CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
4 June 2012
Product News
BigLever Software Establishes an Open Industry Ecosystem for Product Line Engineering with the Release of Gears 7.0
BigLever Software™ announced today the release of Gears 7.0, a new version of the company's industry-standard PLE Lifecycle Framework. With the release of Gears 7.0, BigLever is establishing an open industry ecosystem of world-class tool providers -- including developers of commercial, open source, customized, integrated or proprietary Application Lifecycle Management and Product Lifecycle Management tools -- to further catalyze the accelerating proliferation of PLE. The centerpiece of Gears 7.0 is a new API, the PLE Bridge API, that enables engineering tool makers to become part of the PLE ecosystem by making their tools "product line aware" and ready to be included in the unified PLE solutions used by their customers or user communities.
Companies across a spectrum of industries are leveraging the power of PLE to change the fundamentals of how they create, evolve, deliver and compete with their product lines. Leading aerospace & defense and automotive companies are using PLE approaches and BigLever's Gears PLE Lifecycle Framework as the technology foundation for highly successful mega-scale PLE deployments. The deployments in these sectors are driving the expansion of PLE across other industries, such as consumer electronics, medical, computer systems, telecom, alternative energy and e-commerce.
About Gears 7.0
The Gears Framework allows engineering organizations to establish an automated, feature-based production system, much like a manufacturing factory, enabling them to develop, deliver and evolve an entire product line portfolio through each stage of the engineering lifecycle -- from requirements to design, development and testing -- with much higher degrees of efficiency, productivity, and profitability than have been possible before. With Gears 7.0 and the PLE Bridge API, engineering tool makers can create PLE bridges for connecting to the Gears Framework by making their tools "product line aware", which enables their tools to work synchronously with other "product line aware" tools across the full engineering lifecycle.
BigLever also provides the Gears Bridge SDK, a companion development kit that delivers the complete package of documentation, examples and support materials that tool developers need to quickly and easily build consistent, compatible PLE bridges. Tool developers also receive the benefits of BigLever's Bridge Partner Program and Bridge Validation process. Working in collaboration with BigLever, tool developers can demonstrate -- through a series of validation steps -- that their bridge integration fully supports the PLE capabilities defined in the Gears Bridge SDK. Validated bridge providers can display the BigLever Validated Bridge logo, in order to clearly convey that their bridge product fully supports the industry's best and most successful PLE practices.
BigLever Software
BigLever Software, the leading provider of systems and software product line engineering framework, tools and services, dramatically simplifies the creation, evolution, maintenance and delivery of a product line -- a portfolio of similar products or systems with variations in features and functions. BigLever's patented Gears solution enables organizations to reduce development costs and bring new product line features and products to market faster, enabling businesses to more reliably target and hit strategic market windows. BigLever is based in Austin, Texas. For more information, visit www.biglever.com .
Become a member of the CIMdata PLM Community to receive your daily PLM news and much more.
Tell us what you think of the CIMdata Newsletter. Send your feedback.
CIMdata is committed to your privacy. Your personal information will never be sold or shared outside of CIMdata without your express permission.