Company Profile
People & Organization
- Operating in a highly regulated industry
- High number of users
- Usually includes users outside of the design department
- Cross-department collaboration
- Dedicated system administrator(s)
- End users will be trained on the configured 3DEXPERIENCE platform
Requirements
- Process-specific administrator and user training
- Controlled access to design data
- Track design changes and issues
Formal design release and change processes
Adoption Strategy
For a mid-size or large organization, or any company in a highly regulated industry that needs formal design release and change processes, adopting the 3DEXPERIENCE platform interaction it's likely that usage will extend beyond your design department.
When implementing formal processes, it is important that those processes undergo thorough testing, validation, and approval, sometimes at multiple levels, before making IT system changes. This type of implementation will require detailed configuration of the 3DEXPERIENCE platform and SOLIDWORKS design.
Thorough planning is critical before starting the rollout of any new company processes. Having a well-defined plan will ensure that the implementation of the new process is a success.
Finally, nominate a person or group of individuals to lead the rollout of the chosen change process and have the responsibility for making it a success. It is key to identify your internal champions who will support others and maintain momentum. In many cases, this will be the same person or people involved in making the original purchase decision.
For some companies, it may only be engineers or designers (SOLIDWORKS users) who are involved; in others, it will be several people across multiple departments and disciplines. Involvement for some may just be awareness that a new process is being implemented, but for others, involvement will mean hands-on training and a complete understanding of the potential benefits to their business.
Failure to have dedicated leadership during the implementation and subsequent go-live risks the project failing to meet its outcomes. This situation will often result in people reverting to their old methods.
It is important to have a dedicated internal team in place that is responsible for agreeing on the outcomes, overseeing the implementation, and managing the rollout. When implementing any new process, the users must involve experience value as soon as possible. Therefore, it’s important to avoid making the initial implementation unnecessarily complex. Select one process for the pilot project. Ideally, this one is important to your design process, but it should be as simple as possible.
It is recommended that if you have no previous experience of implementing the 3DEXPERIENCE platform, the implementation project is managed with the support and guidance of your SOLIDWORKS reseller partner.
A formal statement of work (SOW) should be created and agreed upon by both your company and your SOLIDWORKS reseller partner and referred to frequently to prevent scope creep.
The SOW should detail:
The scope and tasks of the work to be performed
Assumptions made regarding the implementation
Customer requirements – what will be required by the customer in order to complete the tasks. Such prerequisites from the client may consist of IT-related issues, project-related requirements (i.e., availability of respective personnel, etc.)
Estimated Time for each task
Acceptance criteria and any deliverables, if applicable
Agreed price for the Implementation Program delivery
The SOW is a key document to ensure that you and your SOLIDWORKS reseller partner agree on the scope of the implementation, as well as all the resources required to deliver it. Changes that are requested during the implementation should be clearly discussed as to their impact on the deployment timeline, as well as any additional costs that could be incurred. Proper project management principles should be followed to document the approved changes.
🚦 Readiness Assessment
In order to ensure that your outcomes and expectations are met, a readiness assessment can be a great way to set realistic milestones. We've created two different readiness assessments for your convenience.
Set Up and Onboarding Essential Topics
During the implementation planning process, consideration should be given to all of the setup and onboarding topics listed in the table below. All of these topics fall under the Basic Cloud Storage, Lifecycle & Revision, and Manage & Control sections in the Outcome Worksheet.
Data migration is an important topic to consider for any existing SOLIDWORKS customer adopting the 3DEXPERIENCE platform. Migration of data to the 3DEXPERIENCE platform should be treated as a separate activity from user onboarding, and must be planned and costed accordingly. In order to plan successfully, a thorough discussion must take place between you and your SOLIDWORKS reseller to ensure that the right strategy is put in place and the right expectations are set with both parties before any migration activities are started.
The 3DEXPERIENCE Platform is not an archiving solution. Attempting to move every SOLIDWORKS design going back years will only serve to use up your company's platform storage allowance. Instead, it’s recommended that, where possible, only required content should be moved across, for example, current projects and component libraries.
