Marc Lind さんのグループアクティビティ

A&D PLM Action Group EBOM / MBOM Benchmark Shows Digital Thread with Aras

Marc Lind — Tue, 21 Jul 2020 21:59:00 GMT

Several years ago, all the major aircraft OEMs created a joint effort to compel the leading PLM providers to fix decades-old PLM product deficiencies.

In other words the world’s largest aerospace companies – Airbus, Boeing, Bombardier, Dassault Aviation, Embraer, GE Aviation, Gulfstream, Rolls-Royce, SAFRAN and others – have been “living with” inadequate PDM/PLM capabilities which the PLM vendors have refused to address for decades.

The situation has caused ongoing problems and endless manual work-arounds, particularly in engineering-to-manufacturing operations.

To drive real change these companies have organized an “Action Group” to focus on specific shortcomings and force the vendors to finally do something more than make promises. For more background, check out What’s the A&D PLM Action Group? And Why Should Anyone Care?

EBOM-to-MBOM and More

One particular area that’s gotten a lot of attention is the transition from Engineering to Manufacturing, specifically the Engineering Bill of Materials (EBOM) transformation to the Manufacturing Bill of Materials (MBOM) along with the routing, work instructions, material consumption and other key aspects – often referred to as the Manufacturing Process Plan (MPP).

EBOM-MBOM transformation with MPP definition is harder than it sounds, as noted in this presentation by GE Aviation. It’s a critical part of the Digital Thread and one that’s been an issue for a long time.

There are a myriad of different scenarios & interdependencies, and certainly more than one way to address these challenges as noted in the A&D PLM Action Group’s 35 page position paper with a 48 page use case appendix and 22 page glossary.

Pile on top of all that known complexity the fact that these processes are going through fundamental changes due to digital transformation for Industrie 4.0 scenarios, additive manufacturing, use of newer materials like carbon fiber and other composites, embedded software systems, and in the future generative design, AI/ML and other breakthroughs, and… "Houston, we have a problem."

Multi-view BOM Benchmark

To find out what’s really possible today, the A&D PLM Action Group conducted a real world benchmark of the four strategic PLM providers to the aerospace industry: Aras, Dassault, PTC and Siemens.

Of course we/Aras went thru all their use cases and then some. Apparently, some of the other vendors either wouldn’t or couldn’t show software that actually worked to address the problem areas. You can see which vendors had the biggest problems.

Over the course of several days, we/Aras ran through a series of live demonstrations addressing a wide range of use cases. Have included below so you can get an idea of what we showed.

In addition to addressing everything the way they / A&D PLM Action Group wanted to see it, we/Aras felt compelled to show them additional, innovative approaches – breakthrough ways of doing things – that they hadn’t thought of which will be better suited for the future as new complexities are introduced by the digital transformation scenarios identified above… “Houston, we have an answer” :-)

For more detail, you can get the full published results from the CIMdata website. We/Aras repeatedly requested that this Benchmark testing be conducted publicly and that ALL results be attributable to each PLM solution so you/anyone could see everything for yourself, however, that demand was refused.

My take is there was concern that some of the PLM vendors could “look bad” and might sue. Fear of liability over the truth, or something like that.

If you’re struggling with an outdated PDM/PLM system that causes problems in the transition from engineering to manufacturing, get in touch anytime. We’re always looking for new challenges to solve.

Digital Transformation Drives New Enterprise Software Criteria: Flexibility

Marc Lind — Tue, 19 Feb 2019 19:37:00 GMT

Is “Digital Transformation” a top priority at your company? Every business I talk with has a Digital Transformation initiative that is critical to their future success:

delivering new value to customers,
new business models,
new operating practices,
smart connected products,
intelligent factories,
and the list goes on and on…

All aspects of their strategy rely on fundamentally changing the way the business operates… Then they begin talking with me about enterprise software to support these initiatives, and all they want to discuss is what comes “Out-of-the-Box” (OOTB).

Think about that for a moment…

Companies all over the world are feverishly working to not just “change” their business, but to “transform” it. They know they have to do things completely differently to compete in the future and avoid disruption. Yet they only want Out-of-the-Box software.

How could yesterday’s hard-coded OOTB software possibly fit/match/support tomorrow’s Digital Processes?

It can’t. And never will.

Why?

Everyone knows that tomorrow’s Digital Processes don’t exist today. They’re not defined. The requirements for them aren’t even fully known yet. You’re doing a Digital Transformation to rethink everything.

