Surface Brings Power, Efficiency and Mobility to Industrial Design and Manufacturing Businesses

We’ve talked in the past about how Surface Pro has been changing the workflow of design professionals like architects and creative artists. With a powerful mobile device like Surface Pro 3, designers are able to quickly and naturally move from sketch to full blown designs and collaborating with others. Our industrial design and manufacturing business customers are also using Surface Pro to make over their workflows. Today, I’m pleased to share two examples of the productivity and efficiency benefits customers are seeing by using Surface in their organizations.

For industrial designers like Bob Mileti of Trlby Innovative,there’s always a goal to balance simplicity, power, and usability in everything they create. Surface is the perfect device to support this goal because it’s a portable powerhouse that brings together familiar design tools in a simple, light form factor. Using such a light and portable device has helped Bob ensure that he always has his designs and data with him at home, at the office, on the shop floor or with the customer. But for Bob, what’s ultimately critical is power. With an Intel core processor, Surface can run the full-fledged version of intensive design software like Siemens Solid Edge, which means it’s simple view and edit complex designs with more than a thousand components from anywhere. Where before Bob would have to use his desktop to really make changes or edits to his designs, with Surface he can work from wherever he wishes. This isn’t like other tablets that only provide viewing capabilities – Surface enables full productivity on the go.

As products move from early design prototypes into full production, Surface can also help businesses in production and warehouse facilities. CheerPack North America is a growing division of CDF Corporation that provides flexible liquid packaging for the chemical, petrochemical, cosmetic, food and beverage industries. As a manufacturing organization with more than 270 employees and a major new plant, quality and efficiency are top priority – and Surface fits right in. CheerPack chose Surface over other tablets because employees are able to run business apps like IFS ERP apps along with native applications built by CDF Corporation. With Surface in the hands of Cheerpack warehouse supervisors and employees, the organization is seeing time savings of 1 to 2 hours per week just by having mobile access to business data, which benefits the entire organization.

“By being able to answer questions from customer service or sales quicker, a warehouse coordinator can get answers to the customers quicker,” says IT manager Alex Ivkovic. “Manufacturing is able to get access to the parts they need in a timely manner and keep manufacturing flowing. It has increased overall efficiency in the warehouse.”

We’re excited about the momentum we’re seeing among manufacturing customers using Surface across the spectrum of the design process, from concept to production. We know that Surface can be transformational across many industries by helping businesses focus not on technology but on what’s really important – creating and delivering quality products that grow their business.