CONTACT Software announces release 10.1 of CIM Database PLM. Companies that want comprehensive support for their development processes will benefit from new wide-ranging collaboration functions. The highlights are the new Collaboration Portal, mBOM Manager and Workflow Designer applications.
CIM Database PLM 10.1 optimizes product lifecycle management (PLM) in distributed engineering networks and simplifies global collaboration between engineering disciplines, sites and companies. Exceptionally intuitive and task-oriented interfaces help users perform demanding activities such as eBOM/mBOM mapping quickly and efficiently. What is more, by offering Unicode support, the new release takes account of the entire PLM infrastructure including the important CAx and ERP standard interfaces.
Collaboration Portal: Secure, process-driven collaboration with other companies. CONTACT's Collaboration Portal reliably integrates suppliers in a company's internal PLM processes. The new portal solution supports process-oriented collaboration by giving development partners web-based access to orders, CAD data and accompanying documents which they then return in the same way after processing. The solution's ease of operation, combined with powerful background functionality, ensures that suppliers and engineering partners can perform their development tasks reliably and confidently and that the customer can find out the current status of processing at any time.
mBOM Manager accelerates processes between development and manufacturing departments. The new mBOM Manager simplifies the way technical changes are handled thanks to the validated synchronization of the engineering and manufacturing BOMs. The application helps centralized or decentralized preproduction services map deviations in both quantities and structures at the production plants quickly and reliably during initial creation as well as upon any subsequent changes to the BOMs. The central tool here is the consolidation cockpit, which clearly displays relevant discrepancies and provides users with intelligent difference resolution functions directly in the appropriate context. mBOM Manager offers clear advantages, in particular for companies with complex product structures, multiple manufacturing sites or short change cycles.
Workflow Designer moves process design into specialists departments. Thanks to the new Workflow Designer, users – even if they do not often work with the PLM system – can design and execute workflows simply and intuitively. CIM Database 10.1 provides an improved, interactive graphical user interface, an extended repertoire of workflow elements and permits the input/output assignment of documents to each task. In addition, workflow operation is now fully integrated with the Task Management, Activity Stream and Collaboration Portal functionalities.
In the coming weeks, CONTACT Software will also be releasing new apps and enhancements for CIM Database 10.1. These include requirements management with optimized baselining and extended integration in the Microsoft Office environment, as well as comprehensive improvements and extensions in the areas of project management, scheduling and Gantt chart display capabilities.
All these innovations use the eLINK HTML 5 technology from the CONTACT Elements Platform and are based on the component architecture that was first introduced with CIM Database 10. Companies consequently benefit from ongoing improvements and new features based on their current CIM Database release.
"This illustrates the strengths of our open component architecture. It allows us to constantly develop new apps and functions," explains CONTACT's Managing Director Karl Heinz Zachries. "This means that, in particular, new customer requirements can be fulfilled significantly faster thanks to agile, extensible solutions without being dependent on the intentionally longer release cycles of our product platform."
