Pentair Technical Products Turns to Dassault Systèmes and Microsoft to Create Single Version of the Truth for Product Design

Solution Drives Efficiency and New Product Development through Improved Collaboration and Data Accuracy

LOWELL, Mass., July 9, 2009 – Dassault Systèmes (DS) (Euronext Paris: #13065, DSY.PA), a world leader in 3D and Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) solutions, today announced that Pentair Technical Products, a leader in the global enclosures and thermal management markets, has deployed an integrated DS ENOVIA PLM and Microsoft SQL Server 2005 solution to create a single version of the truth for product design. By creating a global collaborative design environment to exchange mission critical information Pentair Technical Products will be able to improve operational efficiency, drive return on investment, reduce total cost of ownership and speed time to market.

With three business units (electrical, thermal and electronic developments) spanning six manufacturing plants spread around the world, including facilities in India and China, Pentair Technical Products realized that its existing disparate systems were leading to duplication, increased error rates and potential issues for regulatory and materials compliance. 

“Ultimately, with our continued global expansion and growing customer base, we had to find a way to increase the efficiency of collaboration processes within our plants to improve productivity and to remain competitive,” said John Salaski, Director IT,  Pentair Technical Products. “The compatibility with Microsoft SQL Server 2005 enables us to build on our long term strategic relationship with Dassault Systemes to ensure that all of our key global functions and facilities are able to make business-critical decisions based on real time information.” 

By replacing its Oracle database with SQL Server 2005, Pentair Technical Products is able to seamlessly integrate with its existing ENOVIA PLM solution to migrate each of the plant’s product design data from independent silos into a combined master data repository. Developed to support Pentair’s “design anywhere, manufacturer anywhere, service anywhere” strategy, this approach created a single version of the truth enabling all key decision makers (from different disciplines such as design, engineering and manufacturing) to have fast and reliable access to a variety of product information including CAD models and drawings, bill-of-materials (BOMs), routings, specifications, RoHS compliance documents, product literature, test requests and lab reports, patents, trademarks, issue logs, product roadmaps, supplier information, and product costs.

 

“While globalization has created new markets and opportunities, many manufacturers are faced with the complexity of managing an array of international suppliers, resources and operations to ensure that products are delivered on time and on budget. Understanding these challenges, Pentair made the strategic decision to invest in a technology solution that would enable them to design, manufacturer and service anywhere in the world,” said Mich Tellier, CEO, ENOVIA, Dassault Systèmes. “The combination of the ENOVIA PLM solution and Microsoft SQL Server 2005 provides an easy to manage centralized source of data which will speed up the decision-making process, support future expansion and help Pentair improve its time to market.”

Based on the time and resource savings associated with deploying Dassault Systèmes ENOVIA PLM and SQL Server 2005, Pentair Technical Products devised a streamlined hierarchy for reporting and evaluation.  All product documentation change requests for each site now go to one of the central product support groups for approval and implementation.  Any plants that require assistance building a product must contact the appropriate central product support group – electrical, thermal or electronic - who then makes sure all potential changes are approved, recorded and updated in real time.

“As the data management and business intelligence platform of choice, Microsoft SQL Server 2005 is the high-value, low-cost platform to run Pentair Technical Products,” said Mike Kinney, senior director, SQL Server Marketing at Microsoft Corp. “Not only does SQL Server consolidate data and provide access to key business information throughout Pentair, it offers the lowest possible total cost of ownership for enterprise-class performance.”

Building on this agreement and its 2008 announcement with ENOVIA SmarTeam  Pentair plans to continue to grow its successful relationship with Dassault Systèmes and is currently piloting the ENOVIA V6 PLM platform.