“Our ability to design, develop and produce quality instrumentation is a key factor to our growth and expansion into new markets,” said Eric Wible, director of engineering. “This process is directly tied to our internal capability to control and easily find our intellectual property and proprietary information, which is primarily in the form of engineering documentation.”

Karyn Dawes, Document Management Supervisor at FCI, headed the evaluation process. Because FCI’s Aerospace Division uses SolidWorks design software and its Industrial Division was migrating to SolidWorks from AutoCAD, compatibility with both platforms were criteria. Other requirements included a powerful database, document security, searching, viewing, and reporting capabilities. Of course, being user friendly and affordable was high on the list. Adept met all the criteria.

“Initially, we brought 20 years of data and more than 50,000 records into Adept. What I learned from that effort is that it’s better to implement a new system in stages and bring in only clean electronic data first,” advised Dawes.

FCI uses Adept in Engineering and other departments to manage product design information including drawings, parts lists, operation sheets as well as general business and ISO-certified marketing documents.