NEWBURY, Berkshire, UK, January 16th, 2006 - Concurrent Systems Inc Ltd, a leading developer of heterogeneous 
design data and document management solutions, today announces that Aurora Design & Consultancy Ltd have chosen DesignDataManager as their ‘in-house’ CAD data and document management solution.
“Like other design consultancies, Aurora is faced with the never-ending client challenges of 'right first time', accelerated time to market and collaboration with the customers business”. States Ian Cammock, Industrial Designer at Aurora. “They are also confronted with the requirements for specific, and often mandated, technical solutions and business toolsets. For this reason it was key that Aurora made the right business decision in choosing tools that would give them the competitive-edge for future projects.”
Ian continues. “DesignDataManager (DDM) was eventually chosen by Aurora to fulfil its in-house data management requirements with ‘DDM Web’ being bolted on to serve as a means to share data with up and downstream customers. With prior experience of Pro/INTRAINK and IBM Dassault SMARTEAM, DDM proved to suit the way the Aurora design team work offering a more competitive cost of ownership package.”
“Aurora interface with manufacturers as well as customers and the need to share engineering data with upstream and downstream users has grown significantly. For instance customers and suppliers are sent information in electronic format to use for manufacturing and design reviews, however it is a ‘push’ process. We consciously have to transmit the data and react to requests to send more data”
“With DDM web, customers and suppliers can access data such as drawings, models and bills of materials for themselves via the internet. Security is not a problem as Aurora control access rights on what can be viewed and by whom. This makes DDM Web a ‘pull’ system, where users withdraw information as and when required. It is anticipated that large labour savings can be made on projects, especially those containing significant amounts of drawings. For instance, a recent project contained more than 150 drawings, all of which had to be transmitted for review, approval and manufacturing. There were also multiple requests to resend drawings and request revisions on drawings as the project progressed. As with most projects, this results in having to resource unplanned activities, which affects profitability and scheduling. Initial estimates indicate a saving of 10% or more.”
“Historically, most of the Aurora projects have involved taking customer data, adding value to it and then returning it to the customer. Therefore the data management was taken care of by the customer. The previous 12 months has seen an increase in Aurora’s own project work and projects where Aurora was required to manage the engineering data on behalf of the customer, thus a genuine need to manage Pro/ENGINEER data has emerged.”
“Aurora's justification for buying Design Data Manager was deeply rooted in the business benefits that DDM brings. Taking the huge step into a data managed environment has brought some tough challenges to the team at Aurora, however the benefits are already being realised. Large assemblies can now be operated on by a number of designers concurrently, without the fear of overwriting someone else’s work, part number duplication has been eradicated and several requirements for the company quality management system have been met.”
“DDM will open new opportunities and markets such as aerospace and defence, where data management and security are pre-requisites. As a small business, cost of ownership is also very important, also related to cost is the ease of administration and modest hardware requirements. DDM met these requirements and was the best overall solution for Aurora Design.”
“DDM is now entirely managed by the in-house resources at Aurora Design. The system requires very little maintenance, we must spend an hour at the most every month house-keeping.”
“Aurora has a number of their own off highway products. At present we distribute manufacturing to a number of selected subcontractors, as demand increases we will be bringing this manufacturing in-house. This will also allow us to satisfy more of our clients' requirements, as one-stop shopping is still high on the agenda of their purchasing departments."
About Aurora
Aurora Design & Consultancy Ltd. was set up in September 2000 to service the diversified requirements of a wide variety of companies and organisations regionally (the Northeast of England), nationally and internationally.
Aurora offers a complete engineering design and consultancy service from basic product maintenance through concept studies to complete integrated design and build solutions. Flexibility and a multi-disciplinary approach allow Aurora to fulfil varied roles from short term temporary contracts to long term technical alliances.
Aurora's core expertise is biased towards mechanical engineering with the ability to integrate with electrical, pneumatic and hydraulic systems. They also offer a number of complementary product design and industrial design services using professional high-end 3D CAD software, including the conversion of legacy data and developing modelling techniques and strategies.
Aurora's early speciality centred on the 'off highway' construction equipment industry as the co-founders previously worked for Caterpillar in the Northeast. Caterpillar is the world's largest Pro/ENGINEER user so Aurora invested in this software to service their customer base at the time.
Amongst Aurora's best know clients are Komatsu, Corus, Caterpillar, Thorn lighting, General Electric and Bel Valves, the company is also becoming very active in the aerospace and automotive industries providing a complete solution including industrial, component and tool design. www.aurora-dc.co.uk