Companies want simplistic data sharing in product development
By Staff -- Manufacturing Business Technology, 7/1/2006 12:00:00 AM
PTC is a leader in product life-cycle management (PLM), with installations in more than 40,000 companies around the world. Its Pro/ENGINEER CAD system is said to have pioneered 3D product design, while its Windchill product development & project management and Arbortext document management solutions round out its complete Product Development System.
More companies are looking for such unified solutions to bring the wealth of data resident in PLM systems to manufacturing, sales, and service operations, says James Heppelmann, executive VP and chief product officer.
"Companies have invested heavily in engineering tools that create rich 3D data, yet little of it gets beyond the engineering department," claims Heppelmann, adding, "The product-development world is full of chaotic point solutions with little integration."
Now, thanks to solutions such as Arbortext dynamic publisher, combined with Adobe's 3D PDF or similar delivery formats, "We are on the edge of a new world where companies can easily repurpose and combine 3D information with XML-based text components to get rich, interactive, instantly configurable documents," Heppelmann continues. Integrated PLM suites also simplify processes and save money, he says.
"[Companies] want to use the fewest software packages from the fewest vendors. There is a high cost of ownership associated with many point solutions and integration bridges, not to mention the difficulty of using such a patchwork quilt," explains Hepplemann. "PLM/product data management/content management buyers want to clean up their IT messes the same way ERP buyers are doing so on the operations side."
