Agilent Technologies
Setting a Leader's Pace with CoCreate

"OneSpace Model Manager allowed us to design the three platforms in parallel. The majority of designs were used in more than one project, but in different combinations. OneSpace Model Manager kept track of all the different configurations and made it easy to find and reuse designs."

James Bertsch, 6510 Quadrupole Time-of-Flight mechanical project lead, Agilent Technologies

The Complete Story

Within every Agilent Technologies product is an entire universe of science answering the most difficult questions within the test and measurement industry.

Agilent's LC/MS and GC/MS systems (mass spectrometry solutions) are an example of cutting edge technologies used to solve everyday problems. Unknowns can be identified by providing information about a compound based on the characteristic ions created in the mass spectrometer and the retention time in the chromatograph.

These systems are routinely used in various applications related to environmental testing, pharmaceutical analysis, food testing, and forensic applications. Scientist depend on these systems to answer the questions of "What is this?" and "How much is there?"

For this reason, you'll find Agilent's products on CBS' hit show ‘CSI: Crime Scene Investigation' in addition to an Agilent consultant working behind the scenes.

Within the high-tech electronics and machinery industry, speed and cross-leverage is critical to setting a leader's pace. So when an opportunity presented itself, Agilent responded and simultaneously launched three new instruments to market: the 6100 Series Quadrupole, the 6410 Triple Quadrupole, and the 6510 Quadrupole Time-of-Flight.

"Time to market pressure was the main driver behind these three products. There was an opportunity to move against competitors on this equipment, and we had to get these out into the market fast," said James Bertsch, 6510 mechanical project lead.

To gain efficiencies within their manufacturing process, Agilent tasked the three design teams to work together in cross-platform development to achieve a new level in the reuse of shared components. This strategy allowed the separate products to gain cost efficiencies associated with high-volume production, while the engineering teams benefited from joint design effort.

"We shared as much as we could in order to push production volumes up, which drove manufacturing costs down. Sharing designs across products also minimized engineering time because the teams could reuse each other's work," said Ed Cirimele, 6410 mechanical project lead.

The CoCreate product family is the platform that supports the process, enabling Agilent to harness the power of teams and develop products with speed, flexibility and responsiveness to change.

CoCreate OneSpace Model Manager: The essential companion

OneSpace Model Manager is at the heart of Agilent's global product development process, serving as the central location for engineering teams to store and access designs. By managing ownership, revision, and state control, OneSpace Model Manager orchestrates team design and ensures everyone is working with always up-to-date information.

"OneSpace Model Manager allowed us to design the three platforms in parallel. The majority of designs were used in more than one project, but in different combinations. OneSpace Model Manager kept track of all the different configurations and made it easy to find and reuse designs," said Bertsch.

"If all three instruments used the same subassembly, one team designed it and the other two used OneSpace Model Manager to track changes. Design status and change notifications let teams know when to incorporate updated versions into their instrument designs," said Cirimele.

In comparison to a manual data management process with a network file system, CoCreate's lightweight processes improves team productivity and frees up more time for engineers to focus on design. It also provides an easy way for engineers to bring order to the chaos of multi-platform, multi-team design.

"OneSpace Model Manager saved each engineer an hour of design time per day in the most demanding stages of cross-platform design," said Mark Werlich, 6100 mechanical project lead.

"Without OneSpace Model Manager every engineer would have their own filing system and way of storing parts. You would have to constantly work with three, four, or five different engineers' way of storing models," said Bertsch.

Speed, Flexibility & Responsiveness to Change

CoCreate's explicit approach makes no upfront investment in parametric features and relationships, allowing users to quickly create and modify 3D geometry. It is an environment where 3D geometry is always king and design creation and modification is fast, easy and flexible.

This frees Agilent to reassign project responsibility based on development priorities and resource availability because anyone can carry a 3D design forward at any stage in the project. As a result, Agilent eliminates resource bottlenecks in its development process.

"Several times we had team members out of the office and we didn't have time to wait until their return to move a design forward. Another team member accessed the latest version of the design and made the needed changes. Revision management and change notes made it easy to roll to an earlier version if the original engineer wanted to solve the problem differently," said Bertsch.

"CoCreate lets you trade assignments based on the strengths of different engineers or rebalance resources. It is important that we can grab someone else's design and run with it if they are busy or they've run into troubles and want to pass it off to someone else to work on."

Tapping into different engineering skills and perspectives also has the effect of increasing quality, creativity and opportunities for innovation – resulting in better solutions to design problems, and ultimately better products.

CoCreate's approach also allows Agilent to rapidly repurpose existing product designs to meet new market requirements, shaving time off development.

"These three instruments had roughly 25% new parts and 25% straight reuse of existing parts. The remaining 50% were existing parts that were repurposed from previous projects to satisfy a new need," said Cirimele.

OneSpace Model Manager's centralized database provides Agilent with a consistent worldwide view of product data, while synchronized file servers across each region deliver high performance for local engineering teams. In combination with CoCreate's explicit approach, Agilent is ensured that value always moves forward within the company – whether product development teams work together locally or globally.

"We have designs that have gone through five different engineers over the past eight years as it has been repurposed for different needs," said Bertsch.

Company Profile

When measurement matters, engineers, scientists, manufacturers, businesses, researchers, and government agencies rely on Agilent Technologies tools and solutions.

From home entertainment to homeland security, from food safety to network reliability, and from communicating wirelessly to discovering the genetic basis of disease, Agilent provides the measurement capabilities that make our world more productive and a safer, healthier, more enjoyable place to live.

No other company offers the breadth and depth of measurement tools and expertise to meet the world's critical requirements for electronic and bio-analytical measurement.

With $5.0 billion in annual revenues, 19,000 employees and a long track record and exclusive focus on measurement, Agilent is the global industry leader—by virtually any measure.

For more information, please visit: www.agilent.com.

When measurement matters, engineers, scientists, manufacturers, businesses, researchers, and government agencies rely on Agilent Technologies tools and solutions.