Ditching the Files: Rethinking Data Management Software for Product Design

The On-Premise Nightmare: K2's 8-Week Data Lockdown

For two months, K2’s design and business operations were crippled. This story was a stark reminder of the vulnerability of locally hosted data to everything from routine maintenance failures to malicious attacks. K2’s eight-week lockdown prompted them to consider change. They ended up adopting a cloud-native CAD and PDM system: Onshape.

Onshape's integrated Product Data Management (PDM) system fundamentally streamlines engineering workflows by eliminating the complexities of traditional, file-based systems. As a cloud-native platform, it requires no separate PDM software, servers, or manual check-in/check-out processes. This built-in approach provides a single source of truth for design data, enabling real-time collaboration, robust version control, and effortless branching and merging.

Teams can innovate faster with zero IT overhead, accessing and managing their data securely from any device, anywhere. This seamless integration of CAD and data management accelerates the entire product development lifecycle.

Powered by AWS, the cloud-native approach to integrated CAD and PDM also provides best-in-class reliability and IP protection.

When PDM Becomes Effortless

With traditional systems, data management is a chore. K2 made it clear that this is no longer the case after their switch to Onshape.

Jed Yeiser, Ski Product Director at K2 Sports, says “ease of use” is the most important attribute he looks for in an integrated CAD and PDM system. When it’s easy to use, product data actually ends up in the system. Otherwise, engineers find ways around it.

When CAD and PDM are truly integrated, the data management becomes effortless. And, when security and traceability become an automatic byproduct of the design process, not a burden placed upon it, engineers focus on what they do best: designing innovative products.

Not Just for Software: How "Branching" Prevents Design Chaos

Jed reveals a powerful workflow that has been transformative for K2: branching and merging. This concept, borrowed from software development, allows engineers to explore new ideas without creating chaos. This eliminates the all-too-familiar problem of confusing file copies like part_JED_final_v2_sldprt.

Branching allows for risk-free experimentation and parallel problem-solving, leaving the official "single source of truth" clean and intact. With Onshape, every design change is recorded so that designers are able to revisit and re-establish design decisions after the product has been released

Real Time Savings: From a Week to a Day

Traditional file-based systems silo teams. Cloud-native CAD, on the other hand, is built for collaborative design.

Does better collaboration translate to faster development? At K2, the answer is a resounding yes. Jed explains how communicating with manufacturing partners about design-for-manufacturability (DFM) changes went from taking a week to resolve to just a day after they switched to Onshape.

"A typical problem used to take us a week to resolve, and we're now on the order of a day," he says.

This wasn't just a marginal improvement; it was a massive leap in efficiency. That time saved results in a better product, because it gives the team more runway to pursue an ambitious idea

The Legal Twist: Using PDM as a Shield, Not Just a Vault

When most people think of IP security, they usually think of preventing theft. But Adam Samansky, IP Litigator at Mintz Levin, offers a counterintuitive perspective: a robust data management system is one of your best legal defenses.

A good PDM system with an immutable audit trail doesn't just protect you from losing data; it protects you from false accusations by creating an undeniable story of independent innovation.

Protecting Your Failures: The Value of "Negative Trade Secrets"

In a file-based world, the failed experiments are often lost on an engineer's hard drive or deleted. In a cloud-native system, those abandoned branches and reverted ideas are part of the permanent record. This protects your R&D investment by documenting the entire learning process, making it much harder for a competitor to replicate your success by simply avoiding your mistakes.

Ditch File-Based CAD

K2's story is a case in point. Ditching file-based CAD and PDM didn't just fix a data vault problem; it transformed their entire development lifecycle.

WATCH NOW: Ditch the Files: Rethinking PDM for Speed and Security

What was once a source of friction became a source of strength. Effortless data management frees engineers to innovate, real-time collaboration accelerates development, and an immutable audit trail of all design decisions actively defends a company's intellectual property.