So what is it about Aras Innovator that keeps Enterprises and Users alike coming back for more?  For starters, it’s completely different from any other PLM product in the marketplace.  When you compare Aras Innovator with other enterp...

Okay, it's official.  2012 has started it's race to the finish line.  Can you believe the first quarter of the year will be over by the time you come back to work on Monday?  Really, it will be.  That puts you just one sho...

CIMdata's annual PLM Vendor forum was today in Ann Arbor, MI and the Twitter-sphere was buzzing - Were you following?  Btw, kudos to@smprezbo for this year's well received hash tag. There were so many interesting thoughts from the mentio...

One of the most frequently asked questions in PLM is, "How powerful are your Workflows?".  In our case, the answer is: VERY! With Aras, you can go way beyond Engineering Change, utilizing multiple, configurable workflows in just about any area of yo

Now all of our companies with mixed-mode environments don't have to do any work-arounds, futz with compatibility modes, or stress over the thought that the latest images won't be attached quickly and easily to the product data. A few months a...

At any given moment in time there are beginners in PLM.  Start-ups.  Seasoned professionals changing roles.  Growing companies making new investments in previously forgone solutions.  This morning I passed Peter Schroer in the hal...

Like anyone involved in the PLM world, I too have been following the continued announcements of Autodesk PLM 360.  There was a veritable thunderstorm of posts on twitter yesterday that took up my feed for the better part of the morning on the su...

This morning I was on the phone with one of our Aras Open Users -- a great automotive company doing some really cool stuff with Aras. The tech quy was telling me all about their implementation and things that they have accomplished, including a custo…

This morning on Copyblogger I read a piece by John Truant that discussed the negative affect that playing by the rules can have on a business... "If you're doing everything right, but find yourself unable to stand out from your competitors.....

To wrap up the series of posts I've made over the past few weeks, I'd like to reiterate a few key points: IF YOU HAVEN’T STARTED YOUR PLM IMPLEMENTATION YET You now have some good tips to help you get going in the right direction, inclu...

Just because you can automate everything, doesn’t mean you should.  Over-automation causes two problems. First, it complicates and delays your PLM implementation while driving up costs. Second, it can create rigid business rules that take ...

Choosing a Product Data Management (PDM) system to do the work of a Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) solution is a surefire way for a project to get stuck.   As the name implies, PDM is great for managing engineering product data; ho...

Once you’ve defined your business objectives, work backwards to identify the related processes that will be involved. For example, if achieving faster time to market is your priority, identify all the things that go into the new product develop...

GROWING PAINS Often PLM starts with one group in a corporation, such as engineering.  While this can be a great way to get started, when properly implemented PLM should be accessible to everyone in the company.  The real benefits and ROI co...

The user interface for your PLM system is the second most important facet to your user adoption, right behind roll-out.  A user in the Quality department doesn’t need to see the same screen as an Engineer and neither of them have the same ...

NO VISION / NO ROADMAP It’s not uncommon for C-level executives to have one vision for PLM and engineering to have another, with a gigantic gap in between.  The execs, who finance and approve PLM, are thinking about profits, innovation and...

STICKER SHOCK It's a classic buyer scenario.  The project has been scoped, the demos have been done, and you're really sold on a specific product that you're sure will meet the company's needs.  But with most PLM vendors now...

1 GIANT STEP PLM Implementations are a recipe for disaster. You can’t turn on 15 modules of PLM over the weekend, effectively changing the way people do everything overnight, and expect them to accept it. It's the fastest way to overwhelm u...

Why do PLM initiatives get stuck?  FALSE STARTS Implementations stall for lots of reasons. Some, such as politics, may be out of your control. But the biggest mistake happens before the implementation even starts and it is much easier to avoid. ...

Every initiative starts with the best intentions.  Requirements are defined and a team sets out to select the best tool to fix the problem that's causing the biggest headache today.  While every company wants to look at “the big picture”, the reality

Image (modified) courtesy of Beyond PLM Today on the Beyond PLM blog, Oleg points out a number of FACTS and makes some good arguments in his post Future PLM Platforms and SAP / Oracle Technological Wars. The problem with this analysis though is ...

In any enterprise-wide PLM deployment the subject of integration to legacy systems is going to be important. Everybody knows that Aras has a comprehensive suite of pre-packaged connector integrations for MCAD, EDA / ECAD and ERP systems, however, not…

Happy new year to everyone! We’re looking forward to a great 2012, and looking back at 2011 it was another record breaker. In addition to achieving record sales and double digit growth again (that’s 5 years in a row for anyone counting), ...

This open source project is quite practical and something that most companies will find useful. It's a server-side File Converter Framework that’s been put together by T-Systems International, the global systems integration firm. T-Systems has provi…

Recently we introduced a new commercial offering designed specifically for companies that run SolidWorks  called Aras EPLM for SolidWorks Enterprise PDM. It's built on top of SolidWorks best selling EPDM system to provide packaged ...