AeroTEC is an aerospace engineering company that develops, tests, and certifies aircraft and related systems. Its headquarters and main engineering offices are located just north of Boeing Field in Seattle. AeroTEC also has two additional campuses: the AeroTEC Flight Test Center in Moses Lake, Washington, and the Engineering Center in Wichita, Kansas.
For over 20 years, AeroTEC has helped companies design, test, and certify new aircraft and aerospace products worldwide, including hybrid/electric, hydrogen technology, supersonic, and eVTOLs. Leveraging software such as Teamcenter allows AeroTEC to streamline integration and help its innovative customers bring their products to market efficiently and quickly.
Before Teamcenter
AeroTEC’s PLM journey started years ago with a file and folder-based storage system for its CAD data. This manual system limited AeroTEC because it did not allow the company to control its “design data in a thoughtful manner,” AeroTEC’s Chief Development Officer (CDO) said.
This limitation motivated AeroTEC’s CDO to find software that allows AeroTEC to streamline its workflow and boost efficiency.
After Teamcenter
Bringing in Teamcenter as its PLM solution allowed AeroTEC to improve its data management.
“In the initial stages, we used [Teamcenter] as a simple repository for data, not thinking through how we could leverage the complete tool,” AeroTEC CDO said. “Since then, we’ve started to understand that we can leverage Teamcenter in much more powerful ways.”
AeroTEC began exploring various options within the Xcelerator portfolio and found that its immediate needs were focused on the change management process and modifying how the company handled ITAR-restricted data. These tools allowed AeroTEC to digitalize its product development process and simplify control of user access to different types of data.
Additionally, AeroTEC uses Teamcenter Reporting and Analytics to “extract data out of the design cycle,” AeroTEC CDO said. This provides the company with deep insights into product data, which facilitates data-driven decisions and operational efficiency.
In the future, AeroTEC plans to explore more features to move toward a fully digital thread.
Partnership with Applied CAx
“Bringing a PLM system into any company for the first time is a long road,” AeroTEC Director of Experimental Products Todd Leighton said. “It’s not something that you can take on lightly, and Applied has brought a lot of that experience to us.”
From the change management process to Teamcenter integration, Applied CAx helped AeroTEC tailor the Siemens ecosystem to its business needs.
“Working with the Applied team has been a real pleasure and not just from the business development side of things and explaining the value proposition, but on a technical level,” AeroTEC CDO said. “It’s very clear that Applied has great bench depth in terms of the people that they brought in.”
Watch this video to learn more about AeroTEC’s digital transformation journey.