Contrary to its archrivals, Dassault Systèmes and Siemens PLM Software, PTC targets various lines of business (e.g., engineering, service, manufacturing, sourcing/supply chain, etc.) with its product portfolio rather than via dedicated vertical industry teams and offerings. One exception would be retail, where PTC has, for about a decade (after the Aptavis Technology acquisition in 2005), been offering an astute product lifecycle management (PLM) and supply chain management (SCM) solution called PTC Windchill FlexPLM. This sector is one of the fastest growing at PTC, although not one of the largest by any stretch of imagination, as it’s currently at about eight percent of PTC revenues (compared to five percent last year).

At the PTC Live Global 2013 conference, PTC announced its new PTC Retail PLM Solution developed specifically for the requirements of companies in the retail, footwear, and apparel industry, and built on the aforementioned PLM solution for that industry. For retailers, delivering innovative, trend-right products to the market faster has become a business imperative. Maintaining high quality products, building a competitive edge, and generating consistent profit margins continue to be essential.

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A major announcement at the PTC Live Global 2013 conference was that PTC Creo design and analysis applications will soon be available and supported in a Virtual Desktop environment. In design and manufacturing environments today, corporations need to have the ability to get global teams up and running quickly in new locations, and they need all teams to be able to easily access the latest software installation by updating from a single server. Virtualization of PTC Creo design and analysis applications can help IT managers accomplish this. Read the rest of this entry »

Dassault Systèmes, a renowned provider of 3D design software, 3D Digital Mock Up, and product lifecycle management (PLM) solutions, recently announced its intent to acquire Apriso, a provider of manufacturing software solutions, for approximately US$205 million in cash. The acquisition of the California-based Apriso, which recently celebrated its 20th anniversary, enriches the global manufacturing operations management (MOM) capabilities of Dassault Systèmes’ umbrella 3DEXPERIENCE platform. The completion of the acquisition is subject to normal closing conditions, including regulatory approvals. The transaction is expected to be completed in July 2013. Read the rest of this entry »

Autodesk recently signed a definitive agreement to acquire Tinkercad, an easy-to-use browser-based 3D design tool. The addition of Tinkercad to Autodesk is aimed at helping broaden the consumer-oriented Autodesk 123D family of apps and supports Autodesk’s vision to help anybody (students, makers, and designers) imagine, design, and create anything. The acquisition will also revive the Tinkercad service and community, despite a previously announced shutdown by its founders and creators. Read the rest of this entry »

NetSuite is on a roll with whopping growth and expansion (16,000 customers, 2,000 employees, and 700 partners) and is even now talking about profitability, positive cash flow, and a hefty cash position (contrary to the popular belief that cloud software vendors are not profitable in general). The company’s third SuiteWorld annual conference brought about 5,000 attendees, which is significantly higher than the 3,000 and 1,200 attendees respectively for the previous two years’ events. While retail and multi-channel e-commerce was the main theme at SuiteWorld 2012, SuiteWorld 2013’s main theme was that manufacturing is ready for cloud computing too.

NetSuite for Manufacturing
This week’s release of NetSuite Manufacturing Edition brings to the marketplace a solution for manufacturing and product-centric companies that includes a portfolio of capabilities such as production routings and scheduling, financials for manufacturing with standard cost and work in progress (WIP) accounting, inventory management with available-to-promise (ATP), and supply chain integration. While previously NetSuite mainly targeted outsourced offshore manufacturing, NetSuite Manufacturing Edition now caters to manufacturers that make their own products. The offering is still a fairly generic discrete manufacturing solution, but it is likely that NetSuite will make it more vertical, in part based on tuck-in acquisitions and partner offerings.

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Siemens PLM Software has announced the release of the latest version of its widely used digital manufacturing solution for manufacturing engineering, Tecnomatix 11. The latest release offers a more advanced digital manufacturing solution that promises to deliver smart, fast, and lean manufacturing, including Manufacturing Process Management (MPM).

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On the heels of recent tuck-in acquisitions, Dassault Systèmes has made yet another industry-specific acquisition, again for an undisclosed amount. This time it’s SIMPOE, a France-based provider of plastic injection molding manufacturing simulation software.