What does that mean?

At least one thing for sure. It means that No matter what system/solution you chose to support your Digitalization initiative, customization will be required. It’s unavoidable. As new Digital Processes are identified and implemented you will have to customize whatever enterprise solutions you use to automate those processes.

Period. End of Story.

Given this Fact, what are the implications?

It changes the evaluation criteria you use for software solutions that support your Digital Transformation initiatives. Historically, long lists of Features & Functions were used to evaluate enterprise software. Now, there are new criteria, and the most important is Flexibility.

OOTB features & functions will quickly become problematic without the ability to easily customize and continually adapt your solution as new processes emerge.

Flexibility is your key to being able to handle whatever comes next. To support those new Digital Processes you need to quickly change your enterprise software application’s data models, business rules, forms/screens, workflows and more. You need to do all this without the complex programming & compiling that’s required with conventional enterprise systems; it takes too long, is unsustainable and creates instant legacy because you can’t take updates/upgrade – more on that in a future post.

Oh BTW as soon as you’re done adapting, changing, customizing… there will be another disruption around the corner that will force your business to transform again… and again… and again… the need to transform is here to stay. It will never end.

Conditions are accelerating. Every company has to be gaining greater and greater agility. The speed of business is moving too fast to lock down processes and leave them stagnant for years. You’ve got to be able to change more quickly tomorrow than today… which makes Flexibility in your enterprise solutions and platforms the most important critical new evaluation criteria.

Will cover some of the other new criteria in follow-up posts.

So what’s your take? Do hard-coded bells + whistles still matter Most? Or is the dynamic nature of business making Flexibility the new “must have” capability?

Check out some of my previous posts for more thoughts on this and related topics.
https://community.aras.com/b/english/posts/plm-customization-and-the-upgrade-monster
https://community.aras.com/b/english/posts/plm-change-management-complexity-conquering
https://community.aras.com/b/english/posts/ootb-plm-is-hit-or-miss

Promise of the Digital Thread

Marc Lind — Thu, 24 Aug 2017 16:08:00 GMT

What happens after a rocket unintentionally explodes or a plane crashes or some other catastrophic event occurs?

Source: CNBC

Tracing critical information back from the actual unit that failed to its specific design, manufacturing and supplier data can take weeks or months and often times even longer.

The ability (or inability) to trace back through the lifecycle - and time required - can cause tens of millions in losses… or worse; customer safety issues, operational shutdowns, brand damage, regulatory actions, liability and other business damaging results.

After Exploring the Digital Twin and then Exploring the Digital Twin... Some More, it’s important to spend some time on a related, yet different concept; the Digital Thread.

What is the Digital Thread?

The US Department of Defense’s Glossary of Defense Acquisition Acronyms and Terms states:

“Digital Thread - An extensible, configurable and component enterprise-level analytical framework that seamlessly expedites the controlled interplay of authoritative technical data, software, information, and knowledge in the enterprise data-information-knowledge systems, based on the Digital System Model template, to inform decision makers throughout a system's life cycle by providing the capability to access, integrate and transform disparate data into actionable information.”

Huh? Sounds more like buzz word soup than a clear explanation.

One of the many software providers jumping on the Digital Thread bandwagon asserts, “The Digital Thread refers to the communication framework that allows a connected data flow and integrated view of the asset’s data throughout its lifecycle across traditionally siloed functional perspectives.”

A “communications framework?” An “analytical framework?” Those sound like vendor tools I’m supposed to buy as opposed to describing a critical aspect of my enterprise information architecture.

OK, OK, let’s zero in on Benefits and come back to Definitions in a bit.

What Benefits does a Digital Thread provide?

Traceability in critical situations is clearly a key benefit. Others listed in papers which include the topic such as the USAF’s Global Horizons - Global Science and Technology Vision and the Manufacturing Leadership Council’s Vision 2030: Factory of the Future identify:

Reduce development cycle time
Quantify risk at critical decision points and avoid late defect discovery
Optimize manufacturability, inspectability, and sustainability
Allow product characteristics and performance to be better understood and improved throughout the life cycle
Traceability across the life cycle
Full Visibility + Automated Recourse

That last bullet point is important. It hints at the fact that the Digital Thread will be essential to enable the Smart in ‘smart factories’ and ‘smart connected products.’ The Vision 2030 report also insists:

