The Five Habits of Successful DriveWorks Implementations

We’ve worked with many companies that have implemented DriveWorks configurators to meet the needs of their business and transform the way they operate. Our experience in working with businesses of all sizes, in different industries all over the world, has enabled us to identify the factors that consistently lead to successful implementations. These factors are instrumental in getting the most out of DriveWorks technology and maximizing the impact DriveWorks has on your organization. At DriveWorks World 2025, DriveWorks technical expert, Paul Gimbel, shared his insight on these success factors, presenting them as five habits that can be adopted to ensure a successful implementation.

In this blog, we explore the five habits that will have the biggest impact on determining the success of your DriveWorks implementation.

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Habit 1 – The continuous improvement mindset

When designing physical products, the need to make changes to an existing manufactured product is often seen as a sign of failure. Producing a physical product with limited functionality isn’t very beneficial.

However, that’s not the same for a DriveWorks configurator. From the very first version, you will see immediate benefit. You might start by reducing your SOLIDWORKS modeling time by 25%. And that’s just the beginning of your ongoing cycle of improvements.

As your team starts to use the configurator, they’ll give you their feedback and suggest improvements that will lead to increased time savings. The feedback your team provides is invaluable and should be encouraged. It will inform the further development of your configurator, ensuring your implementation is always delivering improved benefits.

A successful implementation is one that continuously improves in response to feedback, the changing needs of your business, and external factors, such as a new competitor offering.

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Habit 2 – Test cases

Successful implementations capture and document effective test cases from the outset and maintain those test cases throughout the implementation process.

Probably the most important step that the vast majority of companies skip early on in the process of developing a DriveWorks project is collecting and documenting their test cases. The most successful implementations have a solid collection of test cases agreed before the project starts, and those test cases define the requirements, the development, and the validation of the tool, and define the completion of the project.

Test cases are simply a set of inputs and corresponding outputs. A test case shows if you make defined selections in the configurator, these are the documents or outputs that should come out the other side. The easiest place to get test cases are from your recent sales.

Test cases prevent problems from reaching your configurator users, and successful test cases confirm that your configurator works. Once your test cases all run successfully, you should be 100% confident to roll out your configurator.

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Habit 3 – Prepare to roll out updates regularly

Together with a continuous improvement mindset, you should be testing and rolling out updated projects regularly. Preparing for rollouts and developing a structured process is key to the success of your implementation.

The process that you follow to roll out new updates will be specific to your business, the way you work, the way your network is set up, how your implementation is set up, etc. Having a well-organized and documented rollout process will ensure that everything runs smoothly.

Backing up your current implementation and having a plan for how you will handle Work-In-Process specifications are also key steps in ensuring that updates are rolled out effectively.

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Habit 4 – Maintain a consistent, flexible vision

It’s really important to have a clear vision of the business challenges that your implementation will help you overcome, and the role that DriveWorks will play alongside other processes within your organization.

However, it’s just as important to acknowledge that things may change. Change may be driven by outside market forces or as a result of different internal goals and requirements.

It’s important to make changes collaboratively, with buy-in from everyone, to ensure everyone continues to share a common vision.

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Habit 5 – Make decisions based on business value

Throughout the implementation process, make all of your decisions by evaluating the value that each option brings to your business.

Whilst remaining flexible and open to making changes, decisions should always be made in the context of what value they will deliver to the business.

The great thing about DriveWorks is that there are multiple ways you can use the functionality and tools to solve challenges. The key to a successful implementation is using those tools that will enable your business to achieve its goals and deliver the maximum value.

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Successful DriveWorks implementations don’t happen by accident. They are the result of strategic planning, continuous improvement, and a focus on delivering real business value. By adopting these five habits, your team can build a configurator that not only works today but continues to grow with your business. If you’re ready to start your own DriveWorks journey or want to take your current setup to the next level, reach out to our team. We are here to help you get the most out of your investment.

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Blog provided by DriveWorks.