Product life-cycle management: Siemens’ Teamcenter now manages logistics records
By Manufacturing Business Technology Staff -- Manufacturing Business Technology, 4/16/2008 3:25:00 PM
Siemens PLM Software has added an integrated logistics records management capability to its Teamcenter for MRO (maintenance, repair and overhaul) software suite. By integrating logistics planning with the same single source of product and process knowledge shared by engineering, manufacturing and service, Teamcenter delivers full product life-cycle management—from requirements to retirement—for aerospace and defense manufacturers, system integrators, and any industry that is applying formal logistics planning for product support.
Siemens PLM Software made the announcement in conjunction with its participation at the Aviation Week MRO 2008 Conference & Exhibition, taking place this week in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
"We've been working with Siemens PLM Software since 2006 when we selected Teamcenter as the foundation for our corporate-wide PLM initiative known as Through Life PLM," said Graham Malley, PLM program manager at BAE Systems Military Air Solutions. "With its in-service support definition capability, Teamcenter is the only system we've seen to integrate engineering, logistics, and sustainment into a single product knowledge backbone under configuration control. As a result, we will be able to retire a number of our current logistics applications and consolidate on a single software environment. This will greatly facilitate working as an integrated product team while supporting the closed-loop processes associated with contractor logistics support (CLS) contracts such as the one linked to the Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft."
Historically, logistics data has been created and managed in a range of specialized niche solutions. Interaction between these solutions is typically done manually by highly trained logistics personnel. The resulting process is cumbersome and not well suited to managing change.
Teamcenter's logistics records management solution integrates this functionality and the associated logistics data and processes into the overall PLM continuum. Using structures compliant with previous, existing and evolving standards such as Mil-Std 1388, Def Std 00-60 and GEIA-STD-0007, Teamcenter enhances data integrity and processes with integrated change and configuration management, providing rapid and accurate collaboration across all disciplines in the product lifecycle within a single source of knowledge.
Teamcenter's unique integration of engineering, logistics, and sustainment ensures design for supportability is addressed as an iterative process between engineering and logistics during the design of the main equipment; and that asset maintenance and routine servicing tasks can be performed easily with existing tools and techniques. In addition, design of the support solution itself -- including support and test equipment, facilities, storage and transportation -- is addressed as part of the product design phase. Finally, Teamcenter ensures proper determination of provisioning and the initial support package. This includes enabling the requirement for spares, special tools and documentation to be defined, together with the quantities required to be procured and delivered to support the operation of the main equipment.
"Teamcenter has been established as the world's most widely used PLM platform due in large part to its unique ability to manage all phases of a product's lifecycle from concept to retirement," said Steve Bashada, VP of Teamcenter Applications, Siemens PLM Software. "By providing our customers with an integrated logistics records management solution, we are continuing this strategy and further enhancing our support for aerospace and defense as well as all our customers involved in logistics planning."
