Plant floor logistics with two-way communication to AGVs and AIVs is much-needed in the increasingly automated plant floors iTAC serves.
Data analytics are designed to work with iTAC’s #IIoT or other IoT platforms. The IIoT.Edge and SMT. Edge products offer AI-based analytics at the edge using algorithms iTAC offers but are also open for customers to develop or use their own algorithms.
iTAC’s MES/MOM is available on-premises, in the #cloud, or in hybrid hosting, where some MES is only one of those. The configurable microservices architecture is being rolled out to customers not as a replacement product but as an upgrade. Using automated tools, iTAC can migrate customer-specific as well as standard MES elements. In their automotive supplier, electronics, med tech, e-mobility, and telecommunications customers, they often want unique extensions. Being able to create those in low code and then migrate them into new technologies will be crucial to the long-term success of these MES implementations.The benefits of being part ofDürr Group are paying off also, as the Digital Factory group crosses all divisions and brands. The members of this collaborative group are working on SCADA, MES/MOM, Analytics and BI, Predictive Maintenance, Cloud Strategy, Quality Pattern Analysis, Digital Twin, and Energy Management.Thank you,Martin Heinz, for taking the time to brief me on the product set. And thank you,Filipa d'Orey, for introducing me to Martin! I now have a better view of why iTAC has had ongoing success.
[post_title] => iTAC MES/MOM Adds Low-Code, Logistics, and Edge Analytics (Insight)
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[post_content] => How can high tech manufacturers improve manufacturing engineering? We surveyed 177 people directly involved with manufacturing engineering and found that modernizing processes and technology drives higher manufacturing engineering productivity and performance. These improvements are crucial to profitability as customers demand high quality, personalized products at increasingly faster time to market; all despite rising product and manufacturing complexity. Unfortunately, high tech companies face challenges in process design as products, manufacturing processes, including:
Visibility to manufacturing capabilities
Untimely design data
Visualizing assembly processes
Predicting impacts on sustainability
Please enjoy the summary* below. For the full research, please visit our sponsor Dassault Systèmes DELMIA (registration required).
This eBook shares additional data analysis and insights for the high tech industry from our Transforming Manufacturing Engineering with Virtual Build research.
Table of Contents
Improve Manufacturing Engineering to Increase Profitability
Address Process Designer Challenges
Recognize the Opportunity
Quantify the Potential
Identify Performance Drivers
Find Issues Earlier in Design
Use more 3D and Simulation
Leverage More Integrated Solutions
Use More Advanced Communication and Collaboration
Top Performers Show the Way
Recommendations and Next Steps
About the Research
Acknowledgments
Improve Manufacturing Engineering Performance
Improve Performance in the Face of Complexity
How can high tech manufacturers improve manufacturing engineering? We surveyed 177 people directly involved with manufacturing engineering and found that modernizing processes and technology drives higher manufacturing engineering productivity and performance. These improvements are crucial to profitability as customers demand high quality, more personalized products at increasingly faster time to market; all despite rising product and manufacturing complexity.
Modernize Manufacturing Engineering
Survey results show that Top Performers (see definition in eBook) in manufacturing engineering have increased maturity in the way they plan, validate, and communicate manufacturing operations. These leading companies waste less time on non-value-added activities, find issues sooner, and spend less on physical prototypes. They accomplish this through best practices, including:
More advanced collaboration and communication methods
Increased use of 3D and simulation to plan and validate manufacturing operations with virtual, digital twins
Recognize the Opportunity
Manufacturing Engineering is Ready for an UpgradeIt’s time for change. Manufacturers must digitalize production planning to reduce cycle times, increase efficiently, and deliver quality. High tech companies need to adopt new techniques to validate manufacturing earlier in the process, in parallel with product design.Current Processes can be ImprovedThere is significant room for improvement. The majority of companies validate process plans with time-consuming and expensive physical prototyping. Physical prototypes bring abstract designs into the real world so engineers can identify issues and improvement opportunities. Most companies also use spreadsheets, which are prone to errors and file-based so they are not conducive to collaboration. These approaches lead to late discoveries and expensive process validation.Leverage Visual Approaches
Trading physical prototypes for digital validation reduces time and cost. A significant number of companies already use some form of virtual representations. Static visualizations can help engineers see an issue in the digital world before committing to a physical prototype or manufacturing equipment.