“The single biggest transformation will be incorporating data from digital twins, enabled by digital threads, to build learning into multi-generational products. “Cognitive analytics and computing techniques, which bring together natural language processing, problematic reasoning, machine learning, artificial intelligence, and other technologies, will enable production environments to self-configure, self-adjust, and self-optimize. “But manufacturers will have to ensure they… support cognitive capabilities (with accurate Digital Threads / Digital Twins so) that (AI) can seamlessly understand and infer lessons from field deployments and build them into next-generation products.” <stuff in (parentheses) added by me for tie-back brevity>

What they’re saying is that for artificial intelligence / cognitive computing to be useful - and more importantly - to avoid misinterpretations that can lead to disastrous mistakes, you need “meaningful” connections between data in different systems.

Which brings us back to What is the Digital Thread? More importantly, What it Is & What it Is Not.

Critical Aspects of the Digital Thread

Really seems the Digital Thread is the Relationship connections between all of a product’s digital assets - and their revisions - over the course of the product’s lifecycle including - but not limited to - versions of BOMs, parts, software, electronics, CAD models, documents, requirements, process plans, service manuals, etc.

To truly be effective the Digital Thread needs “meaningful” relationships that include additional descriptive / semantic information which conveys:

Context – What does it mean if a Part is connected to another Part? Are they part of a BOM? Or are they FFF Alternates? What does the connection mean?
Dependency - Especially when both data items are changing over time (e.g. Fixed vs Float)

These points along with other scenario-specific descriptive information are critical to enable a true Digital Thread from my perspective, and that begs the question of “What it is Not”:

Not just ‘Engineering to Manufacturing’ but all the way through the Lifecycle from Concept to actual Use and ultimately retirement.
Not just ‘Mechanical CAD to CAM’ but across all disciplines including software, electronics, wire harness, hardware, requirements, etc, etc, etc.
Not just ‘inside the 4 walls’ but out to Suppliers and into the Field.
Not just a bunch of (meaningless) ‘point-to-point web links’ between data in disparate systems but meaningful relationships.

This last bullet is a significant topic that we’ll need to delve into in a future post.

In a systems-of-systems world where complexity and interdependencies are skyrocketing and Industrial Internet-enabled plants produce IoT products, the ability to interpret and act upon the data streaming back from the field and factories often require traceability to prior information from related revisions - Digital Thread.

Seems to me that the accuracy of Digital Thread traceability from the Digital Twin product configuration back through the lifecycle will be a necessary foundation for deriving value from the IoT.

What’s your take? Is the Digital Thread as important as I seem to think? Or is it just a ‘nice to have’ aspect of your enterprise information architecture?

Exploring the Digital Twin… Some More

Marc Lind — Fri, 30 Jun 2017 15:22:05 GMT

Source: GE[/caption]

Thanks everybody for all the feedback on my previous post, Exploring the Digital Twin.

Seemed like there was pretty consistent consensus about some of the basic characteristics of Digital Twins, particularly;

Instance-based “reflection” of an individual physical item
Importance of cross-discipline representation (software, electronics, hardware)

As we continue to develop our collective perspectives on the Digital Twin, I’m finding it helpful to get ideas and inputs from as many people as possible in different companies and industries.

In that spirit, earlier this summer I participated in a Digital Twin workshop led by Prof. Dr.-Ing. Martin Eigner at the Prostep Symposium in Germany. The workshop had over 30 participants from Airbus, BOSCH, Daimler, Philips, Schaeffler, thyssenkrupp, ZF and other businesses actively working on Digital Twin initiatives.

The session was well organized especially given that it was less than a half day. Several questions kept coming up during spirited discussions.

How will Digital Twins be Used?

Given that many of the companies in the session have long-life systems products - vehicles, aircraft, industrial equipment, etc. - there was a lot of emphasis on using Digital Twins as a way to monitor operations, improve maintainability and reduce downtime. Industrial Internet, Industry 4.0, “smart factory” and IoT asset field maintenance were clearly top-of-mind.

About midway through the discussion the topics morphed into more ‘new opportunity / new revenue’ type scenarios. Using connected product data to understand unanticipated usage patterns, identify individually-specialized features, enable targeted product customization and deliver new value.

Running Digital Twin simulations to understand purpose-oriented offers quickly took us to alternate business models...

