Smarteam vs. Intralink/Windchill

[ghareeb98]

Hello everybody,



I've searched the MCAD Central database and came across several discussions concerning Smarteam or Windchill:



[url]http://www.mcadcentral.com/proe/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=24 478&PN=7[/url]


[url]http://www.mcadcentral.com/proe/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=23 156&PN=7[/url]


[url]http://www.mcadcentral.com/proe/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=26 818&PN=2[/url]





However, all the discussions regarding Smarteam are old dated (at least
a year old) and I'm wondering if there had been any improvements in
this year time.



Several users complained about Smarteam not being able to handle ProE
parameters, suppressed features/components, renaming of models, nested
family tables, and other dependency and performance issues.



On the other hand, Intralink/Windchill seems to be the natural path to
follow (for ProE users), but the migration is expensive and can be a
pain in the rear. So if you have any recent experiences with Smarteam
and/or Windchill, please share them with us.



Regards,

 

[mdemers]

Hey,


Sorry forreplying that late, Igot somebacklog in reading my MCAD Central Daily Updates.


We have been through an implementation of Windchill PDM/Link this summer. We had to hustle a lot to have the software finally working properly.


First, because Windchill has error messages thathelp even less than those of Windows. They don't just mean nothing, they guide youthrough wrong ways.


Second, since you can't solve any issue by yourself because of the misleading error messages, you gotta call PTC tech support, which is not as familiar with Windchillas they are with Pro/E. And do never leave them hanging up the phone because they'll rarely call you back.


In other words, I still believe that Windchill is a good software, but you have to learn a lot more than whatPTC's admin training and user Web-Based Trainings will teach you. Experience of the admins and users is what will tell you what an error message means andwhat you can or cannot do. Unfortunately, this experience will come after a lot of wasted hours trying to understand what went wrong. And, yes, these hours have to be seen as money, added to the bill of the implementation/migration.


But if you concerns are related to compatibility between Windchill and Pro/E, don't worry. Windchill and Pro/E seem to knoweach other pretty well.


Hope this helps. Good luck!


Mat