Development of 'in house' software to support product rationalisation and lead time compression

Success in the supply of valves to the highly competitive oil and gas industries is linked increasingly to the ability to supply high quality products, with short lead times. A major element in lead time compression is the introduction of effective systems for enquiry intake, preliminary design/configuration and quotation. This paper describes the development of a computer based system to support enquiry/order intake, preliminary design/configuration and product documentation, for high performance 'ball' valves. The paper provides also a practical insight into the product analysis which must precede the introduction of effective systems for engineering data management.