Callaway Golf Streamlines Product Innovation Efforts Across the Globe

Carlsbad, Calif.-based Callaway Golf is known for introducing seven to eight new products annually. Designing and launching new products at this pace requires tight coordination between design teams, engineers, marketing staff and lawyers. In addition, these teams need to communicate and exchange critical business information, such as large files created with computer-aided design (CAD) and computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) software, with partners in China, Japan, Korea, Mexico and Taiwan that manufacturer the product components.

"We live or die by our CAD/CAM software, so the integration UGS provided was crucial," says John Loo, senior manager of design systems at Callaway Golf. "SharePoint gave us what we needed, and because we are very Microsoft-centric in terms of our desktop PCs, applications and development tools, we felt that it would be the best fit for our needs."

The content management capability of the tool helps Callaway Golf control changes made to product content by providing document and version histories and e-mail alerts 24 hours a day, eliminating the barriers created by time zones and physical barriers.

"We have design teams in California and suppliers in Asia, but everyone is able to collaborate effectively by posting their product content on the portal and keeping track of what's being done on specific projects. The technology has allowed us to get away from using e-mail to send thousands of files to hundreds of people, and reduces time, travel and errors," Loo says.