Power by the Hour (pervasive in aircraft engine markets)
Product as a Service (subscription for capability)
Differentiated transactional pricing (think Uber surge pricing)
Usage-based Billing or Pay per Type of Use (names say it all :-)
In-app / in-product purchase capabilities (incremental functional delivery or performance enhancement)

These are just the business models discussed in the session. With data being the new oil that pumps through the pipes of artificial intelligence the business model variants are endless which brought up questions around use cases.

What Information is in a Digital Twin?

This is an interesting question. The easy answer is “everything,” however, this response was quickly picked apart by people undertaking real world initiatives.

My sense is that in the future “everything” (or as much as we can get) will actually prevail as the right answer as Digital Twin sophistication increases and storage costs continue to come down, but for now... pragmatism reigns, especially as most organizations are early in their Digital Twin journey.

The concept of the Digital Twin’s evolution over the lifecycle was introduced as background by Dr. Eigner. The key point made was that different information are relevant and necessary for different purposes at different stages.

Structured information vs. Flat?
Comprehensive & deep vs. high-level subsets?
Generic virtual models vs. instance-based product-specific?
Etc, etc, etc...

Over and over again, everyone came back to the same conclusion: Business model plans dictate use cases, and use cases drive the required informational sets. In other words, the way your company plans to create value and make money will determine the type of Digital Twin information you’ll need.

There was also an interesting discussion at the end that seemingly split the room.

Are the time series data coming back from sensors:

Part of the Digital Twin? (in addition to product configuration)
Or something more like the “Vital Signs” of the Physical Thing - which then get interpreted and analyzed against the Digital Twin product configuration?

There was no clear consensus on this, just lots of opinions that could have kept the discussion going for hours.

What’s your take? Do you have a crystal clear view of the Digital Twin? Or do you have 37 new questions for each conclusion you reach?

Exploring the Digital Twin… Some More

Marc Lind — Fri, 30 Jun 2017 15:22:00 GMT

Source: GE[/caption]

Thanks everybody for all the feedback on my previous post, Exploring the Digital Twin.

Seemed like there was pretty consistent consensus about some of the basic characteristics of Digital Twins, particularly;

Instance-based “reflection” of an individual physical item
Importance of cross-discipline representation (software, electronics, hardware)

As we continue to develop our collective perspectives on the Digital Twin, I’m finding it helpful to get ideas and inputs from as many people as possible in different companies and industries.

The session was well organized especially given that it was less than a half day. Several questions kept coming up during spirited discussions.

How will Digital Twins be Used?

Running Digital Twin simulations to understand purpose-oriented offers quickly took us to alternate business models...

Power by the Hour (pervasive in aircraft engine markets)
Product as a Service (subscription for capability)
Differentiated transactional pricing (think Uber surge pricing)
Usage-based Billing or Pay per Type of Use (names say it all :-)
In-app / in-product purchase capabilities (incremental functional delivery or performance enhancement)

What Information is in a Digital Twin?

This is an interesting question. The easy answer is “everything,” however, this response was quickly picked apart by people undertaking real world initiatives.

Structured information vs. Flat?
Comprehensive & deep vs. high-level subsets?
Generic virtual models vs. instance-based product-specific?
Etc, etc, etc...

There was also an interesting discussion at the end that seemingly split the room.

Are the time series data coming back from sensors:

Part of the Digital Twin? (in addition to product configuration)
Or something more like the “Vital Signs” of the Physical Thing - which then get interpreted and analyzed against the Digital Twin product configuration?

There was no clear consensus on this, just lots of opinions that could have kept the discussion going for hours.

What’s your take? Do you have a crystal clear view of the Digital Twin? Or do you have 37 new questions for each conclusion you reach?

Exploring the Digital Twin

Marc Lind — Tue, 02 May 2017 19:56:10 GMT

Source: DNV GL[/caption]

What is a Digital Twin?

It’s one of those questions that if you ask 3 people, you’ll get 5 answers.

It’s clearly a hot topic. It was on Gartner’s Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for 2017 and IDC predicts that by 2018 companies who invest in Digital Twin technology will see a 30% improvement in critical processes.

When you get into the way these analysts are actually defining the term and its benefits (even the Wikipedia definition), they’re fairly limited and somewhat unimaginative.

The term Digital Twin was coined back in 2002 by Dr. Michael Grieves while at University of Michigan. He obviously thought about The Digital Twin Concept extensively back then which shows in his definition. Of course the practical application of Internet of Things (IoT) technologies was in its infancy so it's a bit academic.

