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).

Read the rest of this entry »

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 »

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 »

While opportunities for new or replacement product lifecycle management (PLM) systems at large enterprises are rare, neither is the small to medium business (SMB) market fully exploited. To that end, PTC recently announced the release of PTC Windchill PDM Essentials, the company’s product data management (PDM) software.

Read the rest of this entry »

Simulation has become an integral part of the engineering software market. When we talk about return on investment (ROI) from simulation software implementation, cost and time savings are two easy and accurate measures. Relevance of simulation has increased and is expected to further penetrate into micro-vertical industry solutions due to the positive short- and long-term benefits realized by end users. Read the rest of this entry »

In late November 2012, Siemens and Bentley Systems announced a strategic collaboration to integrate digital product design and manufacturing processes design offerings by Siemens PLM Software with information modeling for facilities lifecycle design offerings by Bentley. Initially, the companies will focus on the digital factory for automotive and discrete manufacturing. In other words, the Siemens Industry Automation Division and Bentley will initially collaborate on common file formats and content, integrated workflows for factory layout, and the convergence of process and layout. This work is an extension of earlier collaborations between the two organizations that resulted in each deploying technology offerings developed by the other (see the related news item).

Read the rest of this entry »

What Siemens alluded to us at its two-day Siemens PLM analyst summit in early September 2012 is now official—the vendor has announced that its flagship product lifecycle management (PLM) software Teamcenter is available on the cloud, adding another platform option for Teamcenter customers. Teamcenter on the cloud delivered through an infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) model extends Siemens PLM Software’s “platform of choice” strategy. Read the rest of this entry »

The 3D computed-aided design (CAD) world continues to be co-opetitive. Many of the situations where fierce competitors end up using each other’s tools in their competing products are circumstantial, i.e., those products were using tools supplied by a software company before it was acquired by a competitor. Read the rest of this entry »

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 »

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 »

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 »

Part 1 of this blog series introduced Needham, Massachusetts, United States (US)-based Parametric Technology Corporation (PTC, NASDAQ: PMTC), which is an over $1 billion (USD) large software company that develops, markets, and supports product development software solutions and related services. The article analyzed the company’s genesis from its inception in 1985 until the mid-2000s.

Part 2 then analyzed the more recent acquisitions of the products that have meanwhile been turned into integrated modules for the idea concept and product design phases of the product lifecycle within PTC Windchill 10.0, which started shipping in April 2011 (see TEC’s certification report on the product here). The article established that the product lifecycle management (PLM) arena, also referred to as “Enterprise Solutions,” and the realm of computer-aided technologies (CAx), referred to as “Desktop Solutions,”  are two distinct markets that present different growth opportunities for the vendor.

Part 2 concluded with an analysis of the PTC Windchill PLM suite [evaluate this product], which is one of PTC’s main product lines and growth engines. Part 3 analyzed the current state of affairs of PTC’s desktop solutions (including the novel PTC Creo suite of applications, as another growth engine) and the company’s competitive positioning.

The final part of this blog post series will conclude with my discussion with PTC’s executives about recent events and the company’s current state of affairs. In the meantime, I attended the company’s PlanetPTC 2011 user conference in June 2011, and here is the blog post series with my impressions and observations.

Read the rest of this entry »

Siemens recently closed the acquisition of Vistagy, incorporating it into Siemens PLM Software. Vistagy is a provider of specialized engineering solutions including applications for design and manufacture of advanced composite materials.

Composite materials are made of two or more constituent materials that when mixed retain distinct properties. The composite is generally designed to achieve a specific set of attributes, such as lightness, strength, flexibility, durability, etc. Despite their high cost, composites are increasingly being used to manufacture disk brakes for sports and luxury cars and orthopedic dentures, as well as being used in airplanes, wind turbines, and even space ships. Read the rest of this entry »

My recent article Has SAP Become a PLM Factor to be Reckoned With? concluded that while SAP PLM can be a system of record in most departments within enterprises, it has yet to win the hearts and minds of engineering departments for lack of its own computer-aided design (CAD) system. But the article concluded with SAP’s stated vision of providing 3D visualization and communication capabilities for all asset- and product-related processes for the entire enterprise. The SAP PLM team’s strong belief is that 3D viewing is not just for engineering departments, but also for the entire enterprise. This vision also includes user-centric workplaces for engineering and research and development (R&D) teams.

To that end, in early September 2011, SAP acquired Right Hemisphere, a leading provider of visual enterprise solutions based in San Ramon, California (US) and Auckland (New Zealand). Founded in 1997, Right Hemisphere is a provider of visual product communication and collaboration solutions enabling manufacturers to optimize their global product development, launch, and support processes. Organizations have invested in operational processes and IT systems to improve product lifecycle efficiencies, yet delivery of precise and up-to-date product information to the extended enterprise in a timely, efficient, and usable form remains difficult today.

Read the rest of this entry »

Part 1 of this blog series established that the product lifecycle management (PLM) software market for process industries (food & beverage, life sciences, chemicals, paints, consumer products, etc.) has not been well-defined as compared to its counterparts in the discrete manufacturing and fashion (apparel) industry segments. Indeed, the process PLM solution market is currently a mosaic of specialized vendors with solutions that cater to only a part of the entire process PLM flow.

My post then analyzed typical workarounds to solve the puzzle of integrating these silo-based solutions with their focus on structured data, which is insufficient for creating adequate product specifications in this day and age. Part 2 will analyze other typical constraints of these solutions, such as the level of process PLM vendors’ global enterprise support as well as available solution configuration options and ongoing change capabilities.

Read the rest of this entry »