User report: MSD Werthenstein

MSD Werthenstein BioPharma GmbH from Schachen in Switzerland belongs to the MSD Group, which in turn is a subsidiary of the pharmaceutical company Merck. MSD is active in research and development for new drugs in over 140 countries. In Schachen, MSD Werthenstein creates and manages the construction plans for the Schachen branch. They include 2D drawings in DWG format and mostly have external references such as other drawings, images and MS Office documents. "There are several thousand CAD drawings that we need to access as quickly and flexibly as possible," explains Lars Marbacher, FM Technician Building Efficiency Global WorkPlace Solution at MSD Werthenstein. MSD Werthenstein has replaced AutoCAD® with ZWCAD from ZWSOFT Schweiz GmbH. "The range of functions is no different from AutoCAD®," says Marbacher, "but the license costs for ZWCAD are much cheaper."

The goal achieved: Maintain familiar user habits

"The decision to use GAIN Collaboration as PDM software and PSP successor was not difficult for us," says Marbacher. "Especially since GAIN Software was the only provider worldwide that could offer us a PDM interface to ZWCAD, which we have just switched to," says Marbacher.

"GAIN Collaboration is very similar to Productstream Professional (PSP) in many ways in terms of its general way of working. For example, the interface with its window arrangements. The ability to search across all properties, the maintenance of article master data and usage records are also basically retained. Compared to PSP, the GAIN solution is much more modern. The clear interface enables direct access to documents as well as search and filter functions. Details such as history, references, usage, etc. are clearly displayed for each file."

Open to international cooperation and different CAD systems

In addition to the project management, definition of workflows and replication to other locations that are familiar with PSP, GAIN Collaboration can also assert itself in national and international data exchange with its multilingual capabilities thanks to UNICODE and a dictionary.

GAIN Collaboration is easy to use

The PSP alternative brings together previously incompatible data from different applications such as SolidWorks or Autodesk with Office documents. Design, product and accounting documents can be stored in a project together with the associated emails. "For example, if I insert an image into a drawing, I can simply link the image file to the project in GAIN using drag and drop," explains Marbacher. Import is possible not only from applications but also from Windows Explorer. GAIN Collaboration automatically recognizes the file format and adopts the existing properties, relationships and references.
The multi-processor technology together with GAIN Collaboration's multithreading ensures fast opening and editing even with large files. Marbacher: "Multiple PDM processes can be executed in parallel because GAIN Collaboration distributes its performance requirements across different processor cores."

Simple: The graphical configuration

To meet the different requirements of each individual company, GAIN Collaboration can be configured for individual customization using graphical tools. These include, for example, the user interface, toolbar, database, masks and status definitions (workflows).

Fast, secure access

The server-based system of GAIN Collaboration is based on an MS-SQL database architecture. While MSD with Productstream Professional (PSP) accessed the file server (archive) directly to open files, GAIN Collaboration, the successor to PSP, accesses documents via "Check-In/Check-Out". GAIN Collaboration first saves the file in a workspace on the user's computer. From there it is opened with ZWCAD. The advantage: The file can be viewed by other users, but cannot be changed during editing.

Fast implementation and data migration

At the beginning of 2015, MSD Werthenstein replaced Autodesk® Productstream® Professional with GAIN Collaboration. During the PDM migration, the metadata from PSP was transferred 1:1 to GAIN Collaboration. A total of 8,000 documents were transferred, including around 6,000 2D drawings with external references. The remaining data consisted of Excel, Word, PDF and image files.

"GAIN Collaboration makes product data management much easier for us," summarizes Marbacher. Data exchange between individual user groups within the company is easier because standard document types can be managed, organized and edited directly in GAIN Collaboration. All work steps are easy to understand, which means that causes of errors can be quickly found and eliminated. With the PDM introduction or EDM/PDM solution from GAIN Software GmbH as the PSP successor, MSD Werthenstein is also fully prepared for future requirements.