Companies continue to aggressively invest in areas such as new product development. To help clients speed up new product introductions, IBM has intensified its PLM resources to include:
-- Ten Global PLM Centers of Excellence.
-- A Dassault Systèmes and IBM focused International Competency Center.
-- A team of more than 2,000 PLM service consultants and technology
experts.
-- A group of 60 PLM industry experts as part of IBM's research and
development organization.
IBM is also deepening its commitment to sell and support Dassault Systèmes
(
-- Global Collaborative Innovation - ENOVIA provides an integrated
platform for the management of a product lifecycle and its related business
processes. PLM business processes include among many compliance and
governance, global sourcing, and management of a product's intellectual
property. The V6 platform also incorporates 3DLive, a 3-D environment to
search, communicate and collaborate on product and manufacturing data over
the Internet.
-- Virtual Product Design - CATIA is a product definition and simulation
offering that includes elements of a product's system architecture. This
architecture outlines the structure and behavior of a product including
physical concepts, detailed mechanical shapes, and product behavior
components. Using advanced simulation techniques, these components are
tested to help predict product behavior and optimize product design.
-- Digital Manufacturing and Production - DELMIA provides a process
development and simulation environment to help maximize manufacturing
production systems. From 3D processes and resource planning solutions to
virtual programs to help better assign manufacturing resources using
virtual design tools, DELMIA helps companies deliver customized, lean
manufacturing systems.
-- 3D Virtual Product Documentation - 3DVIA includes web-enabled
offerings such as 3Dvia Composer, for use in the definition of 3D annotated
content for technical publications, manuals and work instructions. This
content can be delivered as part of web-based applications or traditional,
document-centric applications.
"As a company that develops products across multiple geographical regions, we seek to combine our collaborative development process, bill of materials requirements and digitally designed models into one platform that is easy to use and access," said Rick Sturgeon, executive director, Global Engineering Operations, for the Automotive Experience business of Johnson Controls, Inc.
"In evaluating the Dassault Systèmes' V6 portfolio, we see the promise of a platform based on a much improved user interface and ease-of-use," added Sturgeon.
"Clients can bet on IBM's expertise to help them integrate PLM applications into existing technology investments while ensuring that products will be delivered on time," said Albert Bunshaft, vice president, IBM Product Lifecycle Management.
The Future of PLM
IBM predicts the PLM segment will expand beyond the focus on engineering software to a multi-disciplinary enterprise practice integrating the following technology components:
A Common Platform: A traditional PLM environment typically includes anywhere from twenty to forty applications from authoring and simulation to business applications such as enterprise resource planning tools. Today's product development process requires careful orchestration of mechanical, software and electrical components into an integrated system often referred to as mechatronics. This orchestration takes place across a supply chain of hundreds of partners and suppliers who require a service oriented architecture (SOA) or common platform to make information sharing easy.
With Websphere Process Server, companies can build a SOA foundation to help integrate PLM applications with legacy and enterprise business systems.
Dassault Systèmes V6 applications are built on a SOA-compliant platform to ensure open access and effective integration to enterprise applications.
Tagging customer preferences in the Web 2.0 and virtual world:
Social networking and business intelligence tools will become an integral part of the PLM process. As companies aim to study market and customer needs, designers can use web-based tools, such as web logs and wikis, to collect user preferences.
By providing IBM Lotus Sametime instant messaging capabilities such as part of the Dassault Systèmes V6 user interface, engineering teams can instantly review and collaborate on product changes before resources are expended on manufacturing.
Second Life is emerging as an experimental design platform for industries with short design cycles such as fashion retail. A retail designer can use Second Life to test new concepts with consumers directly by quickly producing virtual samples and sharing them with targeted communities. The instant sharing of virtual samples will accelerate product feedback and reduce the number of turned down, physical samples that often end up as textile waste.
IBM's PLM Centers of Excellence ( http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/22624.wss) comprise the largest global network of PLM experts. In these Centers, companies can safely test new PLM concepts and develop a PLM business strategy using industry benchmarking studies to identify a company's current PLM performance levels against competitors or partners.
For more information about IBM please visit www.ibm.com and www.ibm.com/solutions/plm
For Dassault Systèmes please visit http://www.3ds.com.
IBM WebSphere, Information Management (DB2), Rational, Tivoli, and Lotus are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation in the United States, other countries or both.
CATIA, DELMIA, ENOVIA, SIMULIA, SolidWorks and 3D VIA are registered trademarks of Dassault Systèmes or its subsidiaries in the US and/or other countries.
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Contact: Elena Fernandez IBM Software Group 617-693-1606 Email Contact
