Markets and products are changing faster than ever before, and companies need to evolve across a range of dimensions to keep up. Accenture’s Engineering & Product Operations services are designed to help their clients meet these challenges.

Ten years ago, Siemens acquired UGS. At that time, the acquisition clearly set a new agenda for the entire PLM industry. Customers across manufacturing and process industries could envision the benefits of integrating the physical world, such as through Siemens AG’s leading automation design and production technology, and the virtual world, through UGS’s leading factory design, product design, and digital collaboration software.

On September 6, 2017, Siemens PLM Software offered early looks at the strategy and content of NX 12, Siemens PLM Software’s flagship CAD solution, targeted for commercial release at the end of October 2017. CIMdata views the strategic directions of NX taken by Siemens to be well in tune with product developer needs. It offers them competent solutions and competitive advantages for creating innovative products.

The forthcoming SOLIDWORKS 2018 release carries on its long tradition of a mix of new capabilities and user-requested enhancements. CIMdata agrees that SOLIDWORKS is one of the very few CAD solutions that is broadly accepted by the product design community and uniquely positioned to help drive new technologies and new design methodologies. CIMdata welcomes the extensive enhancements found in SOLIDWORKS 2018 and believes they will contribute to user success and innovation.

CIMdata recently attended Oracle's annual OpenWorld event in San Francisco. Oracle made some big announcements, such as their Autonomous Database and cyber security. We look forward to seeing machine learning applications in the Oracle PLM Cloud suite.

CIMdata sees a need for an actionable, holistic digital twin that is managed by the PLM or digital innovation platform solution as the single source of record and the starting point for interrogation, prediction, validation, and continuous product and process improvement and innovation. Siemens PLM Software defines an actionable, holistic digital twin composed of multiple functional twins, including product, performance, and production digital twins—one of the broadest digital twin strategies in the industry.

CIMdata is impressed with the broad and deep portfolio of solutions assembled by Siemens. They have developed and/or acquired technology and solutions that provide value across the entire lifecycle and can be used to connect the silos of mechanical, software, and electrical and electronics. No company, even one as large as Siemens, can do all this work alone. While Siemens has made significant progress, there is a lot of work still to do. CIMdata looks forward to seeing how and when Siemens leverages the full scope of their suite.

Autodesk Accelerate successfully convened Autodesk Fusion portfolio customers to share their early successes and missteps applying the solution to their business problems. Many already see Fusion Lifecycle as a core strategic asset powering people and processes across their business. CIMdata looks forward to seeing how Autodesk will continue to evolve their Fusion portfolio to provide more complete support across the product lifecycle while maintaining their willingness to support the heterogeneous solution environments demanded by most industrial companies.

HCL recently completed its acquisition of Geometric. The acquisition comes with over two decades of PLM services experience and a track record of successful large PLM implementations. HCL is using Geometric’s capabilities to further strengthen its position in the end-to-end engineering services space. The acquisition is a strategic move by HCL to support changing business needs of its customers. Now, with GeometricPLM, HCL is better positioned to support digitalization, digital thread, and digital twin initiatives of global manufacturers, adding PLM to their strong capabilities in MES, MoM, and aftermarket services.

Anark Corporation and International TechneGroup have formed a strategic partnership to provide users a production quality 3D PDF solution for 3D data and document publishing, including model-based definition (MBD), validation, and exchange through the integration of ITI’s CADIQ and Anark Core technologies supported by their combined implementation expertise. CIMdata welcomes the Anark/ITI partnership and looks forward to seeing their joint MBE solution positively impact the PLM market. With this solution, CIMdata believes that data exchange has taken another step forward in capability to streamline data among product developers, their supply chain, and customers.