Streamlining Remote Product Development with 3DEXPERIENCE Works

Storyteller Overland makes traveling and living in a van while pursuing any adventure – by a river, lake, or mountainside – a comfortable experience. The Birmingham, Alabama–based adventure vehicle upfitter equips outdoor enthusiasts to passionately pursue meaningful experiences on the open road and beyond. The company delivers safe and life-changing experiences by enabling mobility and an outdoor lifestyle to adventure aficionados.

“We’re a people-focused company,” says Director of Engineering Michael Austell. “This means that we are not only committed to providing an exceptional product and world-class customer service to our community, but that we’re also committed to giving every one of our team members the ability to thrive both professionally and personally.”

Leveraging the Power of the Cloud

Storyteller Overland has a geographically dispersed team of mechanical designers and industrial engineers who use SOLIDWORKS® and the 3DEXPERIENCE® platform extensively. The team loved SOLIDWORKS and were familiar with on-premise data management, but they extremely excited when they learned about the cloud-based options of controlling their SOLIDWORKS data on 3DEXPERIENCE platform.

“We opted for the 3DEXPERIENCE platform, due to the growing nature of our company, remote work, travel, and to be honest, our lack of interest in managing the onsite equipment required to manage our data,” notes Austell.

The Storyteller Overland industrial designers envision the basic concepts before they hand off a project to the mechanical engineers who turn those concepts into reality. Then quality assurance and shop-floor teams, as well as outside vendors, manufacture the custom parts.

“We are big on controlling our IP, and I like that we can selectively share our data with numerous suppliers, while protecting that IP,” says Austell. The Storyteller Overland team provides its suppliers controlled access to CAD models while preserving the complete design context. “It [SOLIDWORKS] seamlessly integrates with supplier-generated parts and any modifications they might have made to our designs, which has been a game changer for us.”

Built-in Data Management

The company maintains product development coherence across all teams by organizing and storing its data on the cloud-based 3DEXPERIENCE platform, which has built-in life cycle and data management capabilities. Production, engineering, as well as senior management, have access to 3D data on the platform, which enables the entire team to receive real-time feedback from everyone on the team, including key decision makers. “It's been great to be able to lock down final designs, as released, to prevent any unintentional edits,” says Austell.

Everyone Contributes Expertise

Leveraging the platform has radically improved Storyteller Overland’s efficiency overall. “I'm a firm believer in playing to each individual's strengths, and the platform gave us the ability to allow each member of the team to work together and contribute in their own individual and unique way,” concludes Austell. "The turnkey nature of the cloud-based solution, the superior ability to work with suppliers, and overall cost savings is why we went with the 3DEXPERIENCE platform. We are extremely happy with it."