Adopt Simulation
Beyond static images, virtual simulation helps designers go beyond “seeing” to virtually experiencing the production process. While only about one-quarter use either 2D or 3D simulation, it’s a promising technology and a potential for significant planning and validation improvement.
Recommendations and Next Steps
Make a Strategic ImprovementToday’s product, manufacturing process, and market complexity demand new ways of working. The Top Performers are transforming manufacturing engineering through digitalization, better collaboration, 3D, and simulation allowing them to overcome efficiency, quality, and cost challenges. Using virtual, digital twins offers manufacturing engineers both the ability to improve their own performance and a strategic opportunity to increase overall product development profitability. These leaders spend 17% less time on non-value-added activities in manufacturing engineering, directly reducing development cycle times.Improve Time to MarketSurvey respondents report that they can reduce time to market by 37% by using 3D and simulation to plan and validate manufacturing operations. This is done, in part, by increasing efficiency, reducing time-consuming physical prototyping, and lowering rework by finding issues sooner in product development. This is critical in the high tech industry where time to market drives market share and products have such short lifecycles.Reduce CostSurvey respondents share that they can eliminate 36% of their prototypes by increasing manufacturing engineering maturity, leading to significant cost savings per product. They do this by shifting validation and issue identification sooner in the product development process so they need fewer physical prototypes. Increase QualityResponding companies also indicate that they can reduce ECOs by over one-third. They do this by improving manufacturing process design using virtual technologies. Top Performers are more likely to find physical manufacturing issues in a virtual model than Others who are more likely to discover them in physical prototypes and actual production. Get StartedIt’s time to improve manufacturing engineering productivity and performance. Companies can follow the lead of the Top Performers to increase maturity in how they plan, validate, and communicate manufacturing plans. To increase maturity, manufacturers should adopt the best practices of the Top Performers, including using integrated solutions such as 3D and simulation for manufacturing engineering.*This summary is an abbreviated version of the research and does not contain the full content. For the full research, please visit our sponsor Dassault Systèmes DELMIA (registration required).If you have difficulty obtaining a copy of the report, please contact us.
[post_title] => Transforming High Tech Manufacturing Engineering
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[post_content] => Why is effective bill of material management critical to digital transformation? What should you look for in a BOM management solution? Our white paper serves as a reference tool for manufacturers selecting a system to improve the maturity of their BOM management practices.
Please enjoy the summary* below. For the full buyer's guide please visit our sponsor, PTC (registration required).
This white paper is an update to our original buyer's guide published in 2020.
Table of Contents
Introducing the Buyer's Guide
Diagnosing BOM Management Issues
The BOM Management Status Quo
The BOM Management Business Case
Analyze BOM Management Solution Capabilities
Assess Service Requirements
Consider Vendor Requirements
Special Considerations
Conclusions
Recommendations
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Introducing the Buyer's Guide
Managing Bills of Material (BOMs) is a fundamental need for any manufacturer. Without effective control of product structures, companies struggle with inefficiency and errors. On the other hand, improving the maturity of BOM-related processes helps manage complexity, increase product personalization, improve efficiency, prevent mistakes, and enhance collaboration across departments and the supply chain.
The resulting benefits can be strategic, leading to increased innovation, agility, and faster time to market that impact top-line financial performance. BOM management is now essential as the foundation for the digital enterprise and serves as the backbone of the digital twin. Effective BOM management is also critical for manufacturers to confidently change products to adapt to market challenges like chip shortages and supply chain disruption.
This Buyer’s Guide is a reference tool for manufacturers selecting a system to improve the maturity of their BOM management practices. The guide is composed of sections covering software, service, and vendor requirements, along with some special considerations. These are all important factors that impact implementation success and ROI.
