评论

The decision announced last week by Daimler to adopt Siemens PLM Software’s NX as their mechanical design solution and Teamcenter for data management across all car and truck programs signals a new era in the PLM industry.Previously, the costs and risks of moving vast quantities of legacy 3D data from one solution to another was a major barrier to firms considering new tools. The last few years have seen the broader adoption of common formats, including the designation of Siemens PLM Software’s JT as an ISO Publically Available Specification (PAS), a necessary step on the path to ISO standardization. But beyond formats, many other PLM solution providers have offered solutions that can effectively use such common data as the basis for additional design, analysis, and manufacturing applications. Companies like SpaceClaim were founded with this capability as a selling point. Synchronous Technology from Siemens PLM Software and Inventor Fusion from Autodesk

 PDF Alliances between software and services suppliers seem like natural business arrangements, and most of these companies at least try to foster them. Yet good alliances that really pay off for both parties are very rare. The pre-requisites for success fall into two categories: leadership commitment and a sound operational framework. Each of these has key elements, which are critical to success and will be discussed later. But first let’s consider the relative importance of these two main categories. The examples that follow are composite dramatizations drawn from research and life experience and are not intended to represent the performance or actions of any specific individual or company. Ted, the newly appointed Alliance Director for a large systems integrator, received a call from one of his company’s regional sales managers who had a major concern. “Our CEO has just issued pull through revenue targets for a new alliance with a software OEM,

 PDF A recent visit to PTCʼs new Blaine, Minnesota software development center proved to be enlightening and refreshing—no trivial task considering this is coming from someone who has a degree in Computer Science and who in the past worked on some of the largest software systems ever coded. The visit proved that software development practices, processes, and facilities continue, at least in the case of PTC, to evolve to meet the needs of ever-increasing market demands. For the most part, you will not find anyone following the traditional waterfall software development approach here, but you will hear a lot about Scrum and how customersʼ interactions are a cornerstone to software innovation and the delivery of high quality, enterprise ready software solutions. So what is Scrum, you might ask. According to the Scrum Alliance (www.scrumalliance.org), a not-for-profit professional membership organization created to share the Scrum framework, "Scrum is an innovative approach to getting

 PDF PTC today (28 October 2010) unveiled its new next generation computer-aided design focused product suite embodying advanced flexible design capabilities developed under the code name Project Lightning. The new suite, conceived and developed as an improvement on traditional CAD product design techniques, is named Creo™. Given today’s preview, CIMdata feels that PTC has made a significant step forward in providing flexibility in how designs can be created and modified. Creo eliminates some of the problems that currently inhibit shared design activities by providing: Support for both parametric and direct modeling paradigms that can be used in collaborative design environments and lets users work in whichever mode they find comfortable and most efficient Direct modeling that helps less experienced users make changes to parametric models that typically required more expert users who understood how a parametric design was created Interoperability among three modeling paradigms—parametric, direct, and assembly Avoidance of technology lock-in that makes it difficult

 PDF In today’s competitive business environment, companies must deliver more innovative products and services, reduce costs, improve quality, and shorten time to market, while achieving their targeted return on investment (ROI). To reach these goals, businesses must continually improve how they operate in order to become more efficient and productive. Innovation must occur in all dimensions—product, process, and organization to allow companies to present the right products to the right markets, at the right time, for the right cost (the money spent to develop the product) and right price (what the customer pays). Lack of innovation may have serious consequences, as shown in the following example. After ten years of successful operations, a satellite owner decides to order a second and identical satellite. Meanwhile, the prime contractor had changed both CAD and analysis applications a number of times over this time. During the changes of tools, the original satellite data was not

 PDF Two main product realization business models are in common use today: Make-to-Stock and Engineer-to-Order (ETO). While each of these supports a viable business model and some companies use both, this commentary will concentrate on ETO. However, to set the stage, both models are outlined here. Make-to-Stock supports volume-based manufacturing of products based on standard designs. This type of product model works well for commodities such as fasteners, household tools and appliances, consumer goods, and many other products. ETO is the most flexible from the customer's perspective. Products in this model are designed in whole or in part to each customer's specifications. Elevators, chemical processing plants, and satellites are examples. While this can be a difficult process, ETO produces some important benefits: ETO allows highly-configured, specialized design solutions that satisfy specific customer needs. ETO can be used to design products that precisely meet customer specifications, requirements, and design expectations. Previous designs can be re-used

 PDF Electronic Design Automation (EDA) is a special domain where only the most seasoned Electrical Computer-Aided Design (ECAD) experts reside—at least that’s what many electrical engineers would say. Perhaps there is some truth to this statement. An electrical engineer’s need for vast libraries of components, specialized systems analysis functionality, and the inherent complexities related to the combination of electrical, software, and hardware components have all made their job increasingly complex and challenging. For many of today’s ECAD experts these challenges represent a fact of their day-to-day work life. The rapid emergence of products that are comprised of electronics, mechanical, and software components has placed many of today’s ECAD experts in the forefront of product development and this means providing them with tools that increase their connectivity to enterprise processes and data is more important than ever. Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), which has traditionally been used to handle information and processes associated with

 PDF Companies are striving to design innovative products while reducing the cost of product development and time-to-market. The pace of product innovation has also increased dramatically and is a primary contributor to companies’ overall profits and market share. Factors companies must address include increasing product complexity, the time and cost to create physical prototypes, and a lack of resources that can perform required analyses and simulations. More and more companies are recognizing the importance of using embedded simulation and analysis tools within their main product development processes and tools to better design their products. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) is one type of analysis that is being applied to a wide range of products. There is demonstrated real value in using CFD to analyze products earlier in the product development lifecycle. Embedding CFD analysis within the normal design environment (CAD) enhances the value of using CFD, allowing it to be used throughout the

 PDF Industrial machinery (IM) is one of the broadest and most diverse industry segments in the PLM industry. IM is both a market unto itself and a major component of other industry sectors. Industrial machines have a strong presence within many other industries, i.e., process industries. Some of the other industry sectors are built using industrial machinery. Examples of industrial machinery include: Specialty process equipment (e.g., food handling or material handling equipment) Mechanical drives and power transmission, engines and turbines Industrial heating, cooling and environment controls Machine tools and high tech machinery and equipment Industrial electrical and electronic equipment Mining, agricultural and construction equipment Others Because of the wide use of various types of industrial machines, we see a significant overlap between the IM sector and others, particularly in their manufacturing operations. This CIMdata Commentary looks at the IM market and Autodesk’s position as a supplier of solutions for that industry. As shown in the following figure, IM designers and

This CIMdata Brief looks at some of the issues impacting health insurance companies’ ability to meet their customers’ needs. The Brief describes how Product Lifecycle Management is being applied to enable those companies develop and maintain portfolios of innovative, personalized products in today’s highly competitive health care industry while meeting state and federal mandates. The health insurance industry continues to see an increase in the number and types of products being introduced in today’s highly-competitive health care market. In order to compete effectively, insurers must be able to respond quickly to the demands of their clients who seek products tailored to their unique needs. In meeting these challenges, insurers need to be more innovative and agile, e.g., innovative in streamlining the product development process to create a broad range of new offerings, and agile enough to respond quickly to market and regulatory pressures. So how can a health insurance company speed to