One-to-One: Oracle Breathes Life into Viewing

I
had the chance to talk with … Paul Giaconia about
the Oracle AutoVue
solution, which was acquired by Oracle as a part of the Agile
acquisition. The occasion for the conversation was an overview of
their new release known as 19.3. There are a number of new items in
AutoVue, but the one that struck me was the fact that
Oracle is adding action to viewing technology,
adding life to static documents.

What do they Do? 
Note: You won’t hurt
my feeling if you skip this section if you are familiar with
viewing technology
Cimmetry offers viewing technology that allows people to share and
collaborate on a broad array of information, from CAD files to
office documents, in a neutral viewing environment. For example, an
engineer can create a 3D representation of a CAD file and send it
to a customer, someone in Purchasing, a potential supplier, etc.
without having to worry whether the person has the software to view
it. Instead of requiring the underlying tool that created
the information (any number of CAD packages, for example), the
recipient simply utilizes the viewing software from
Oracle. This is an important part of design collaboration,
and Cimmetry (now Oracle AutoVue) has been at this for a
long time prior to be acquired by Agile and subsequently
Oracle.

What’s New?
There were a few major themes
for the release that we discussed. A quick overview includes:

• Updates for new data formats (a must for this
  kind of software, including capabilities for Office 2007)
• Enhanced capabilities for viewing electronic
  designs (from EDA software, important as more and more
  designs include both mechanical and electrical components)
• Streamlined user interface (simplification,
  important as more non-Engineers get involved in product development
  and other product-oriented processes that can now include 3D
  images)
• Mobile packs to create a bundle of logically
  connected viewables (for example a project review), including
  review comments and markups
• PMI data enhancements (incorporating
  manufacturing data such as tolerances)
• Enhanced support for the construction
  industry
• The addition of “IntelliStamp” (see
  below)

How does this add Life to Viewing?
The last
item in the list is what struck me. Perhaps it struck me because I
am a business process oriented person from my days at Accenture (I
still have my “people-process-technology” tattoo from back in
the Andersen Consulting years). This AutoVue release adds
“IntelliStamp” as they are calling it. It is effectively a
virtual approval/signature stamp. The goal is to take
review and approval out of the paper realm and into the digital,
virtual world. This new status can be used to drive workflows, for
example to forward to the next approver via e-mail. The thing that
I like about it is that it contains the approval status in
the document, and can initiate the next action directly
from the viewing environment. 

The approach does not conflict with a PDM/PLM solution,
because Oracle is not creating a new workflow engine or trying to
own the process in AutoVue. They are just adding an action-oriented
trigger to the documents. Those with a solid PLM infrastructure
will most likely trigger a workflow in that system, and use the
updated status in the document to update the approval status in the
PLM solution itself. Alternatively, the user would take those
actions in PLM independently. It feels like the right balance of
adding action to the document, but not going so far as to interfere
with the solutions that are already in place trying to manage the
process.

One Last Point
One final note, is that AutoVue does not need to be limited
to PLM or Agile solutions within Oracle. Based on my
conversations it is clear that they are exploring a number of
opportunities to leverage the technology throughout the Oracle
Business Suite. A nice thought when you consider that the lifecycle
of a product should be integrated across PLM, ERP, SCM, CRM, and a
host of other solution areas. Oracle is clearly looking in that
direction.

So that’s what I hear from Oracle AutoVue. I hope you found it
useful. What do you think? What else should I have asked them?