More recently, Prof. Dr.-Ing. Martin Eigner at Technische Universität Kaiserslautern in Germany has really expanded on the Digital Twin in the context of the IoT, Industry 4.0 and IIoT. His presentation from the PLM Future 2016 conference really does a nice job of explaining the Digital Twin (slide 9) and how it fits into the enterprise architecture.

Effectively, the Digital Twin is an exact virtual representation of a physical thing. It’s as if the physical product or system was looking in a virtual mirror.

Grieves describes it as a mirroring (or twinning) of what exists in the real world and what exists in the virtual world. It contains all the informational sets of the physical ‘thing’ meaning its cross-discipline – not just a mechanical / geometric representation, but also including the electronics, wiring, software, firmware, etc. #NOTjustCADmodel

And if you believe the recent Forbes article by Bernard Marr What Is Digital Twin Technology - And Why Is It So Important? then, “All indications seem to predict we are on the cusp of a digital twin technology explosion.”

So why is the Digital Twin so Important?

Well, many people talk about Digital Twins in the context of monitoring, simulation and predictive maintenance which are all incredibly valuable and potentially transformative in their own right, however, there would seem to be much more to it.

As products of all types move to include connectivity, sensors and intelligence we can’t just think about the data streaming back from the field.

Without accurate “Context” – Digital Twin – time series data generated during production and ongoing operation is difficult or even impossible to understand and analyze.

In addition, the ability to interpret and act upon these data often require traceability to prior information from related revisions – Digital Thread – we’ll have to talk about that later.

To complicate matters further as artificial intelligence / cognitive computing is introduced the necessity for the Digital Twin becomes even greater. If Knowledge = Information in Context, then without a Digital Twin, machine learning won’t work as intended, will be rendered ineffective or worse... potentially leading to risky misinterpretations or misdirected actions.

Because without Context – Digital Twin – the IoT-enabled value proposition is severely limited and could introduce real liability.

These are just a few of the obvious points we’ve been thinking about at Aras. I’m sure there are a lot more.

What’s your take? Will every product have a Digital Twin in the future? Or is this concept headed for the hype cycle trash heap?

Exploring the Digital Twin

Marc Lind — Tue, 02 May 2017 19:56:00 GMT

Source: DNV GL[/caption]

What is a Digital Twin?

It’s one of those questions that if you ask 3 people, you’ll get 5 answers.

When you get into the way these analysts are actually defining the term and its benefits (even the Wikipedia definition), they’re fairly limited and somewhat unimaginative.

Effectively, the Digital Twin is an exact virtual representation of a physical thing. It’s as if the physical product or system was looking in a virtual mirror.

So why is the Digital Twin so Important?

As products of all types move to include connectivity, sensors and intelligence we can’t just think about the data streaming back from the field.

Without accurate “Context” – Digital Twin – time series data generated during production and ongoing operation is difficult or even impossible to understand and analyze.

In addition, the ability to interpret and act upon these data often require traceability to prior information from related revisions – Digital Thread – we’ll have to talk about that later.

Because without Context – Digital Twin – the IoT-enabled value proposition is severely limited and could introduce real liability.

These are just a few of the obvious points we’ve been thinking about at Aras. I’m sure there are a lot more.

What’s your take? Will every product have a Digital Twin in the future? Or is this concept headed for the hype cycle trash heap?

ACE 2015 Round Up

Marc Lind — Tue, 12 May 2015 13:52:00 GMT

ACE 2015 in Detroit kicked off the annual ACE series of global conferences with a bang! This year we had more than 400 community members register, representing more than 180 companies from 24 countries around the world – making it the biggest ACE ever!

I want to personally thank everyone for joining us and for your commitment to the Aras community. Your enthusiasm is what makes these events so good for collaboration.

I'd also like to give a special shout out to all the people that presented and participated throughout the conference – thank you for sharing your perspectives and experiences with others. Your presentations and demos were outstanding!

I would also like to thank all of our sponsoring partners: 3D PDF Consortium, AESSiS, BigLever Software, CloudOne, The Institute of Configuration Management, CMPIC, Dell, Elysium, FISHER/UNITECH, IBM, IHS, Infor, ITI TranscenData, Javelin Technologies, Kalypso, Kisters, Microsoft, Minerva, NorthRidge Software, Razorleaf, SofTech, T-Systems, The vdR Group, UltraLevel, xLM Solutions, xPLM and Zionex. Without their sponsorship we wouldn't be able to make the ACE conferences free events. The theme of this year's event was Rethink PLM. The agenda was packed with user experiences, live demos, round tables and other sessions designed to challenge conventional assumptions and approaches to PLM in order to increase the pace of innovation.

