Dan Vantucci
ITT Fluid Technology
VP, CIO
Saddle River, N.J.
www.ittind.com
MANAGER’S PROFILE: In the information technology field since 1967, Vantucci came over to ITT from Xerox in 1991. Has a sign in his office: “Don’t Forget: Value Is Not Technology—Value Is Process.” And process, he says, “is people, information and workflow. If we need technology to make the process work, that’s when we look to enable a process that wasn’t possible in the past.”
HIS TOP PRIORITY: Align the information with the business. “The business is changing all the time. As we globalize, it becomes even more important to have good and accurate product information—to make it flow the way the business needs it to.”
HOW HE’S ACCOMPLISHING THAT: By scaling up to product lifecycle management piece by piece. Standardized on PTC’s design software Pro/Engineer back in 1991; added a series of PTC’s modules before upgrading to Windchill in 1999 to enable information processes that suit ITT’s business model. “I never have to guess whether I have the right [engineering change] level or the right drawing. I’m not rummaging through a bunch of mail to see if I’m missing a revision. I know I have the latest materials certification.”
ON VENDOR COMMITMENT: ITT has had a fixed-price contract with PTC since 1998, and is signed on through at least 2006. “We trust PTC—they’ve done right by us over the years. They’ve delivered what they said they were going to. When you make the decision to standardize on a product like this, you’re getting married—and when marriages break up, they’re ugly. The cost of change is enormous.”
WHAT COULD BE DIFFERENT? “A more user-friendly interface. PTC is addressing that problem. When we take problems to PTC, they respond—maybe not always in the time frame we’d like, but they’re on a different priority schedule.”
ADVICE? Do more work up front. “We didn’t spend the necessary time looking at the processes that existed, as opposed to the processes that could be. You can get a fair amount of value just by looking at your [existing] processes and by making them more efficient and adding more value. And then add the technology.” And remember that different people respond to different aspects of the software. “Try to find a sore spot—and make that sore spot go away.”
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