Johnson Controls Inc. Case Study

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Introduction
Changing business model dictates a new approach
The search for an alternative
The benefits of standardizing on Visio Technical
Looking forward to new capabilities

Introduction

Cut the amount of time design engineers spend generating drawings and they could spend more time working with customers. That's what Milwaukee-based Johnson Controls Inc. had in mind when it began searching for a viable, simpler alternative to its CAD software. More than five years later, the company's search ended with Visio® Technical. 

The $6.8 billion Fortune 100 company is a global leader in the design, manufacture, installation, and service of systems to control energy use, heating, ventilation, air conditioning, lighting, security, and fire management for commercial buildings. It has 55,000 employees worldwide and its products and services are represented in 40 countries.

After investing considerable time and money attempting to automate its CAD system with artificial intelligence technology, Johnson Controls discovered a simpler, much more cost-effective solution: incorporate Visio Technical as part of a Windows®-based desktop solution to streamline the process of creating and sharing technical drawings.

Changing business model dictates a new approach

Johnson Controls, like many companies, has recently committed itself to enhancing its already high level of customer service. As part of this change in its business model, the company wanted to decrease the time its design engineers spent at their computers so they could spend a greater amount of time in the field with customers. The engineers designed and drew complex D-sized drawings of the building control systems Johnson Controls installs in commercial buildings.

"We had traditionally viewed ourselves as an engineering organization, and that is why we created such complicated drawings," explains Bill Huth, manager of field engineering support for Johnson Controls. "But over time we concluded that our customers didn't want to pay for drawings—they want to pay for a quality control system installation that provides comfort and security in their buildings."

Yet a way of speeding up the drawing process kept eluding the company. One big problem was that the level of detail in the drawings—such as bills of materials and interconnectivity between components—made them very difficult to reuse, so the company spent a great deal of time recreating similar drawings from scratch. Engineers also had to deal with a staggering number of CAD symbols—some 4,000 of them.

Other problems cropped up, too. Because of the complexity of their CAD software, it was impossible for many people in the company who could have benefited from using the drawings—such as sales reps—to access them, much less to work with them. The program's difficulty was compounded by its lack of conformity to standard Windows conventions. It was also hard to integrate CAD drawings into other documents.

The search for an alternative

Wanting to retain its investment in its CAD drawings, Johnson Controls first attempted to make the drawing process itself simpler and more efficient. To this end, the company pursued artificial intelligence technology designed to automate their CAD software. "The complex representations we had in our drawings made the automation process itself very complex," says Huth. "We had to create rules for all the complexity that was in our CAD software." After considerable investment, the company admitted the attempt was unsuccessful.

About this time, one of the company's offices decided on its own that its CAD software was too complicated and began looking for a simple, low-cost package to use in its place. "Some of the people in the office had experience with Visio® Technical," says Huth. "They liked the way its templates and stencils gave it a great deal of usability, understood the value of its SmartShapes® symbols, recognized that it had good programming interfaces, and saw that it fit in well with Windows." Above all, Visio Technical could read Johnson Controls' existing CAD drawings.

After evaluating Visio Technical further, Johnson Controls decided it matched the way the company was thinking about its business. "We realized our drawing needs fell somewhere between a complex CAD package and a basic drawing program," says Huth. "What we really wanted was a software package that offered usability and ease and could integrate with our other applications."

Soon, Visio Technical's role at Johnson Controls grew from being a small project to a corporation-wide standard.

The benefits of standardizing on Visio Technical

Johnson Controls eventually replaced its CAD software at the workstations of some 800 systems engineers in North America with Visio Technical. The company has also provided its sales engineers with Visio Technical.

According to Huth, the biggest benefit of moving to Visio is that it has greatly simplified the company's computing environment. "We went from 4,000 CAD symbols in our previous CAD package down to 200 Visio SmartShapes symbols. This simplicity is driving a great deal of value. We've reduced our engineering costs significantly."

The company's move to Visio Technical has helped produce savings of 20 to 40 percent in engineering costs and time. The company estimates it is saving $6 million per year, and expects that figure to go up to $7 to $8 million per year once the system is fully implemented.

Huth had praise for Visio's SmartShapes symbols, too. "They can be used as generic symbols, but they're smart enough to change behavior based on how they're used," he says.

The company is also seeing a faster turnaround time for its design work, partly because its distributed design process enables Johnson Controls to create proposals on site. And, since Visio Technical can read CAD files in DWG format, field engineers can work with the company's thousands of existing drawings.

Looking forward to new capabilities

Huth says Johnson Controls recommends Visio Technical for any new users and is extending its use of the product to any area of the company that needs straightforward, effective technical drawings. "We're even beginning to see it used in other parts of the company, such as administration."

"We anticipate even more cost reductions as our efforts to standardize processes continue," he says. "It's much easier now to share designs and drawings." Johnson Controls is satisfied to have found a way to streamline its drawing processes without sacrificing the quality of its drawings. "We're providing more value to our customers," says Bill Huth. "That's the most important thing of all."

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