Each of these sections includes a checklist with key requirements to investigate when selecting software to enable and improve BOM management. The guide also touches on special considerations for companies to keep an eye on by industry. It also shows how digital BOM management plays a critical role in supporting digital transformation initiatives, including the digital twin, digital thread service transformation, Industry 4.0, and more.
Analyzing BOM Management Solution Capabilities
Perhaps the most obvious place to start when evaluating new software solutions is functionality. This section covers multiple types and uses of product structures, including Engineering BOMs (EBOM), Manufacturing BOMs (MBOM), Service BOMs (SBOM), and others such as those used for simulation or compliance analysis. For the purposes of this analysis, we’ve broken BOM management into seven main focus areas:
Developing product structures
Managing revisions and change
Supporting product variability
Associating information
Transforming BOMs
Visualizing products
Reporting, analyzing, documenting
It’s important to recognize that these requirements are in addition to the basic needs of managing product data, as most companies will extend their PLM environment to manage BOMs. These solutions provide platform capabilities such as access control and IP protection that serve as a critical foundation for effective BOM management. These basic capabilities for managing data can be found in our PDM Buyer’s Guide and include controlling, accessing, and sharing product data:
Controlling and securing product-related data
Quickly finding and reusing information
Sharing product knowledge with other departments (and beyond enterprise boundaries)
Create / Develop Product Structures
Perhaps the obvious place to start is with the ability to define BOMs. It’s important to be able to easily develop product structures of different kinds, including EBOMs, MBOMs, and more. We’ll discuss these in more depth in the “Transform” subsection.
Clearly, a user should be able to enter a BOM manually from a screen by selecting a combination of materials, components, or lower-level assemblies. Systems should also be able to accept and validate an input file, for example, a spreadsheet or XML file, to import / upload BOMs from another system or in a “mass load” scenario. Finally, the system should be able to develop BOMs from underlying engineering tools for efficiency and to prevent manual transcription errors, also known as the “bottom-up” approach.
Of these, the most complex scenario is the bottoms up creation from a Computer Aided Design (CAD) tool. This scenario requires the BOM management solution to digitally interpret the contents of the CAD structure. CAD systems typically contain a lot of information about a product, making good CAD integration a primary need.
Conclusion
BOM management helps manage complexity and streamline operations. It provides an important, foundational element that serves as the backbone for all engineering, manufacturing, and service activity. An accessible, trusted source of product structure information is valuable and improves traceability and control.
Effective BOM management provides enterprise-level benefits, improving business performance and alleviating disconnects across the business. The net result is efficiency and cost gains combined with revenue improvement from better collaboration and faster time to market, making BOM management an essential operational tool and a key driver of improved profitability.
Supporting BOM management at the enterprise level requires the right solution. Companies should develop a requirements list that helps encourage a holistic decision encompassing software functionality, service-related needs, vendor requirements, and any special considerations based on their industry, size, and product strategy. Finally, the plan should look beyond current needs to support the digital future where the Digital Twin, Digital Thread, AR, VR, and IoT rely on sound BOM information.
Recommendations
Based on industry experience and research for this report, Tech-Clarity offers the following recommendations:
Think big, but remain agile and take BOM management improvement in steps
Recognize the importance of accurate, complete, timely, and accessible product structures
Develop a comprehensive, multidiscipline, and multi-CAD BOM management capability
Look for functionality, but extend requirements to vendor and service considerations
Look for a Cloud / SaaS solution to reduce risk, ease adoption, and ensure vendor market competitiveness
Consider any special needs for your business, industry, or geography
Provide the foundation for the digital enterprise to compete today and into the future
Get started
This summary is an abbreviated version of the research and does not contain the full content. For the full research, please visit our sponsor PTC (registration required).If you have difficulty obtaining a copy of the report, please contact us.
