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Many organizations are hesitant to implement a new software system, in part because they believe it is too time consuming and in part because it may not deliver the productivity benefits claimed in its marketing literature. This was the initial sentiment at Ameron International, manufacturer of concrete poles and accompanying accessories that are sold primarily to utilities, city lighting and/or public works agencies, electrical distributors, architects, and developers.

After spending considerable time researching a variety of document management systems, they selected Adept. It didn't take long for them to recognize the system made their engineers' jobs easier, allowing them to spend their time on engineering instead of paper pushing.

"I can't imagine our office without Adept software. Or, rather, I don't want to," said Mark Luna, a senior engineer for the concrete pole products division of Ameron International, which operates plants in California, Washington, Alabama, and Oklahoma. "Our users definitely appreciate the functionality of Adept. We've embraced Adept and particularly, document management as a necessity in today's business world. I would not want to go back to a time when we weren't using the Adept software."

According to Luna, searching for files before Adept was a tedious, manual effort. "Looking back, I can remember searching for file drawings manually in an old log book, flipping pages. It could take several minutes to find old files, or possibly hours depending upon the file's age," said Luna. "The funny thing is, I was a staunch opponent to implementing data management software. I felt it was another piece of software that we were being forced to learn, which had no proven benefits for us. At that time, we weren't ISO certified, so document tracking wasn't that important, or so we thought," said Luna.

In many manufacturing companies, engineering is so busy trying to simply get their immediate jobs completed they don't realize how much time is squandered in unnecessary busy work as a result of ineffectively managing their data. Major productivity increases are realized when someone on the team steps back, evaluates the big picture, and makes process changes, including the implementation of a data management system. After implementing at least a dozen licenses of Adept for use by Autodesk Inventor and AutoCAD designers/creators as well as viewer/consumers, it became readily apparent that productivity was increasing immensely. "The ability to efficiently track various files is a huge time-saver for our business," said Luna. "Our time is now being spent the way it was supposed to be, processing new or revised drawing files, as compared to the past, when much of our time was spent searching for the pertinent file itself."

Careful Consideration Led Ameron to an Easy to Implement System with High Returns

When Ameron decided to implement a data management system, they spent a great deal of time researching the various EDM products available and weighed several of their options before finally deciding on Adept. "Our review team had several factors in mind while doing research. However, what convinced me was the ease of implementation and the internal flexibility of Adept software," said Luna.

Manufacturers are often surprised to learn how little time it takes to get up and running with Adept. According to Luna, Ameron's implementation time was short. "We were able to install, bring in all of our old drawing files, set up our "library cards," and implement the solution in two days. Most of that was spent deciding upon our internal data fields and the manner of our library usage. Installation and importing our old files took no more than a few hours. From there, it was just acclimating to the continuous usage/creation of our library cards for the various files. Additionally, we were able to set up customizable searches rather easily, which has proved to be very helpful."

The System Paid for Itself in Less Than One Quarter

"My belief is that, in engineering time alone, we broke even within a few months and continue to achieve returns by way of efficiency and increased productivity," said Luna.

"Adept really has helped across the board on all of our new projects. Many of our products haven't changed over the years. We just may reuse our designs in different ways, combining existing accessories with alternate poles, for example. Many of these combinations haven't been done before, but the individual parts have been utilized. The Adept software makes it easy to pull various drawings of parts together to create new combinations quickly. Previously, the research to find the various part drawing files would take enormous amounts of time."

"Clearly the biggest business benefit of Adept for our organization is the increase in engineering productivity. We are able to do so much more now with the same number of people. My perceived impression is that we are at least 50% more productive in design and engineering as a result of our utilization of Adept."

Now Ameron is starting to add functionality to their system. Recently the engineering team added the Adept Group Email distribution extension. The group email capability will enhance their efficiency by allowing the Ameron engineers to rely upon a single tool for notifying many different people in their organization for changes to parts, drawing approvals and other important factors that help them meet their ISO certification standards. "As our most recent add-on to our Adept system, I'm confident it will become a handy utility."

Adept Facilitates Industry Certification Process for Ameron

According to Luna, Ameron implemented a total quality management program and became an ISO certified organization since they've implemented Adept. "Additionally, Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) requirements have become a growing concern for Ameron," said Luna. "For our division, I cannot see how we could meet the stringent revision level requirements of ISO, nor the workflow requirements of SOX, without having Adept." "We understand the new release of Adept has a great deal more of visible work flow tracking, which we need for the burgeoning number of auditors for SOX regulations."

Extending the Value of Document Management Outside of the Engineering Department

Members of the broader Ameron enterprise, including various purchasing personnel and customer service representatives, require the data that engineering creates to get their jobs done. "Now they can also use Adept to view our files and get the information they need," said Luna. "These non-engineers also use some custom library card fields for additional tracking information. In addition, our internal ISO coordinator uses Adept for tracking ISO procedures and manuals. In fact, the software is becoming increasingly appealing to other divisions and departments, too," said Luna. "We are looking forward to expanding our use of Adept throughout the organization."

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