Engineering and operations leaders in energy, manufacturing, and other process-driven industries consistently strive to reduce risk, improve efficiency, and optimize margins.

One of the most significant untapped opportunities to impact these critical goals is to increase your workforce's productivity and accuracy by automating everyday business processes.

In this blog, I will summarize two opportunities: drawing and document management and enterprise business system integration. We'll explore the second with actual customer examples.

The best part of my job is connecting with customers—whether it’s a quick hello or a deeper dive into how they’re using Adept. In every call, I hear genuine stories about Adept’s role in achieving revenue goals; how it serves as the hub in an essential global document management rollout; or how Adept is praised as the easiest enterprise software to use, setup, and implement in the corporate tech stack.

These customer stories also inform us about what we are doing well and where we need to improve. They reward us with an understanding of our undeniable role in a company’s growth strategy, and how important it is that we get it right. 

Each year at our annual Adept user’s conference, Adept Experience, attendees tell us that the time they spend networking face-to-face with other Adept users is far and away the best value of the event. So in the spirit of continuing that sense of community and sharing, we set up an open Adept community forum. As important is it is for our users, it’s a way for our developers to interactively relate to our customers all year round.

So, If you’re an Adept customer interested in extending your knowledge of Adept or if you’re a non-user and want to know what our customers are saying about the product before you buy, here are five great reasons why you need to join the community forum now.

Connecting with other Adept users

The single biggest advantage of the Adept community forum is the ability to connect with other Adept users—from newly implemented users to experienced superstars—all in one central hub. People can share ideas and tips with others or ask and answer questions to a simple or complex question, allowing you to extend Adept in ways you’ve never thought possible.

Toray Composites is a world leader in a strong growth area, the manufacture of carbon fiber composites for industrial applications. The company has used Synergis Adept for years, helping it to streamline workflow and coordinate teams on three continents.

Toray has been producing carbon fiber composite materials in the USA for more than 20 years. It has become a leading producer of advanced materials for the aerospace industry and other industries including energy and sports equipment. Boeing is a leading client; carbon fiber composite makes up 50% of a Boeing 787 by weight.

Toray Composite's Journey to Selecting Adept

After years as a CAD and engineering manager for other companies, Phil Fitzgerald was hired by Toray as both document administrator and CAD manager. In 2006, Fitzgerald won approval to find a new document management system for engineering. After examining alternatives, Fitzgerald narrowed their focus to two products, Autodesk Vault and Synergis Adept. Fitzgerald shared his Adept journey at the Adept Experience user conference in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. You can watch a video of the presentation on the Synergis Software YouTube channel.

Engineering document management (EDM) systems are a big investment. But while a poorly planned and implemented EDM rollout can cause lost productivity and delays, a successful implementation can help your organization streamline workflows, cut costs, and much more—in other words, the benefits greatly outweigh the risks.

In this second installment of the Top 11 Mistakes to Avoid, we’ll be covering the final six mishaps our Applications Consultants see companies make during Adept implementations—and how to avoid them. Head to Part 1 for our first series of must-have tips. Let’s dive in.

Mistake 6: Confusing functionality across products

Choosing the right software solution—and vendor—for your organization requires extensive research, time, and attention. All too often, those performing the software evaluations are tasked with this project on top of an already jam-packed list of daily responsibilities. Keeping track of which solution does what without a score card or requirements list can be challenging. Without documentation on each solution, it can lead to some confusion on which software does what across vendors.

Rolling out an enterprise-level document management solution across your organization can be a daunting task. While there’s no be-all, end-all method to implementation, setting up enterprise software does require several layers of planning and cross-communication. In fact, the success of the solution often relies as much on the implementation process as it does on the technology itself.