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[post_content] => Onshape, a PTC Technology recently held their Onshape Live 23 virtual event. It was a nice overview of progress over the last year, customer success stories, and previews of what’s coming.Loretta Faluade kicked things off and then introduced David Katzman as the new General Manager of the Onshape business at PTC. David provided an update highlighting their 3 million users, 99.9% uptime, and 40+ Net Promoter Score (NPS).
Product Updates in Onshape
David also shared an overview of some of their key product releases over the last year, including:PCB Studio: Supports concurrent ECAD and MCAD design.
Render Studio: Offers photorealistic imagery
Onshape Simulation: Gives design engineers easy access to structural analysis during design
Frames: Enables quick design of structural frames
Variables Studios: Provides a way to define and modify common variables across parts and assemblies
In one of the more exciting developments about what’s coming, he announced that a CAM Studio will be available in 2023.
Agile Product Development
Jon Hirschtick shared his perspective as well. He stressed that they see much interest from companies looking to apply the Agile Methodology they use for software development to hardware (see graphic below). He cited trends driving this interest include:
Product development tools have evolved
The new generation workforce wants to work in a more agile way
The pace of change is so significant, companies need new methodologies to allow them to quickly adapt and pivot
Onshape’s cloud-based collaborative product development platform can be an enabler to support the sprints involved with the Agile Methodology.
Simulation in Onshape
I believe their approach to simulation could also be a key enabler for Agile. With it, design engineers do not have to worry about translating or meshing their model, and the software already understands assembly constraints. Consequently, design engineers, including those unfamiliar with simulation, can apply loads and view the results. Our research consistently shows that the activities involved with preprocessing, particularly defining the mesh, are one of the biggest bottlenecks for design engineers’ use of simulation. Onshape’s approach automates much of this, making it easier to adopt. Since Onshape Simulation is cloud-based, the processing is done on the cloud, without slowing down the engineer’s workstation. Another engineer can pull up the model and make changes, and the engineers can work together to evaluate the results. With this approach, the potential for supporting the Agile Methodology during short sprints of design, prototype, and test looks very powerful. I look forward to seeing the new developments in 2023. Thanks to Coray Thibaut de Maisieres and the Onshape team for putting on a great event.
[post_title] => Onshape Live 23 Reveals Significant Progress
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[post_content] => There is more exciting news from GE Digital on its newest Proficy MES version. In a previous discussion, we learned that all of the GE Smart Factory Portfolio are becoming available not only on-premises but also on cloud or hybrid. As a fully-hosted managed service for MES-as-a-Service, MES can always be up to date with improvements from lean or continuous improvement (CI) efforts. GE claims up to 30% lower total cost of ownership (TCO) and reduced maintenance while improving security.The composable architecture now supports OEE, production, and quality management. With cloud hosting, smaller manufacturers can also deploy MES effectively. Another aspect of this release that supports quick results and lasting value is the dozens of out-of-the-box configured screens. These are ready to support production, quality, and performance measurement workflows in process, discrete, and mixed-mode environments.No-code capabilities also enable customers to tailor the MES to their specific needs. This can be crucial in supporting frontline workers’ adoption of MES. The quality module also offers a way for operators to comment on issues as they arise.All of these enhancements are to an MES that is already deep and broad. Progress toward the cloud in manufacturing software is continuing. GE offers that option for those who want it, but also on-premise and hybrid for those maintaining those environments. Thank you, Sumit Pal, for sharing this with us!