Download all the slides form ACE 2015 (warning it's 49 MB)

Aras Keynote – Peter Schroer, CEO

Aras Founder and CEO, Peter Schroer, got things rolling with an impassioned presentation and community update tying back to the conference theme – Rethink PLM.

He pointed to the fact that market demands and customer preferences are changing faster than ever forcing companies to rethink how products are designed and how value is delivered. This constant transformation is driving more and more complexity which must be managed to compete effectively.

Peter discussed how the need for secure collaboration has never been greater, and highlighted our latest release with Visual Collaboration. He explained how Visual Collaboration in Aras breaks down barriers throughout the enterprise to speed up processes and accelerate innovation.

He introduced new partnerships and strengthened relationships with Microsoft, IBM, Infor, IHS, Dell, UltraLevel and CloudOne, to name a few.

As an example he spoke about the Aras Component Engineering application with IHS. The new release of Component Engineering connects the IHS CAPS Universe database into the Aras platform providing seamless access to over 400 million electronic components with side-by-side performance comparisons, RoHS, REACH, Conflict Mineral compliance data and more.

Peter also talked about the importance of Resilient PLM in today's fast changing environment and why greater scalability, flexibility and upgradability matter. He concluded by challenging the Aras community rethink their approach to PLM in order to better enable the business saying, “Do something BIG.”

Get the Slides

Global PLM Implementation for Automotive Supplier – Key Safety Systems

Key Safety Systems, a global tier 1 automotive supplier, discussed their PLM vision, why they selected Aras, success to date, lessons learned and plans for the future. Key Safety shared details of their global ENOVIA MatrixOne replacement with Aras for PLM, and how they have integrated to Teamcenter which is used for CAD management.

Get the slides to find out how Key Safety Systems modernized their PLM backbone with Aras and the critical factors to their success.

Get the Slides

The Road to Smarter Work – Sonnax Industries

Sonnax Industries, a provider of aftermarket performance vehicle transmissions, shared their story of how Aras helped them escape a “PLM Nightmare” and brought them to “PLM Heaven” by providing greater flexibility and access to all across the organization.

The company explained how they have driven PLM in unconventional directions for more than a decade using Aras for dozens of processes across the company from engineering to manufacturing, purchasing, marketing and the supply chain. They went on to share why they think Aras is so Special – Secure, Scalable, Flexible and “it can do cool new stuff” :-)

Sonnax ended by saying, “Don't stop looking for ways that Aras can make your business better!”

Get the Slides

Guest Keynote – Dr. Martin Eigner

Dr. Martin Eigner from the University of Kaiserslautern kicked off day two with a presentation about Model-Based Systems Engineering with Aras. He stressed that MBSE boosts a more interdisciplinary and integrative approach to product development and forces people to rethink PLM.

He went on to discuss steps to an upstream approach of PLM to support MBSE, as well as, how the university has done a successful MBSE reference implementation project with Aras. Closing the presentation, Dr. Eigner stated that in order to serve the business, PLM must be continuously customized and upgraded to support constantly changing business processes.

Get the Slides

Adding Business Value with Aras – Nidec Motor Corporation

Nidec Motor Corporation, a global manufacturer of industrial, commercial and appliance motors and controls, discussed how they had been rethinking PLM to add value throughout their business with Aras.

The company has a PDM/PLM history ranging from 1982 to today's PLM technology with Aras. Nidec explained their experience replacing their legacy Teamcenter PLM system with Aras, migrating complex CAD data and more. Now with Aras they've increased quality, timeliness of deliverables and simplified processes extending PLM across the organization by including the multi-level BOM view with links to additional information including Creo CAD models, Drawings, Make/Buy, Preferred Vendors, Ordering Information.

Get the Slides

A Flexible Approach to PLM – GETRAG

Global automotive supplier of transmission systems, GETRAG, explained how they needed a system that would deliver results fast, be a single source of truth, support day to day work and most importantly adapt to changing business requirements. Aras fit the bill.

GETRAG opted not to use a “big bang” approach instead opting for a step-by-step scenario. They shared how their PLM implementation continues to transform their business as they extend further and further worldwide. Take a look at the slides to learn more about GETRAG's implementation process.

