“Big Bang” at Goldman Industries Is Expected to Reduce Product Development Time by 70 Percent

100-year-old New England Toolmaker Transforms Enterprise with IBM Product Lifecycle Management

 

Chicago, IL, March 13, 2001 - At the National Manufacturing Week Conference, the Goldman Industrial Group, manufacturers of machine tools for the automotive, aerospace and other industries, announced that it is transforming the first of seven century-old subsidiaries with IBM Product Lifecycle Management solutions. <br/>

 

 

As part of a multimillion-dollar deal, IBM Global Services will help create a complete internetworked environment at Fellows Corporation of Vermont, and its six sister companies: Bridgeport Machines, Bryant Grinder Corporation, Fellows Corporation, Jones & Lamson, J&L Metrology and Hill-Lom. Goldman Industrial Group will implement a system that includes software and services from IBM, Lotus, Dassault Systemes and Baan/Invensys that will provide the company with Web-based computer-aided-design (CAD) collaboration, e-commerce, customer relationship management (CRM), enterprise resource planning (ERP), and supply chain management. When its new system is in place, Goldman expects to reduce product development time by 70 percent. <br/>

 

 

Goldman’s goal—to make it easy for customers to do business with its companies—sprang from the realization early last year that its information technology (IT) infrastructure would not support today's advanced collaborative supply chain technologies. Goldman turned to IBM for a "big bang" effort: the two companies worked together to implement a networked computer-aided design, product development management (PDM) and enterprise resource planning environment simultaneously. <br/>

 

 

Goldmans' new PLM infrastructure includes, CATIA Version 5 CAD/CAM/CAE, SmarTeam for PDM each from Dassault Systemes, Baan5 for ERP and Lotus Notes Version R5. The PLM solutions will run on IBM hardware including; an AS/400 model 730 and Netfinity eServers Intel-based workstations, NetVista PCs Intellistations and ThinkPad's model 390xs notebook computers.<br/>

 

 

Goldman selected IBM Global Services as the sole partner for this ambitious project because of its ability to integrate all of the systems to allow the engineering and business processes teams to share development data seamlessly. IBM specialists worked closely with Goldman to define business requirements and outline the implementation of a PLM infrastructure, which would enable Goldman to collaborate with their customers externally and work efficiently internally. This collaborative environment provides Goldman customers with direct, secure access to the company’s product data.<br/>

 

 

Customers now have the benefit of real-time, direct connections with any of the Goldman companies, including the ability to view model parts before they are ordered. This architecture also enables the Goldman companies to work with the same free flow of information among each other.<br/>

 

 

Said Klaus Schaeffer vice president of digital enterprise sales, IBM Product Lifecycle Management, “The e-commerce benefits of Goldman’s PLM implementation are substantial, because now Goldman and its customers have the tools they need to track every phase of the engineering and manufacturing process, and to make changes early on, which will help reduce development time and cost.”

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Goldman Industrial Group’s four Vermont-based companies are serving as pilot sites for the project. Bridgeport Machines, a manufacturer of manual and computer numerically controlled metal cutting machine tools and accessories, will be the first company to roll out the initial pilot implementation. <br/>

 

 

“We believe our true partnership with IBM will also allow us to expand our solution beyond the immediate factory and walls. We can become, in many ways, a virtual company,”

<b/>said Mark S. Swift, group president, Goldman Industrial Group’s Vermont Companies. “We will be using the latest e-business technology to bring together strategic partners and associates in a collaborative environment, while allowing the participants to remain resident in their most productive location.”

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The infrastructure for Fellows, Bryant, Jones & Lamson and J&L Metrology is already in place, along with the engineering pilot and e-commerce tools. The targeted completion date for the project is the second quarter 2001, when the Internet will facilitate plant floor integration at customer sites, and service and support will eventually expand to include machine tool monitoring and online upgrades. <br/>

“Through the use of CATIA and other PLM solutions, the companies of Goldman Industrial Group are achieving true collaborative engineering integration,” said Etienne Droit, Dassault Systemes executive vice-president of sales and marketing.