Autodesk has been making significant investments to enhance its portfolio of visualization and computer-aided engineering (CAE) software, primarily by acquiring niche software vendors. In an effort to achieve more depth in its visualization portfolio, Autodesk has acquired PI-VR, a privately held German software vendor that focuses on 3D visualization technology. This acquisition is in line with Autodesk’s Digital Prototyping approach that combines design, visualization, and simulation of products in a cost-effective manner. Read the rest of this entry »

AVEVA, a computer aided design (CAD) pioneer, opened its doors under the name CADCentre in 1967 as a breakaway of a research initiative of Cambridge University. Its history is closely related to the Silicon Fen phenomenon, which is the UK equivalent of the high-tech and information technology (IT) hub Silicon Valley.

Important milestones in the history of the company include the release of the world’s first plant design management system (PDMS), in 1976, plant visualization system, in 1988, and Internet-based solution for plant design, in 1998. These innovations, plus a series of acquisitions, make AVEVA one of the most important players in the plant design space, with more than 1,300 employees on all continents and more than 2,000 customers.

Why “The Future of Plant Design”?

“The Future of Plant Design” began as one of AVEVA’s projects, which took more than 18 months to complete and launch. It all started with a vision for a new era in plant design, but as many vendors tend to speak about new eras in their sector when releasing new solutions, I wanted to know what specific changes in the plant design industry this entailed. So I asked Simon Bennett, senior product business manager at AVEVA to tell me more about the new benchmarks in plant design and how their “Future of Plant Design” initiative can address them. Read the rest of this entry »

Tecnomatix became part of the Siemens PLM family of products in 2007, having been created in 1983 in Israel to offer manufacturing process management (MPM) solutions. It acquired Unicam Software (a provider of software to manage the production of printed circuit boards) in 1999 and USDATA (a provider of the production control solution FactoryLink and manufacturing execution system Xfactory) in 2003. In 2007, USG Corporation acquired Tecnomatix and combined its products with their MPM solutions.

Version 10 of Tecnomatix was released in 2011, and Siemens PLM recently announced the release of version 10.1 at their annual user conference for the Americas, Siemens PLM Connection. During the event, I had the chance to talk with Shaun Ennis, strategic communications and analyst relations (AR) manager, as well as with other Siemens PLM executives. Read the rest of this entry »

In Why Some People Don’t Like PLM, Graham McCall said that some product lifecycle management (PLM) users’ reluctance to share knowledge with others is the obstacle toward higher acceptance of PLM. I thought his point made perfect sense, and my instant reaction was to ask myself: How can this problem be resolved? Ideally, a PLM system is a platform for people to work together. This means that knowledge sharing is mutually beneficial—by sharing knowledge with others, you also get hold of others’ knowledge. This sounds like an incentive for PLM users to share their knowledge, but when it comes to the real PLM environment in production, this is not always the case.

My thought stopped there for a while and then came back to me after I attended the Siemens Industry Software Analyst Conference because I felt things that I saw at the event were quite relevant to the cure I was looking for. Read the rest of this entry »

There wasn’t a lack of big news in the product lifecycle management (PLM) industry in the past few weeks. On May 20^th, Siemens PLM Software unveiled High Definition Product Lifecycle Management (HD-PLM) at the World Exposition Shanghai China 2010 (Expo 2010). On June 7^th, PTC told PTC/USER 2010 attendees that a virtual launch event for Project Lightning was schedule on October 28^th, 2010. Two days later, Dassault Systèmes announced the acquisition of Exalead (read the press release). Since the month of June is packed with three major PLM events in the world (PTC/USER World Event, Dassault Systèmes SwYm Conference, and Siemens PLM Connection) in a row, it is no surprise to have some big PLM news  for the sake of marketing. However, this time I also see some new things beyond marketing purposes. Read the rest of this entry »

A little heads-up: We’re going to start having videos on TEC’s Web site. We’ll produce videos in the future but the first step we’ll start with is a library of links to freely available ones from YouTube. Although YouTube mainly serves as a source of entertainment, there are videos for other purposes as well. After a little searching and watching, here is my playlist of YouTube videos related to product lifecycle management (PLM). Read the rest of this entry »

There are two reasons which led me to write this blog. Firstly, I recently had briefings with vendors such as Learn.com and Xyleme that made me realize that the learning management system (LMS) industry is building up more and more connections with other technologies and enterprise applications. Secondly, a recent article (see Trends in LMS by Don McIntosh) explains how LMS is evolving with Web 2.0, talent management, mobile learning, software as a service (SaaS), and open-source software. Having worked mainly in the product development area in manufacturing, one question popped into my mind—does LMS have anything to do with product lifecycle management (PLM)? Read the rest of this entry »

I went through the agenda of the PLM Road Map 2009 (September 22 and 23, in Detroit, Michigan [US]) when I submitted my attendance preferences to conference organizer Collaborative Product Development Associates (CPDA). Looking at the agenda, I’m convinced that the two-day event is well structured to cover critical issues in the product lifecycle management (PLM) field and to apprehend the future of PLM. Below are what look to me like the conference highlights:

Read the rest of this entry »

Today, many assets are designed and manufactured with the help of product lifecycle management (PLM) tools and systems, which contain highly valuable product definition information for enterprise asset management (EAM) and computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) operations.

That being said, if there is a way to tie the two systems (EAM and PLM) together, the result will be beneficial to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), asset owners, and third-party maintenance service providers. However, this isn’t an easy job. The following are a few barriers between EAM and PLM as I see it. Read the rest of this entry »