Superior SOLIDWORKS Product Cloud-Based CAD Development Environment Realized With a Hybrid Computer Infrastructure and Managed Services
EndoChoice uses EpiGrid Solutions to deploy a leading-edge product development environment that speeds time-to-market—saving time and money.
To be successful in today's extremely competitive medical device industry, companies rely on breakthrough innovation. At the same time, they need to shorten product life cycles. Many medical device manufacturing companies are looking for creative ways to enable the very best product development environments. Cloud-based CAD streamlines collaboration for the leading companies.
One of these leading-edge medical device companies is EndoChoice. Based near Atlanta, Georgia, EndoChoice manufactures groundbreaking technologies, including endoscopic imaging systems and other devices that treat a wide range of gastrointestinal conditions, including colon cancer.
Challenge: IT complexity slows innovation, distracts from core competencies.
Because the medical device industry is competitive, and additional hurdles like clinical trials and FDA approvals tend to slow development, there is even more pressure on product development cycles than in other industries. At EndoChoice, three offices in three countries (Germany, Israel, and the United States) share product development. EndoChoice also works with consultants, contractors, and field teams worldwide. Together, these issues present huge collaboration challenges.
"Difficult collaboration with our global sites, consultants, and customers limited our ability to do business effectively," explained Kyle Moore, R&D Manager at EndoChoice. "We needed a solution that would allow us to bring innovative products to market faster while saving us time and money."
Solution: Implement outsourced managed services on a hybrid on-premise/cloud-based CAD architecture.
In 2013, EndoChoice turned to EpiGrid to solve these challenges. Based in Georgia, EpiGrid offers Cloud computing and managed services to engineering and manufacturing companies. EndoChoice uses EpiGrid solutions for their product development applications, including SOLIDWORKS cloud-based CAD and PDM. Their engineering workstations use both Cloud-based Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) and traditional on-premise workstations.
Objective
- Accelerate product development through better collaboration with a scalable, reliable, and secure infrastructure with predictable and lower costs.
Approach
- Implement EpiGrid's hybrid (Cloud and on-premise) engineering computer infrastructure that supports a fast-paced development environment spread across three countries that is failsafe, always reliable, and fast.
- Eliminate the need for on-site IT infrastructure and application support by using EpiGrid's managed services for all SOLIDWORKS CAD and Product Data Management (PDM)—implementing Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) in the Cloud and managed on-premise hardware.
- Enable business flexibility with EpiGrid's Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) for "Cloud-based CAD" for users.
Business Benefits
- Saved time with more effective collaboration and IT simplicity.
- Accelerated product development cycles.
- Reduced costs/complexity through VDI and managed services.