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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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 »

In late November 2012, Dassault Systèmes, a world leader in 3D design software, 3D digital mock up (DMU), and product lifecycle management (PLM) solutions, announced the latest release of its 3DEXPERIENCE platform. Dassault Systèmes provides individuals and businesses with a set of software tools to create so-called “virtual universes” to imagine and create sustainable innovations and transform the way products are designed, produced, and supported. The company’s collaborative solutions foster social innovation and aim to expand possibilities for the virtual world to improve the real world. Dassault Systèmes has more than 150,000 customers of all sizes, in all industries, in more than 140 countries.

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Recent years have seen the Siemens Industry Automation Division extend its leading position in the industrial software market with the acquisition of UGS in the United States in 2007, innotec in Germany in 2008, Elan Software Systems in France in 2009, the Brazilian company Active Tecnologia em Sistemas de Automação, Vistagy in the US in 2011, and the German IBS AG in 2012. All of these companies were leading industrial software suppliers in their respective fields. Read the rest of this entry »

SOFTWARE SELECTIONS

Accuride Corporation selects cloud-based Plex Online ERP
Industry tags: Manufacturing
“This Indiana-based automotive components manufacturer and supplier has performed a significant multi-year ERP software evaluation and selection project, resulting in the selection of the cloud-based ERP system from Plex Systems. A single application is to replace seven separate ERP systems, or over different 200 applications, that are running in the head office as well as its subsidiary manufacturing facilities. This implementation is important for Accuride, as it simplifies its IT structure.”—Aleksey Osintsev, TEC Analyst

• See the Plex Online profile
• Compare ERP software now!

Jordan’s Furniture retailer selects Coda Financials as its financial management solution
Industry tags: Wholesale and retail trade
“This famous and venerable (over 80 years old) furniture retailer with multiple locations across New England uses a 20-year-old ERP system, and realized that its financial module does not meet the needs of the current business, and costs too much, as well as being operable in constant patching mode only. Therefore they decided to have a look at the market in order to choose another application with a focus on budgeting, planning, real-time tracking, and flexible reporting. Coda Financials was the choice of this thorough selection, and besides the functional capability of the software, ease of collaboration with the Coda team was also an important factor.”—Aleksey Osintsev, TEC  Analyst

• See the Coda Financials profile
• Compare financial packages now!

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The recently held PlanetPTC Live 2012 conference espoused the following two mantras – “Systems are Today’s Products” and “Product and Service Advantage.” Look for an exhaustive report from the conference and on PTC’s Winchill PLM (product lifecycle management), Creo CAD (computer aided design), and MKS Integrity application lifecycle management (ALM)/system engineering strategies.

Most recently, on August 8, 2012, PTC doubled down on its latter mantra by announcing it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Servigistics, Inc., developer of a broad suite of service lifecycle management (SLM) software solutions, for approximately US$220 million (USD) in cash. Pending regulatory approval and satisfaction of other customary conditions, the transaction is expected to be completed in September 2012. The Atlanta, Georgia-based privately held company has roughly 400 employees worldwide and generated approximately $80 million (USD) in revenue in the last 12 months. Read the rest of this entry »

SOFTWARE SELECTIONS

British cosmetics company Badgequo selects Epicor ERP
Industry tags: Manufacturing, distribution
“Aggressively growing cosmetics manufacturer/distributor Badgequo is in need of corporate software to offer single-truth data, eliminate manual data re-entry, and provide full visibility into its extended supply chain. This organization is a real-life example of a small company with less than 30 employees but complex and extended business processes that require reliable and modern ERP software. Among specific functions that Badgequo required was remote access to ERP from any type of mobile device. The company was also very excited about the system’s available-to-deliver and real-time inventory functionality. It’s worth noting that Badgequo will receive a complete set of functional modules that it has never used before but is planning to leverage too, such as HR management, product development workflow, and others.”—Aleksey Osintsev, TEC Research Analyst

• Epicor profile
• Online comparison: Epicor ERP vs. other leading ERP software

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Part 1 of this blog series started with the assertion that product lifecycle management (PLM) solutions are becoming increasingly important to enterprises in a strategic sense. However, not all PLM products are created equal, especially in light of their different origins. Read the rest of this entry »

