Success Story
Godwin Pumps adopts keytech PLM
Godwin Leading Pump Manufacturer adopts keytech PLM to assist with managing mixed 2D and 3D working practices, enterprise-wide document management and ERP integration. For over 100 years, Godwin Pumps has designed, manufactured and supplied pumps renowned for quality, reliability, and long life. Today, the company’s products are in service all over the world in construction, industry, oil refineries, chemical plants, mines, heating and ventilating, irrigation and water distribution. The Godwin range is now one of the most extensive available from a single manufacturer and includes Dri-Prime automatic self-priming, fire, wet self-prime, ISO end suction centrifugal, vertical multistage and submersible pumps. Flows up to
300 cubic metres per hour and heads up to 230 metres can be handled according to the type or system. To maintain its high standards, the company always has been quick to embrace new technology in all its forms. The company has been using CoCreate’s ME10® for 2D drawing creation and WorkManager® for drawing management, but wanted to move to 3D. According to David Braithwaite, Engineering Director at Godwins, “The selection of the SolidWorks® was quite clear, it seems to be the industry standard within in the pump industry and we were looking to build on the 3D-system using new technology tools (such as Finite Element Analysis and Computational Fluid Dynamics) that having a 3D package allows you to do.”
Godwin - the decision for keytech PLM
Need of PLM-system As with any successful business, zeal to adopt new technology has to be tempered with the need to maintain existing processes and data. Godwins have in excess of 20,000 ME10® drawings and these need to be live and working for the next five years. Braithwaite explained their plans for implementation of 3D-CAD and how it affected their PDM selection process “We see 3 to 5 years time before all of the legacy data in 2D becomes ‘for reference’ only, rather than live working drawings. At present, we’re going to be working with 2D and 3D, developing new drawings and new parts in 2D, as well as introducing 3D; so we’re running two CAD-systems at the same time and will be for at least the next two years, possibly three. It will be three to five years
“keytech PLM is not just a drawing management system; it’s a document management system.” before we drop 2D all together and just use it for maintaining legacy data.” As a result, Godwins needed a PDM-system that would allow them to manage and work with both their extensive 2D drawing data and newer data generated within SolidWorks®. Initially Godwins explored expanding the implementation of its existing 2D drawing management system, but it discovered limitations when handling SolidWorks® data. Braithwaite explains that “It worked to a point but had limitations so we could just store 2D and 3D information in one management system, but there were issues in that it was not supported properly, we could not carry out certain functions such as creating Bills of Materials combining the two sets of information and could not do simple things like batch plots. So, we started looking around for another PDM package that would enable us to manage the legacy data and the new SolidWorks® data in one
system.” Exploring their options further, Godwins revisited its 3D-CAD supplier. Braithwaite explains that “SolidWorks is supplied with a basic document management system, PDMWorks® Workgroup, which will handle the SolidWorks data, but it wouldn’t allow us to access the legacy 2D data; we couldn’t mix the two.” Having discounted PDMWorks Workgroup, the final short list came down to two potential systems, PDMWorks® Enterprise and keytech PLM. While Godwins saw the benefit of a single supplier and support from the SolidWorks® channel, critical issues meant keytech PLM gained the competitive edge. As Braithwaite explained, “PDMWorks® Enterprise would allow us to store and view ME10® drawings alongside SolidWorks data, but currently it had issues with combining the two to create Bill of Materials for transferring to our ERP-system. It did not allow us to do all the things we wanted to do, most critically, running two live systems – which keytech PLM does.” Alongside the ability to control and management two CAD-systems, Godwins are also looking to keytech PLM to assist with providing more access across the enterprise. As Braithwaite explains, “The other advantage and the reason we picked up on keytech PLM was the potential for the company. keytech PLM is not just a drawing management system; it’s a document management system. Our previous system was a drawing management system, solely used for CAD data. keytech is going to be used by all departments within the company. We can give access to everybody within the company to the technical data, drawings, etc.”
The implementation of keytech: Phase One In terms of scope for roll-out, Godwins are planning a two stage implementation. Phase One will see it set-up within the Engineering Department. This will provide the Drawing Office, Service, Quality Assurance
and Development departments. keytech will be used to manage all documents, not just CAD-data, but also sales sheets, data sheets, O and M books – essentially, anything that the staff produce and control will be stored, managed and controlled within keytech PLM.
Phase Two The second Phase of implementation is to expand access to the remaining departments, which will critically mean Sales and Purchasing department will be using keytech PLM alongside Godwins’ ERP-system. ERP integration was the third critical selection criteria for the PDM-system. As Braithwaite explains, “Godwins’ have our own in-house developed ERP-system and we’re now in the process of replacing it. So, I wanted a system that would integrate with the newer proprietary ERP-systems. So that was another reason that we went down the keytech route. We want to set-up a document management system which is independent but would integrate tightly with our new ERPsystem.”
share data with the US. As the US part of the company is currently using AutoCAD, this might have caused issues with other PDM suppliers or as Braithwaite put it “They don’t use SolidWorks, they use AutoCAD, so if we’d have gone down the route of PDMWorks® Enterprise, we would have been struggling to integrate within our document management system.“
Pros of data management When asked about why the design and manufacturing industry has begun to believe in the benefits of data management, Braithwaite explained how he saw keytech PLM fitting into the company’s processes and the benefits that would naturally ensue from adoption of the system, “Everyone now works electronically. We were printing 150 drawings a day in different departments – we don’t need to do that. If everyone has controlled access to the latest issue of a drawing, and we can set permissions as to who sees what and who does what with it – It has to be the way forward.”
About keytech keytech is a leader in the integration of CAD-, ERP- and Data Management-systems into cohesive, yet affordable, environments that fulfill its customers’ requirements and boost their productivity across many areas of the enterprise. With integration of major 2D- and 3D-CAD-systems and integrations into major ERP-systems, keytech’s flagship offering, keytech PLM, is a scalable solution, beginning with simple document management and ending in a complete Product Lifecycle Management solution.
A product of Godwin.
Phase Three Phase Three of implementation will see use of the keytech PLM expanded beyond its UK manufacturing and design centre. Godwin Pumps is owned by Godwins Pumps of America, so the next step is that keytech PLM is going to be used communicate and
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Godwin Pumps Ltd. Quenington, Cirencester, Gloucestershire GL7 5BX Tel.: 01285 750 271 Fax: 01285 750 352 sales@godwinpumps.co.uk www.godwinpumps.co.uk
keytech Software GmbH SuderwichstraĂ&#x;e 68 45665 Recklinghausen Tel.: +49 2361 985 80 0 Fax: +49 2361 985 80 23 info@keytech.de www.keytech.de