#1 most frequent
United States of America
47.2%1,578 installations of 3,346
What is PTC Windchill?
PTC offers Windchill, the company's Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) platform that includes BOM (a digital bill of materials) for cost and product quality control via parts-centric source of truth, dynamic and updated product change and configuration management to ensure up-to-date product information, industry standards and requirements validation and control, and role-based data access among other features.
Categories & Use Cases
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Who Buys & Uses PTC Windchill
#2 most frequent
Germany
9.1%304 installations of 3,346
#3 most frequent
India
8.1%271 installations of 3,346
If you enjoy wasting time use PTC Windchill
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
PTC Windchill is used at my company for Quality Management System processes. Documentation upload and storage is aligned to the QMS lifecycle phases, with a variety of roles, routings and approvals similar to any other document management system with versioning, but with more stringent controls in place.
Pros
- Windchill's representation feature is passible and at least it works - i.e. Uncontrolled representation copy vs original document, etc.
- There is nothing else I can think of that Windchill does well
- Still can't think of anything that Windchill does well
Cons
- Search - the Windchill search engine is absolutely the worst I have ever used. It is inexcusably bad and has no intelligence features whatsoever, relying on extensive memorisation of wildcards akin to regular expressions to perform the simplest of tasks. The search will usually return hundreds or thousands of results for anything and also shows historical documents in those results.
- Quality Management System - PTC Windchill is the worst possible implementation of a quality management system document repository that I could conceive of. The documentation phases are obscure, there is really no phased structure to the processes. The document features and relationships are tenuous at best. Yes, the changes table of a document is being handled through the Windchill process, but there is no relationship between say referenced systems and the document. Its just a document with no real living fields. Every task in this system takes hours and the pre-training requirements just to perform the simplest tasks are hours also. It's the worst.
- The GUI for Windchill is awful, providing just dozens of text entry fields for each operation with often several duplicates of the same field in a single process. The task list requires multiple clicks to actually address the task. The documents are not even embedded into the webpage - in 2025 - so your local Downloads folder just because a trash pile repository of hundreds of documents.
- Because it is so bureaucratic and inefficient, the system only knows to bombard all its roles with a multitude of emails to the point that I send them straight to my trash bin.
Return on Investment
- Companies lack transparency when it comes to measuring the cost of Quality Management Systems and they very often are indeed uncosted and/or unpublished so there is little academic research on the negative effects. Not being privy to the actual figures I couldn't say, but through empirical observation I can suggest that there is a heavy cost and no return to the usage of this product for QMS.
Usability
Alternatives Considered
Microsoft SharePoint, SimplerQMS and Drupal
Other Software Used
ServiceNow IT Asset Management, MS SharePoint / SQL, draw.io, Microsoft 365, Microsoft Teams, Delinea Privilege Manager, Proofpoint Email Protection, BarTender, Jupyter Notebook
PTC Windchill- Ultimate Product Lifecycle Management Tool
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
PTC Windchill is a product lifecycle management tool used by manufacturing. It can be accessed through Internet anywhere and anytime. Basically, it includes entire data related to products such as drawings, CAD, Testing results phase-wise from Proto Level to Mass Production. It also includes design to change records and change management from development to the mass production phase. In addition to it, it integrates well with other CAD software such as Autocad, Creo, NX, Solidworks, CATIA V5, etc.
Pros
- It is compatible with all devices and operating systems such as web-based, Android, and iOS.
- It allows user to customize its interface based on their requirement.
- It provides a digital part list with all required data like Part Name, Part No., Weight, Material, etc.
- Searching data is so facile that one can get data without any trouble.
Cons
- The price for PTC PLM premium is comparatively high in contrast to other Product life cycle management solutions.
- Customer support services need to improve as they take a lot of time to resolve the issue.
- WT parts need to be create for all the parts to create windchill BOM.
Most Important Features
- Product change management.
- Data visualization and analysis.
- Cost estimation and analysis.
- Design details.
Return on Investment
- Manpower reduced for data distribution.
- No error in drawing revision as all data is recorded.
- Changing management can be done very easily.
Other Software Used
Microsoft Teams, Palo Alto Networks GlobalProtect Mobile Security Manager
Wonderful software for lifecycle management
Pros
- VIEW PARTLIST.
- ECN and ECR.
- Design data storage and smooth access.
- Workspace management.
- Assy structure making.
Cons
- Extract partlist should be directly in Excel because everyone time we have to convert it to Excel.
- ECN report formatting need improvement.
- Many times part no doesn't go to ERP even after ERP released state.
Most Important Features
- ECR and ECN.
- Cloud data storage for design documents.
- Integration with CREO.
Return on Investment
- It saves a lot more time and increases efficiency of team so it justifies its investment.
Alternatives Considered
Teamcenter
Windchill - A great PLM software
Pros
- Part Number Creation, BOM Creation
- Engineering Change Notices
- Release of part numbers in to ERP system
- check in/check out of CAD & 2D data
- Document control & management
Cons
- Data synchronization with off-server data can be difficult in several cases.
- It's okay if the WT section and the drawing are distinct, but it shouldn't be there.
Most Important Features
- Part Creation/BOM creation.
- Engineering Change Notice
- Document Control & Management
Return on Investment
- Increase in productivity
- Easy of controlling of data like CAD, drawing etc.
- No negative impact
Alternatives Considered
PTC Creo
Great tool for larger manufacturing companies to use for their drawings, business instructions and procedures
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
We house all of our procedures, work instructions, and drawings in Windchill. This system allows us to revise and version and to ensure employees have access to the current and all previous versions. We assign the business instruction documents via our Cornerstone LMS and link to the document in PTC Windchill.
Pros
- Version history. Able to easily see current and previous revs and the history of each.
- User interface. Easy to use.
- Change notices.
- Check in/out documents.
Cons
- Search could be improved. Clears out each after each search instance.
- Search logic could be improved. Have to navigate through lots of records and not in order of rev.
Most Important Features
- Document management.
- Version history.
Return on Investment
- Saves time as all of our drawings and business instructions and procedures are housed in a central location with check-in/out capability and version control.