Get the Slides

Guest Keynote: Understanding the Microsoft Cloud for PLM – Microsoft

Bob Baker, Director Microsoft Cloud + Enterprise, got us all thinking about the important considerations when bringing the cloud to your enterprise.

He explained the three reasons companies are using cloud-based capabilities: speed, scale and economics.

He discussed what enterprises expect most from a cloud platform starting with security, integration capabilities and the ability to run different technologies and explained how Windows Azure is built with these fundamentals in mind.

Get the Slides

Collaborate & Contribute Awards

Every year members of the community get special recognition for their contributions based on significance, popularity and impact. This year's winners of the Collaborate & Contribute awards were:

ANCA Motion – Sorting on BOM Structure Tab

Orio (Formerly Saab) – Technical Publications

GETRAG – Configurable Item Permissions for the Extended Enterprise

Let's congratulate the winners again and thank them for their contributions!

You can be nominated for an award by actively participating in many ways. Some examples include:

Submitting ideas
Making requests
Commenting in the Aras Forums
Contributing specifications
- Form Designs
- Use Cases
- Workflows
- Business rules
- Data models
Collaborative development
- Prototyping
- Developing solutions & add-ons
- Scripts / methods and code samples
- Doing interfaces & integrations
- Testing & verification
Creating documentation
Doing translations
Sharing Your Story

Solution Showcase

The Solution Showcase is one of our most popular sessions at ACE every year. This session is filled with 5 minute rapid fire demos – all software and no slides. People were able to show off their cool new solutions, add-ons and innovative concepts they've been working on. It's a great way to get a quick overview of a whole series of applications that global companies have developed on the Aras platform.

Some of this year's solution showcase participants included:

Digital Mockup – Kisters

Tech Support System – AMC Bridge

Server-Side Microsoft Office Integration – Amscan

Fun with Forms - Nidec

BOM BaseLine Viewer – Neo System

…and many more.

Download ACE 2015 Slides

Download all the slides from ACE 2015 (49 MB zip file)

Main Session

Aras Community Update

What's New from Aras

Global PLM Implementation for Automotive Supplier – Key Safety Systems

The Road to Smarter Work – Sonnax Industries

Model-Based Systems Engineering – Dr. Martin Eigner

A Flexible Approach to PLM – GETRAG

Understanding the Microsoft Cloud for PLM – Microsoft

What's Ahead: Aras Vision & Roadmap

Upcoming Applications

Quality Management System

Self-Service Reporting

Technical Documentation

Business Track (Sponsored by IBM)

The Impact of IoT on Product Development

The Importance of Continuous Engineering

ALM / PLM for Systems Engineering

Technical Track

Configuring Visual Collaboration

Managing Complex Security for Global Environments

Planning Your Upgrade

Developing Electronic Products

Component Engineering

High Tech Electronics Solutions

Rethinking ECAD & PLM

Business Track

Aras Innovator / BigLever Gears Bridge

IT Infrastructure for Global PLM Performance

Implementation Track

An Agile Implementation Approach for PLM

Testing Customizations

Planning a Successful PLM Migration

Product Workshops

Productivity Enhancements

Manufacturing Process Planning

Supplier Portal

Everything turned out great at ACE this year – I'd say it was the best ACE yet! The 30 minute breaks were a huge hit again because of the time to network. Energy filled the rooms during the entire conference and it seemed like there were more collaborative connections made between companies than the past years combined.

Thanks again to everyone for coming and making ACE 2015 such a spectacular event.

We look forward to seeing you at the other global ACE series events this year including ACE Japan and ACE Europe. And stay tuned for other local and regional ACE sessions. We'll post them in the newsletter and on the website throughout the year as dates and locations are announced.

Also, if you'd like to host your own mini-ACE session at your company, get in touch – we would love to help!

Marc Lind さんの グループ アクティビティ

A&D PLM Action Group EBOM / MBOM Benchmark Shows Digital Thread with Aras

EBOM-to-MBOM and More

Multi-view BOM Benchmark

Digital Transformation Drives New Enterprise Software Criteria: Flexibility

Promise of the Digital Thread

What is the Digital Thread?

What Benefits does a Digital Thread provide?

Critical Aspects of the Digital Thread

Exploring the Digital Twin… Some More

Exploring the Digital Twin… Some More

Exploring the Digital Twin

Exploring the Digital Twin

ACE 2015 Round Up

Marc Lind さんのグループアクティビティ