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 PDF ANN ARBOR, Michigan, October 27, 2009—Dassault Systèmes (DS) has announced their intent to acquire IBM’s PLM sales and client support operations responsible for DS’ Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) software application portfolio, as well as DS product-related customer contracts and related assets for US $600 million. The transition is expected to be completed in the first half of 2010, subject to the execution of local agreements and completion of regulatory processes and applicable labor relations requirements in various countries. PLM is a mission-critical, extended enterprise business platform that helps companies innovate and grow by enabling them to digitally create, build, support, and manage their products across their lifecycles. DS is one of the worldwide leaders in PLM software and services and is a supplier to customers in a variety of industries around the world, including automotive, aerospace and defense, consumer goods, high-tech electronics, and machinery industries. This acquisition is the next evolution

This CIMdata Brief takes a look at some of the main issues that typically impede an organization’s ability to efficiently and effectively localize product-related content. The Brief describes why companies need to produce and handle product-related documentation in a synchronized manner aligned with the product’s and the organization’s product development process. It also describes why companies need to begin their localization early in the development process and why organizations must seek to implement solutions that manage the componentization of product content so that it can be decomposed and subsequently re-structured in an efficient manner. By doing so, an organization can ensure that its new products are introduced to multiple markets at the right time, at the lowest cost possible, and as quickly as possible. In today’s global market, product documentation can take on many forms—the most common are user manuals, assembly instructions, labels, user interface menus, and online help. The localization

PTC announced the acquisition of Relex—a company with solutions focused on reliability analysis; they plan to integrate Relex’s solutions as part of their Insight program. The acquisition of Relex expands PTC’s focus on providing solutions that enable companies to better analyze both current and future product designs for compliance, safety, reliability, and maintainability. Integration of Relex functionality with other PTC products, particularly Windchill, will enable designers and engineers to use reliability information earlier in the product development lifecycle to create better designs and reduce downstream service and warranty costs. CIMdata believes that PTC’s acquisition of Relex will add value to their Product Development System and bring new and needed functionality into the PLM environment.

Recently, CIMdata had a chance to review think3’s released PLM solution, TD PLM 2009.1 (the “TD” stands for “task-driven”). TD PLM is a new web-based PLM solution that, according to think3, has been designed to support a company’s entire product lifecycle, from concept through to end-of-life. think3 has built this 3-tier Microsoft .NET solution from the ground up and has incorporated a number of notable features, including a task-driven, zero-footprint Web graphical user interface (GUI), tag-based search and classification, Shell integration, and a reasonable set of built-in localization tools that support global deployments. Upon reflection, what struck us more than anything else, is the task-driven approach think3 took in the design of TD PLM’s overall user experience. In many ways, the task-driven user interface (UI) paradigm, which we also see in the latest release of Microsoft Office, has the potential to impact how all PLM solution suppliers approach the design

 PDF Today’s manufacturing industries are under continuous pressure to deliver competitive products faster. At the same time, they must reduce the cost of development and the cost of product ownership, protect their intellectual property while working in shared environments, and sustain business growth and competitiveness. In order to achieve this goal, collaboration across the product development lifecycle is critical. Unfortunately, collaboration introduces many complications that must be addressed in order to ensure the integrity and consistency of product development information and processes that span increasingly-complex business environments (e.g., environments that bring together multiple companies, each with their own systems and processes). Effective collaboration throughout a product’s lifecycle requires the ability to accurately integrate and share product data that is created and used within multiple applications—and that environment must be sustained for as long as the product is in use; sometimes even longer. Addressing these issues requires establishing a consistent source of knowledge

PTC announced that Mathcad 14.0 content can now be managed with Windchill 9.1. This continues and expands PTC’s embedding of Mathcad across its product suite. This new capability will enable users to search for Mathcad content that spans multiple worksheets using Mathcad file attributes and common mathematical and Greek characters. PTC also stated that once a Mathcad reference is established within Pro/ENGINEER (or even from within another Mathcad file), Windchill systematically maintains this relationship. Thus, regardless of where users check-out a top-level design or worksheet, they can be guaranteed to also check-out any dependent Mathcad files. Additionally, a preview function will allow any authorized person to see a static preview of every Mathcad worksheet revision that is checked into Windchill, e.g., a reviewer or partner in the supply chain. This integration and management of Mathcad worksheets adds good value to the PTC portfolio of products by expanding a company’s ability to

As part of CIMdata’s annual PLM market research and analysis, we evaluate the major PLM solution providers and review the progress of their PLM programs and activities. One company that many users don’t fully appreciate as a leading PLM provider is IBM. For several years, IBM has been growing its PLM capability and practices and today offers one of the widest ranges of sales, services, and support for PLM. With its global presence, PLM Centers of Excellence and large trained PLM services staff, IBM has established itself as one of the leaders in the PLM industry and CIMdata wanted to review its overall program and put it in context within the PLM industry. IBM has had a strong commitment to PLM and has been providing products and services in support of PLM for more than 30 years. Until the late 1990s, IBM was the primary marketing and sales channel for Dassault

During a recent visit to Oracle’s home page (www.oracle.com) we were unable to find an obvious web link to PLM. Fortunately, with some intelligent digging, one can find a link at the bottom of the “Applications” column entitled “More Applications.” There it is, “Product Lifecycle Management,” right in between “Procurement” and “Project Portfolio Management.” This started us thinking … “How far and how integrated has Agile’s organization and PLM solution offerings progressed since Oracle acquired the Agile Software Corporation some eighteen months ago in July 2007?” For Oracle, the Agile acquisition was fairly small in size from a financial prospective—the $492 million spent was relatively small compared to many of Oracle’s other acquisitions. At the time of the announced acquisition we commented that Oracle’s move was positive, that we believed it reflected a continuation of the consolidation activities that have been transforming the PLM market landscape, and that it reinforced the

Recently, CIMdata had the opportunity to participate in Siemens PLM Software’s Siemens Innovation Leadership Summit, which was held November 9-11 in Scottsdale, Arizona. This was a “restricted invitation” event attended by industry executives and produced by Siemens PLM Software (Siemens) to facilitate the sharing of strategies and experiences among their customers. Overall, we thought it was an excellent event with executive-level participation from both customer speakers and attendees. The seniority of attendees was as high as we’ve seen at any PLM-focused event that we’ve had the pleasure to attend. A wide range of industries and products were represented by both attendees and speakers, with speaking executives from automotive, aerospace and defense, lighting, bearings, test equipment, high-tech, automotive racing, engineering services, software, and business consulting firms. Not surprisingly, the uncertain worldwide economic situation was a major topic of concern among participants. This issue was addressed by numerous presenters and attendees, and PLM’s role

 PDF For more than 25 years CIMdata has reported on the product lifecycle management (PLM) industry. For most of this time, the primary focus of the “mindshare leading” PLM solution suppliers that make up the majority of the market has been targeted toward large discrete manufacturers. Much of this has been due to the historical roots of most of the major PLM solution suppliers, which encompasses various discrete product development activities, especially mechanically-oriented computer-aided design tasks, bill of material creation and management, engineering release and change control, and related activities. This history has resulted in a well-educated set of PLM solution suppliers and industrial organizations, many of whom are still predominantly mechanically- or electromechanically-oriented. Currently, we’re seeing a growing focus on many non-discrete industries (e.g., food and beverage, consumer packaged goods, petrochemical, specialty chemical, etc.) where specifications are the foundation upon which the product lifecycle operates—not bills of material. For Selerant