[post_title] => GE Enhances Cloud MES for TCO, Flexibility (Insight)
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[post_content] => How can manufacturers overcome their product data gaps to improve new product introduction and drive product profitability? Jim Brown joined Propel’sConverged Live webinar, The Product Information Disconnect: How Collaboration Drives Business Value and Customer Loyalty, to preview his latest research on the product information disconnect and how to solve it. View the webinar on demand to hear Jim Brown and Propel's Mark Boles and Tom Shoemaker in this open conversation to:
Learn how disconnected data and processes derail product introduction, leaving time and money on the table
Find out how using a single digital thread delivers accurate information every time, from design to commercialization
Discover the fastest, most accurate way to launch quality products across every channel
[post_title] => The Product Information Disconnect
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[post_content] => We spent some time with CoLab to get an update on their solution and their progress. We’ve been following CoLab and their goal to become the “system of engagement” for engineering. I’ve referred to them as the potential second half of the PLM promise because they go beyond data and process management to provide a collaborative workspace that facilitates and captures problem solving and decision making, which usually happens outside of PLM (and enterprise systems in general) and goes unmanaged. Their view is pretty clear from the image on this post, they use it to describe the need for a design engagement system.CoLab is not a replacement to PLM, it’s a complementary solution, and they’ve invested in easy integration to / from major PLM systems primarily including PTC Windchill and Siemens Teamcenter. Some of the primary examples of processes that customers have adopted CoLab to support are formal design reviews, supplier collaboration, and cost reduction / value engineering. They’ve seen good traction with major manufacturers including Ford, Komatsu, and Polaris. Another positive sign of their progress is that existing customers are expanding their use of the tool, for example to new departments, placopnts, suppliers, and business units. Thank you Adam Keating and MJ Peters for the update!Image Source: CoLab
[post_title] => Update on CoLab as the Design Engagement System (Insight)
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[post_content] => We just learned a lot in an interesting update briefing on Mendix from Siemens. Jim Brown was introduced to #lowcode almost 20 years ago and was excited about the potential when Siemens acquired Mendix. They’ve kept their promise and let Mendix compete in their traditional industries, such as financial services and insurance. They’re also using it themselves across Siemens, sharing that they’ve now adopted Mendix in 11 business and operating units. My update, though, was on the progress Siemens has made in applying Mendix to industrial applications. As I wrote in “Filling Digital Transformation Gaps with Low-Code,” there’s a huge need for new applications to meet industry40, IoT, IIoT, and digital transformation needs. Lowcode creates development agility and supports collaboration so manufacturers can efficiently modernize legacy systems and deploy new applications. Mendix’s ability to deploy in multiple places like, mobile devices and at the edge, helps make that achievable.In addition to general lowcode enhancements, Siemens has made a lot of progress applying lowcode to their Xcelerator portfolio. They’ve introduced new capabilities and templates to make it easier for customers to extend, integrate, and customize Xcelerator applications. Some interesting general capabilities the provide for lowcode developers come from AWS including text-to-speech. But they’ve also created industry solutions that help industrial companies jumpstart solutions for functions like supply risk management, complaint management, carbon footprint optimization, and more. The last part of the update was very exciting. They shared that they embedded Mendix into the Opcenter backbone so customers can personalize and extend user experiences - including operator dashboards and screens – based on standard, OOTB templates. The solution is released in January.They shared some examples including Mendix templates for quality Inspection, smart warehouse, workforce management, and field service. This allows customers to adopt existing MES capabilities and rapidly tailor them using lowcode. Mendix capabilities also allow manufacturers to run Opcenter in an offline mode. All this represents both a big investment and significant proofpoint of Siemens’ integration of Mendix into their core business.Thank you Subba Rao, Shaun Ennis, and Jon Heidorn for taking the time to share the updates.
[post_title] => Siemens Shows Progress with Mendix Lowcode for Industrial Applications (insight)
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[post_content] => How can manufacturers improve manufacturing engineering performance despite increased complexity? We surveyed 177 people involved in manufacturing engineering to find out. The results show that the leaders in manufacturing engineering have increased maturity in the way they plan, validate, and communicate manufacturing operations. These Top Performers waste less time on non-value-added activities, find issues sooner, and spend less on physical prototypes. The eBook shares the best practices they use to do it.
Please enjoy the summary* below. For the full research, please visit our sponsor Dassault Systèmes DELMIA (registration required).