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During its ACE 2013 user conference, Aras, an open source product lifecycle management (PLM) software provider, announced a computer-aided design (CAD) to 3D PDF converter to be embedded in a PLM vault server and included for all Aras PLM subscribers. Now, with the addition of the converter, Aras can support 3D, 2D, Microsoft Office, images and scans, and other data types in a single open format—compressed PDF. This will enable users across the extended enterprise to view a variety of formats of product data in a single common user interface (UI) without buying additional software.

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Dassault Systèmes, a provider of 3D design, 3D digital mockup, and product lifecycle management (PLM) solutions, is expanding its footprint in the energy, process, and utilities segments. This industry set is expected to grow rapidly to meet the needs to expand energy production, both to grow the global economy and to support demographic changes in view of the depletion of natural resources.

The industry needs to change its game: Read the rest of this entry »

Retailers are vital to the global economy, responsible for 18 percent of the US GDP while supporting more than 41 million jobs in the US alone. It’s no secret that Microsoft Dynamics AX has marked retail as one of its focus industries, and early in 2013 Microsoft announced the latest release of Microsoft Dynamics AX for Retail that offers new capabilities to help retailers deliver a complete shopping experience through search-based e-commerce, new point of sale (POS) capabilities, and an omni-channel commerce engine.

But many important functional pieces will still have to be delivered by partners. Most recently, EdgeAX, a unit of Visionet Systems, Inc., announced the general availability of its apparel product lifecycle management (PLM) solution that is embedded in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 and harnesses the underlying technology.

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While multi-CAD (computer aided design) situations have been a matter of course at large manufacturing organizations, it appears that multi-PLM (product lifecycle management) software deployments will follow suit. To that end, Aras, an upbeat open source PLM software solution provider for large enterprises, recently announced that MAN Diesel & Turbo (MAN), a provider of large bore diesel engines and turbo machinery for marine and stationary applications, headquartered in Augsburg, Germany, has selected Aras Innovator as a supplementary platform for engineering process automation. Read the rest of this entry »

IQMS is an enterprise resource planning (ERP) and manufacturing execution systems (MES) vendor that tries to deliver as much native functionality as possible. But computer-aided design (CAD) and product data management (PDM) are highly specialist capabilities. To that end, IQMS has just released its SolidWorks PDM add-in. With more than two million license on the market, SolidWorks is an established 3D CAD application owned by Dassault Systèmes. Manufacturers use SolidWorks rendering tools to create, simulate, publish, and manage product data, parts, and tools. Read the rest of this entry »

Marrying desktop and cloud design experience for more comprehensive industry workflows continues to be a theme at Autodesk. The latest Autodesk Design and Creation Suites offer access to the Autodesk 2014 software portfolio for building, product, plant, and factory design; engineering, construction, and infrastructure; and entertainment creation professionals. Read the rest of this entry »

There’s a great future in composite materials, the next generation of lighter, stronger, safer, and more energy-efficient materials.

After Siemens PLM Software acquired Vistagy more than a year ago, Autodesk yesterday announced that it has completed the acquisition of Firehole Technologies (do business as Firehole Composites), a privately held software company based in Laramie, Wyoming, that specializes in design and analysis software for composite materials. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Read the rest of this entry »

On March 10, 2013, Apriso, a global provider of manufacturing software solutions, celebrated its 20th anniversary. Apriso has established itself as a leader in the manufacturing operations management (MOM) industry, having accomplished 20 industry firsts during its first two decades of existence. This industry leadership has translated into substantial business value creation by Apriso’s customers, supporting Apriso’s significant revenue growth and global expansion to more than 45 countries.

It is indeed impressive that Apriso has survived for 20 years, given that a few manufacturing execution system (MES) software companies make it even for even 10 years (other than power houses like Rockwell, Siemens, Invensys, Honeywell, etc.). For more details, see the press release announcing the 20th anniversary, and the figure below, which illustrates the aforementioned “20 industry firsts” that Apriso has accomplished over those two decades.

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