As a high tech company developing critical parts and assemblies in Japan with Design and Engineering based in the UK, we had to find a way to communicate critical information across continents in a controlled manner. With the business decision to launch the production in China, there was an additional element of criticality and making sure people on multiple continents were working off the same drawings. The additional need to be able to track field trial engines and durability engine run cycles and run hours created a specific need for a bespoke web based database.
TeamDesk allowed us to control all of our documents and even put in a work flow based engineering change process and concession process with electronic approvals and automatic generation of production statistics. It also allowed our customers to log in to report any issues in the field so that we could close these issues through a work flow based closed loop problem solving methodology. We were also able to track run hours of all our machines and be able to make reliable predictions about the reliability of our engines.
The main problem we encountered was the rapid growth of our application as people from different parts of the organization began to understand how powerful and economical it was. Also, the initiation of multiple applications that could not share information between them required some database manipulation. This problem required a periodic review of the business systems managed on TeamDesk and how best to make them interrelate. However, with the assistance of TeamDesk personnel and the easy to use backup and restore programs supplied by TeamDesk, major structural modifications to the database and its interrelations were seamless and were carried out without data loss or considerable down time.
We needed a customizable web based database for sharing and controlling information across multiple continents and TeamDesk offered exactly that in an easy to use form. With the help of TeamDesk we have launched production of the worlds’ first commercially available 1kW Free Piston Stirling Engine that is used in microCHP applications throughout Europe to improve energy usage efficiency and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. We manage the following business operations using TeamDesk:
- Durability data collection program
- Technical Construction File in accordance with the Machinery Directive
- Logistics of shipping product from China to Europe and multiple customers
- Purchasing
- Engineering Change Control and data management
- Customer Feedback and Warranty
- Programme management
- Inventory control
- Production data (uploaded automatically via API)
Our business runs on TeamDesk and we have relied upon it as a business critical software and have not been let down. TeamDesk is so easy to use that once the business process is defined, making it happen is very straight forward. The most difficult part of implementing a system like this is getting the relevant departments to define their business processes such that they can be implemented. This often times requires considerable involvement with someone very familiar with databases or TeamDesk in particular to discuss with the teams so that enough detail can be provided for a seamless roll out.
We find TeamDesk and its support team to be world class and therefore we have entrusted them with our critical operations and have been very pleased with the service provided.