Implementation & Onboarding
1. Kickoff
This kickoff meeting is set up to review desired outcomes and fill in any gaps that may not have been addressed. It's also a time to make sure that the platform administrators and other key stakeholders from your company are identified. Having at least two platform administrators is recommended, ideally from different departments, to ensure the platform is configured to account for everyone's needs.
A roadmap and timeline should be discussed and documented, as well as milestones set, and commitment from both parties to hit targets and maintain an open line of communication if anything comes up.
Additional agenda topics should be added to discuss phased implementations, and if agreed upon, appropriate roadmap/rollout schedules should be prepared for each phase. Larger teams will often have power users who should be brought in early on and consulted with throughout the implementation process to gain insight into inefficiencies higher higher-level positions may not be aware of.
2. Administrator Training
It is recommended that platform administrators go through the standard training first. These people will also require further training on day-to-day usage, which can be covered in the workshop sessions.
3. Workshops & Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) Development
Workshops will typically require multiple sessions over an extended period of time, weeks to months, depending on the scope. The workshops should include the key stakeholders in your company.
Workshop agenda items can include:
- Any Additional Training for Key Stakeholders
- Process Mapping
- 3DEXPERIENCE Platform Configuration
- Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) Development
Because of the highly configured environment and the need to minimise production downtime, developing SOPs is most likely the best approach here. SOPs should be created for documenting processes at the business level, including how and where our software solutions are involved. Also, documenting all the tasks that users need to complete and creating step-by-step instructions will significantly improve the adoption rate.
4. Pilot Project.
Depending on the size of the rollout of the 3DEXPERIENCE Platform, it may make sense to first conduct a pilot before a complete production rollout. Every process, workflow, and configured functionality should be tested and validated before going live.
The Pilot Project of the implementation sets time aside for a select group of users who intend to use the system to work in a pre-production or limited production environment. The key stakeholders on the project should determine how long the pilot should last and what functionality and operations should be addressed during the pilot. After the pilot is complete or during the pilot, set aside time to address any issues discovered.
The main benefit of having a pilot program in the implementation is to provide time for issues to surface that may not have been considered during the initial implementation, without risking your company's production work from continuing.
Many companies tend to de-prioritise the pilot. Training and piloting are absolutely critical to project success. Many issues relating to training or workflows can be found during the pilot phase. Identifying and addressing these in the pilot can avoid issues and delays when rolling out to production. While conducting a larger-scale implementation, it is important to factor in running a pilot from day one. Pilot length is a function of the number of users, volume of data, which departments are involved, how many user scenarios are managed in the Platform, etc. Pilot can take anywhere between a few hours and a few weeks.
5. Standard Operating Procedures Documentation
Once all functionality and processes have been tested and validated, Standard Operating Procedures should be formalised and published. Adding dates and revisions will assist in the adoption of any future updates. WIKI Posts within a SWYM community in your 3DEXPERIENCE platform are a great place for storing any type of official documentation.
6. User Training
SOLIDWORKS Users will benefit from going through the standard training as an introduction to the capabilities. Additional training sessions must be delivered to cover company-specific working practices, to ensure that all users become familiar with the prescribed Standard Operating Procedures.
7. Go Live
Ongoing Engagement
During and after the Go Live it's critical to ensure that adoption stays on track and that the time and effort invested in the setup and training, and pilot project is not wasted. Weekly check-ins with your reseller partner for the first few months following the go-live are a great way to ensure that everything remains running smoothly and that any issues are addressed as quickly as possible.
Once the initial implementation is complete, it is still important to maintain regular check-ins with your reseller partner; these are a good opportunity to investigate usage expansion into more areas and plan further projects.
See below for an example roadmap illustrating the recommended engagements and milestones during the first year of your adoption journey. Remember, this is just an example; any plan should be tailored to suit both your company's needs and internal strategies.
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