Interview with John Stuart and Chris Reisig

In the mechanical design automation industry, there has been a surge in the demand for leading industry designed automation products. Parametric Technology Corporation(PTC) is one of the leading players in this segment, judging from its performance in the Indian market last year. With products like Windchill and Pro/Engineer it has garnered a significant clientele list including TVS Group, Eicher, Bajaj Auto Ltd, Telco and others. In the annual Pro user conference held in Mumbai and attended by approximately 550 delegates, DATAQUEST caught up with John Stuart and Chris Reisig for their perspective on the Indian market and the vision of PTC in India.

Could you elaborate on the current investments of PTC in India?



There is an investment of $3 million till date. We are going to increase that. We are hiring new people in sales and support. Also R&D has emerged from maintenance of CAD/CAM products to strategic development for Windchill. In fact in Pune our other development center has developed a new application called ProShip, for customers to build ships in ProE which is a 3D version of a ship and that product is developed here. Also they have a great strategic capacity for R&D.





What is the significance of Product Data Management (PDM) in your product portfolio? How is Windchill positioned in the PDM market?


Windchill includes all the product life cycles of Collaborative Product Commerce (CPC) like product planning, flexible engineering, manufacturing and others. This constitutes the entire CPC architecture and Windchill has a distinct advantage because it has applications over the core area that other applications do not possess.

The products of SDRC were based on the engineering model back in the ‘70s and they did a nice job in analysis community which is their origin. They also developed Metaphase in a client-server environment in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. In fact, Jim Heppleman the architect of Metaphase is also the founder of Windchill and is now working with CPC as senior Vice-President and Chief Technical Officer. When he was developing Windchill he always used to say that everything good about Metaphase could be integrated in Windchill and every fault could be fixed and enhanced for better usage. Metaphase operates in a client-server environment and so they either have to rewrite it in order to make it web-centric, or just live with the legacy of client-server applications.

PDM is one of the keys to CPC our Collaborative Product Strategy. I think our advantage is that we have 27,000 users of CAD/CAM and all of those users represent a capital audience for us to address the Windchill technology and CPC solution base. That is a tremendous advantage. If you talk about being competitive in the PDM market or other markets around CPC they do not have the luxury of 27,000 users.






But if we look at the main applications, what are the advantages that Windchill offers to the user? 


John: Originally the applications that we delivered in Windchill were document management which included sorting of documents, configuration management, those being the key products under PDM. Further configuration management is the hardest to deploy for PDM systems. Thus we had the advantage of configuration application which works smoothly and is an integral part of
Windchill.

Probably 80% of our first 300 customers are using Windchill for PDM because we just released four new products–sourcing, product planning, manufacturing process planning and production. Those are the four new products and not many of them are using it as yet, but 80-90% of our Windchill customers are using it for PDM applications.






What about your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) initiatives... 


Chris: For the influential products we allow to connect CRM systems or any other system with the Windchill environment. We are looking very closely at the CRM market which has many components to it. If you look around there are four or five different pieces of it and one of them is deskforce automation like Siebel systems, an order entry automation system explaining how the customer ordering procedure is carried out and so on. But there is also another component that is specific to manufacturing like configuration management, where a customer can put in a parameter and generate an automatic end product. That is where we have an advantage since we have a manufacturing base and we can use our knowledge to leverage very easily, whereas other CRM providers may not have that advantage. We are working towards providing some exclusive solutions in that area.





Alliances and acquisitions seem to be an important part of your business strategy. Is there any specific criterion by which PTC chooses its partners?


John: If you look at the partners here and worldwide, generally they are acknowledged leaders. So we are looking for high quality to begin, alongside high capacity and multiple services. When we are looking for partners we want our customers getting a one stop shop. We want their turnkey hardware, applications, software, financing, first level maintenance and support and third property applications that we may not have ourselves. We also look whether they have a viable business model and are able to grow with us.





Globally, in which market segment does PTC have a significant presence?


John: About 25% of the business comes from automation, 15% originates from aerospace. We have a dominant presence in the electronics industry. All computer manufacturers have standardized Pro/E because of its user-friendly features. So electronics and consumer products industries have been dominated by ProE due to time taken to market, quick assembling and packaging factors. In the aerospace industry Airbus is our client and IBM has Boeing. We have the other divisions of Boeing besides the commercial aircraft and they are all standardized on
ProE.






What is the roadmap of PTC in Asia and India?


John: It is the fastest growing area in the world. The Japanese optimized automotive industry through operational efficiency and great products in the late ‘70s.

Taiwan, a leader in the electronics industry, has been instrumental in delivering high quality products over a short time. India is going to be the backbone for the high speed internet economy. It has a large number of hardworking, talented and skillful engineers. In the next millennium the top resources would be talented ‘human capital. There is no better place for finding it than in India. So we are investing hugely with the existing 400 customers and should be doubling it in the near future with the investments in support and R&D in full swing. We see India as the fastest growing country in Asia. As such there is no separate roadmap for Asia and India, as we see India as our potential, and in Asia we are investing there.

Chris:

One of the challenges I face is to align the roadmaps generally as much as possible. Because I do not want an Indian division going in one direction and the US division going in another direction. I think we are going to operate parallel to the U.S along with the other Asian markets. So the roadmap is the same. It is just a matter of investment. 






The internet wave seems to have hit almost every industry. In what ways is it affecting the manufacturing sector?


John: The biggest fundamental change brought by the internet now in the manufacturing sector, is that companies would have to not only stock but also comply with orders. So customers are going to interface through the net and place an order. Manufacturers are going to build the product and ship it to the customer within a short span of time. The companies in the automotive industries which take the earliest initiative, will have an advantage over the others. The majority of market shares are up for grabs at present, when we look at the best dealerships in the world especially in North America, where they have a good internet strategy to sell products over the net.

But the real link would be when they link it to manufacturing plans of General Motors or Ford. They would be the one to take the lead in delivering the product. It will mean having plans in place, in 2 weeks instead of 2 months and consumers can configure it exactly the way they want it. The OEMs build exactly the way they were ordered to do so by the customers, instead of customers having to go to OEMs.

Chris:

It is changing everything we are doing–these are amazing times when the internet revolution is greater than the industrial revolution. It is going to change the way companies compete, introduce their products in the market, the way of manufacturing and so on. The internet provides a great tool for the companies to improve their efficiency. It will also provide a competitive environment in the future.