Table of Contents
Improve Manufacturing Engineering to Increase Profitability
Address Process Designer Challenges
Recognize the Opportunity
Quantify the Potential
Identify Performance Drivers
Find Issues Earlier in Design
Use more 3D and Simulation
Use More Advanced Ways to Support 3D / Simulation
Leverage More Integrated Solutions
Use More Advanced Communication and Collaboration
Quantify the Improvement
Recommendations and Next Steps
About the Research
Acknowledgments
Improve Manufacturing Engineering Performance
Improve Performance in the Face of ComplexityHow can manufacturers improve manufacturing engineering? We surveyed 177 people directly involved with manufacturing engineering and found that modernizing processes and technology drives higher manufacturing engineering productivity and performance. These improvements are crucial to profitability as customers demand high quality, more personalized products at increasingly faster time to market; all despite rising product and manufacturing complexity.Modernize Manufacturing EngineeringSurvey results show that Top Performers (see definition in full eBook) in manufacturing engineering have increased maturity in the way they plan, validate, and communicate manufacturing operations. These leading companies waste less time on non-value-added activities, find issues sooner, and spend less on physical prototypes. They accomplish this through best practices, including:
More advanced collaboration and communication methods
Increased use of 3D and simulation to plan and validate manufacturing operations with virtual, digital twins
Recognize the Opportunity
Manufacturing Engineering is Ready for an UpgradeIt’s time for change. Manufacturers must digitalize production planning to reduce cycle times, increase efficiently, and deliver quality. Companies need to adopt new techniques to validate manufacturing earlier in the process, in parallel with product design.Current Processes can be ImprovedThere is significant room for improvement. The majority of companies validate process plans with time-consuming and expensive physical prototyping. Physical prototypes bring abstract designs into the real world so engineers can identify issues and improvement opportunities. Most companies also use spreadsheets, which are prone to errors and file-based so they are not conducive to collaboration. These approaches lead to late discoveries and expensive process validation.Leverage Visual ApproachesTrading physical prototypes for digital validation reduces time and cost. A significant number of companies already use some form of virtual representations. Static visualizations can help engineers see an issue in the digital world before committing to a physical prototype or manufacturing equipment. Adopt SimulationBeyond static images, virtual simulation helps designers go beyond “seeing” to virtually experiencing the production process. While only about one-quarter use either 2D or 3D simulation, it’s a promising technology and a potential for significant planning and validation improvement.
Recommendations and Next Steps
Make a Strategic ImprovementToday’s product, manufacturing process, and market complexity demand new ways of working. The Top Performers are transforming manufacturing engineering through digitalization, better collaboration, 3D, and simulation allowing them to overcome efficiency, quality, and cost challenges. Using virtual, digital twins offers manufacturing engineers both the ability to improve their own performance and a strategic opportunity to increase overall product development profitability. These leaders spend 17% less time on non-value-added activities in manufacturing engineering, directly reducing development cycle times.Improve Time to MarketSurvey respondents report that they can reduce time to market by 37% by using 3D and simulation to plan and validate manufacturing operations. This is done, in part, by increasing efficiency, reducing time-consuming physical prototyping, and lowering rework by finding issues sooner in product development. Reduce CostSurvey respondents share that they can eliminate 36% of their prototypes by increasing maturity, leading to significant cost savings per product. They do this by shifting validation and issue identification sooner in the product development process so they need fewer physical prototypes. Increase QualityResponding companies also indicate that they can reduce ECOs by over one-third. They do this by improving manufacturing process design using virtual technologies. Top Performers are more likely to find physical manufacturing issues in a virtual model than Others who are more likely to discover them in physical prototypes and actual production. Get StartedIt’s time to improve manufacturing engineering productivity and performance. Companies can follow the lead of the Top Performers to increase maturity in how they plan, validate, and communicate manufacturing plans. To increase maturity, manufacturers should adopt the best practices of the Top Performers, including using integrated solutions such as 3D and simulation for manufacturing engineering.*This summary is an abbreviated version of the research and does not contain the full content. For the full research, please visit our sponsor Dassault Systèmes DELMIA (registration required).If you have difficulty obtaining a copy of the report, please contact us.