SOFTWARE SELECTIONS & DEPLOYMENTS

European manufacturer of construction chemicals selects IFS Applications
Industry tags: Process manufacturing, mining
“Polish corporation Atlas Group, which operates 18 business entities and 5 mines in Poland and internationally, has selected IFS Applications as its corporate-level ERP system. The first areas slated for implementation will be financials, distribution, manufacturing, maintenance, controlling elements, consolidation, trade management-commerce portals, WMS, and document and quality management. Atlas Group is a typical “sweet spot” IFS client, as the product provides good functional support, particularly in process manufacturing and mining.”—Aleksey Osintsev, TEC Research Analyst

• TEC profile for IFS Applications
• Compare process ERP software now!
• Compare mining software now!
• Press release

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SOFTWARE SELECTIONS

The SuperYacht Group selects NetSuite
Industry tags: services industry
“The holding that includes magazine and Web site publishing, event hosting, marketing consultancy, and creative services has consolidated and centralized all its activities on cloud-based NetSuite ERP. The company has replaced its point solutions—solutions that had obviously become too tiny for them. The group has reported increased productivity, compared to operations under old systems, and quicker business processes.”—Aleksey Osintsev, TEC Analyst

• TEC profile for NetSuite
• Press release

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Anyone who has been covering the product lifecycle management (PLM) market will have likely met Oleg Shilovitsky at some industry events or at least read one of his impartial and knowledgeable blog posts on the available PLM vendors, solutions, and market trends. Shilovitsky has been building software products for product data management (PDM), engineering, and manufacturing for the last 20 years or so.

He spent 11 years (from 1999 to 2009) working for Smart Solutions, an Israeli company with the SmarTeam PLM offering, and then for the mighty Dassault Systemes, after it acquired SmarTeam and merged it under the ENOVIA PLM brand. Over these years, he held various positions in the company’s research and development (R&D) group and management, with the most recent position being ENOVIA SmarTeam Chief Technology Officer (CTO).

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Part 1 of this blog series started with the assertion that product lifecycle management (PLM) solutions are becoming increasingly important to enterprises, to a strategic degree. However, not all PLM products are created equal, especially in light of their different origins. Read the rest of this entry »

In this day and age of globalization, ever-shorter new product introduction (NPI) cycles and overall product lifecycles, partner collaboration, and whatnot, product lifecycle management (PLM) software solutions have lately increased their strategic significance to enterprises. In his recent Forbes blog post contribution, PTC’s CEO Jim Heppelmann touts PLM as a new path to shareholder value. He argues that the PLM repository of data should be an enterprise system of record rather than mundane transactional enterprise resource planning (ERP) data. Read the rest of this entry »

The voice of the customer (VOC) concept has been around for decades, but the Internet and social media technologies have finally enabled it to its fullest degree. We have all heard of (and perhaps even contributed to) customers venting their anger or expressing their delight with some vendor’s service or some product’s characteristics and performance via online forums.

A company’s ability to spot market trends in a timely way and find competitive info such as good or bad sentiments about its products and brands should go all the way back to the design department (and its suppliers). Read the rest of this entry »

My attendance of Siemens’ two-day product lifecycle management (PLM) analyst summit in the late summer of 2011 was like trying to drink from a fire hose. Even without the plant automation and manufacturing execution system (MES) discussion (which was also included in the 2010 event), there was an abundance of products and related information, and I am still trying to wrap my mind around the main messages of the event. Look for a separate article on my impressions from the summit, eventually.

In any case, the event ended with a question and answer (Q&A) session between the analysts/bloggers and Siemens PLM top executives. One question was whether, in light of Dassault Systemes recently acquiring Intercim’s MES and Enginuity for process PLM capabilities, and PTC acquiring MKS Inc. in the application lifecycle management (ALM) space, Siemens will also make any acquisitions in the near future. The diplomatic answer by Siemens was to look for some acquisitions down the track, both for technology and functional scope expansion.

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