Parametric technology streamlines the process

"PTC's Pro/ENGINEER and Pro/MECHANICA mechanical design tools emerged as the best choice in terms of effective modeling tools, vigorous performance, innovative parametric architecture, and strong vendor support," says Bjorn Elvin. "The ability of PTC's parametric engineering solutions to relate the various assemblies and subassemblies of a design to one another, to carry over changes from one subassembly to the related parts in another and the ability to build virtual prototypes of the various assemblies to model and test the stresses and tolerances of these parts was exactly what we were looking for to save our engineering team time and money," he continues.

PTC's deep market penetration was also important to Powerski, assuring that the product would be supported well into the future. Because Pro/ENGINEER and Pro/MECHANICA are the standards in 3D mechanical modeling tools, Powerski felt that it would have fewer compatibility issues with its partners as it works to bring the new Igniter 330 jetboard to market.

PTC's Windchill FACTOR! e-series is also proving to be a significant asset for Powerski. "As we move into production, Windchill allows us to work collaboratively with our various subcontractors. Without Windchill, communicating productions and manufacturing changes with our partners would be time consuming and inefficient," says CEO, Bob Montgomery.

Power and speed needed to drive the design solution

With the best engineering software solution, Powerski realized it also needed a top performance hardware solution on which to run it. "As a startup marketing a completely new product, we have very limited resources to pour into our operations," says Montgomery. "We needed a complete engineering environment with the speed, power and mobility to support the capabilities of the PTC software and do so at a reasonable price."

CEO, Bob Montgomery stated, "Looking at what was available in the market...some vendors could provide the performance, others offered a great price, but none offered the combination of speed, power, mobility, and support that HP could. The HP Professional Workstations provide us with a robust hardware platform, including cutting edge Intel Pentium III CPUs, powerful graphics options, storage and support we needed to ensure efficient engineering operations."

Bob Montgomery, founder and CEO of Powerski International, was impressed with the ability of the HP solution to increase productivity and reduce costs

Continues Montgomery, "Anyone can build a box and put a bunch of name- brand components in it, but Compaq puts as much effort into the engineering of its products as we put into ours." As the number-one provider of hardware platforms for PTC solutions, Compaq has a vested interest in maintaining the absolute reliability of its PTC platforms. It does this by operating an on-site lab at PTC where the performance, compatibility and efficiency of all Compaq engineering solutions are tested to ensure quality.

"Compaq also spent the time to find out what we would really be using the workstations for, which helped them ensure a proper fit. This meant that we bought the workstation solution that we needed, not the workstation solution that Compaq wanted to sell us. That's important since the most robust and best-priced system in the world won't help you if it can't do what you need it to do."