prompted design center interaction, but we are fortunate in not having to deal with various CAD tools. This has contributed to the successful implementation of standard processes, which better enables the pursuit and support of a global environment.

Throughout the years, CATIA has remained the design tool of choice. Black & Decker^® has evolved through version 3 to our planned implementation of V4.2.4 in 2Q 2002. Our current user base is approximately 375. We charted a similar course in the PDM arena, having evolved from ProductManager™ 2.3 to our current level of ENOVIApm 3.4 with approximately 1000 users. But who cares about history and what you are doing for me today? That's a typical upper management question and one that Black & Decker^® and DEWALT must address. The challenge of late is (1) supporting new business acquisitions, (2) closing and opening new manufacturing sites, (3) developing secondary design centers, and (4) achieving this in a downsized and leaner organization. The development of engineering talent in less expensive areas of the world has challenged our support teams in creating an environment that supports the concurrent design activity. Similar challenges face Black & Decker^® in dealing with a diverse low-cost supply base.

In order to support our design and business challenges of the future, we elected to begin a migration path of CATIA V4 to V5 in the summer of 2001. Our intent was to recoup as much of our V4 expenditures as possible and hopefully retain more interoperability with existing data, while taking advantage of the increased functionality. This migration posed a number of problems that demanded careful consideration.

Implementing V5 with the Least Production Disruption
Black & Decker^® first introduced V5 to support teams that could use V5 functionality with V4 models. Examples of these teams are Industrial Design, Prototype Shop, Analysis, Test Lab, and Product Service. We extensively incorporated V5 surfacing within V4 parts. Another area of initial usage was the V5 assembly modeling functions performed on existing V4 parts. The prototyping shops were also able to take advantage of V5 capability in the NC area without impact to the design teams.

Climbing the V5 Learning Curve
Clearly V5 requires significant training. Most immediate was training for the internal support staff. This elite group of V4 experts had to learn a rapidly changing and functionally different V5 product and still support all our V4 production teams as well. This also required we support a training environment to allow both V4 and V5 to coexist. Our initial training for all the support teams and selected design teams was contracted for about eight months. During this time, the V4 trainers thoroughly learned V5, which now allows our internal team to support design team training needs. We have noted a 30% reduction in training hours even with increased course content, which implies V5 is more intuitive. The migration of V5 within Black & Decker^® is planned through 2004.

Hardware Migration
For any company leasing hardware this can be a real juggling act. Although capable of running on AIX, all users clearly preferred the PC. This enabled Black & Decker^® to realize significant hardware lease savings and gain precious desktop real estate for the users. Those users requiring occasional V4 needs are supported by "common" areas strategically placed throughout the design centers. Move cautiously in this area. Traditional AIX support is often handled by a dedicated group of experts who understand the demands of a design environment. Once moved into the PC arena, one can expect some turf wars with the PC support folks and a higher level of urgency might have to be instilled. It's also very helpful to have accurate hardware and software utilization statistics to appropriately redeploy and disperse machines.

Using V5
V5 usage in the production of power tools has been a real learning experience. In hindsight we should have been more attentive to process. The assembly modeling features of V5 have been wonderful, but attention to the detail and type of files used within the assembly is very important in order to assure adequate performance. As assemblies are used more fully, the cumulative effect of less disciplined models become more apparent. How they react in downstream operations is more a concern. It also takes some time for users to get comfortable with all the links and constraints. It's also important to make certain you're in a position to support all the newly trained users with all their questions. We uncovered some problems in early releases that compelled our support team to do extensive testing before moving the release to production. The rapid fire releases and service packs from Dassault Systemes kept us in testing mode too much of the time. We simply couldn't keep up with all the updates so decided not to try to implement each service pack. We later experienced some severe failures on "not the latest service pack". It was then very frustrating to not get support help from IBM/Dassault Systemes unless we moved to the latest service pack. This put us between the rock and the proverbial hard spot. It does appear the later service pack fixed that problem but we kept our fingers crossed that problems wouldn't crop up elsewhere.

CATIA V5 Summary
Black & Decker^® compared the V5R7sp6 software in production to a teenager. Still evolving as an adolescent and still immature but capable of doing the job. Definitely changing very rapidly and improving with age. At times a little unstable with occasional back talk but with loads of potential with every indication of developing into the best. It can be noted that DEWALT ran two pilots in our main design center. The less complex pilot that started from scratch on all models has run problem free. The more complicated pilot that remodeled V4 data seemed to experience more problems, although the two projects are dissimilar.

The current focus for Black & Decker^® is to get more downstream participation in product development. We seek to better leverage the use of our engineering output and establish continuous communication with manufacturing and procurement. To fully accomplish this integration, some cultural changes need to happen and these types of changes take time. Manufacturing is now exploring the DELMIA tools and the DMU tools show promise in promoting more collaboration. Just the fact that all the applications can be PC-based is well received. A transition is occurring within the teams that support and implement all our CATIA and PDM tools. We now have active participants from manufacturing and procurement that clearly understand the value of working together to create the product development pipeline.

Looking at product data from a very high level finds Black & Decker^® using three major tools to manage the creation and manufacture of our products. The first being CATIA, which we have globally accepted as our continued choice for a design tool, and the second being SAP, which will soon be implemented and serving nearly all our manufacturing sites. This leaves ENOVIApm, which is nearing its life expectancy. We as a company have utilized most of its functionality and will be looking for a replacement tool to more capably manage our designs and more fully integrate with our supply chain.

Black & Decker^® was fortunate to have a visionary team that identified the value of moving forward with CATIA and PDM in the early 90s. We continue to work extremely hard to keep our tools, systems, and processes in alignment and have an effective global team that manages these assets. Our biggest challenge remains working more closely with our supply chain, but positive changes are occurring each passing month. A huge amount of hard work and teamwork have gone into the success of these projects, but our team remains optimistic that each change or solution we implement will help keep Black & Decker and DEWALT worldwide leaders in power tools.