[post_title] => Transforming Manufacturing Engineering
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[post_content] => As a production metrics maven, I’m energized by a recent briefing for Jim Brown and me with Edge2Web, Inc. about their expansion to a second platform and first foray into applications. Now its low-code IoT tools Director and Flow Server run both on Siemens Digital Industries Software MindSphere and Amazon Web Services (AWS). This opens new horizons for customers that have selected the AWS IoT platform for both user-facing and back-end smart factory software development.
Their new Factory Insights manufacturing intelligence and OEE application sits on Amazon Web Services’ IoT SiteWise. The OT data it ingests is in an open platform, accessible to many tools and ready for integration. Built on Edge2Web’s proven low-code tools for IoT, this dashboard and scorecard-oriented application has value out of the box. It is also highly configurable and extensible to match the process, terminology, and priorities of each plant. While it is early days, we suspect the manufacturers who select Factory Insights are likely to have an easier time scaling out from a proof of concept to full enterprise-wide use. I also love that a free sandbox version is available for people to get a feel for setting up performance monitoring in Factory Insights. Thank you, Fred Holahan, for taking the time to update us on this exciting development!
[post_title] => Edge2Web Moves from Tools to Manufacturing Intelligence Application on AWS (Insight)
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[post_content] => How can PLM, traditionally an engineering-centric solution, drive innovation, agility, and operational excellence throughout the entire product lifecycle? Attend this webinar to learn how the right PLM can help manufacturers focus on the big picture, not just engineering, to develop profitable products. Hear from:
Jim Brown, President of Tech-Clarity, reviewing findings from his recent research and leading the panel discussion.
John Baumann, CEO of ThinGap, providing his experience in expanding the role of PLM for manufacturing of sophisticated and precise electric motors
Deb Mishra, CEO of QuadRite, sharing his experience applying technology to drive operational excellence
Please join us for this QuadRite sponsored webinar on Thursday, February 2nd, 2023 at 1:00PM PT. Register for thelive webinarnow!
For related research, you can also read our eBook PLM for Operational Excellenceto understand how to choose the right PLM to support operational excellence.
[post_title] => PLM for Operational Excellence
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[post_content] => What do manufacturers need in MES to be competitive both today and in the future?
Hint: it goes well beyond strong functional support and into what may sound like buzzwords, but are truly crucial architectural elements. In this paper, we group them into three elements: digital thread-ready, personalized, and leveraging a comprehensive digital twin. Each of these supports various aspects of industrial competitiveness.
Please enjoy the summary* below. For the full research, please visit our sponsor Siemens Digital Industries Software (registration required).
Table of Contents
MES: Pivotal Solution
Escalating Pressures and Expectations
Eight Aspects of Industrial Competitiveness
Three Architectural Characteristics of MES
Comprehensive Digital Twin Driving Insights
Digital Thread as a Foundation
Personalized MES for Great User Experience
How Characteristics Map for Competitiveness
Identifying MES with the Three Characteristics
Recommendations
Acknowledgments
MES to Support Today's Operations
Overcoming the Operational SqueezeAs the world has become less predictable, manufacturers have had to learn to change direction quickly to compete and thrive. Eight critical aspects of industrial competitiveness prevail today, including innovation, sustainability, and resilience. Ensuring operations can deliver these capabilities is no mean feat. Operations are complex and can’t be simplified, but the IT systems that support and run them can be much more approachable and quicker to implement and tailor to specific needs. Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) are crucial to support industrial competitiveness, and three characteristics are foundational.
Three Architectural Characteristics of MES
Beyond FunctionalityHistorically, MES needed the right functionality to fit production’s needs. That is now necessary but not sufficient. To be an effective system for digital transformation, it also needs to have three crucial architectural characteristics. Digital thread to ensure information connectivity; the ability to personalize it both by functionality and user experience; and to leverage all facets of a digital twin to reliably reflect and improve performance.#1 Digital Thread-readyTop-performing companies tend to be more effective at data availability and continuity across steps and their company and ecosystem.2 To facilitate this, MES must be open and capable of data enrichment. MES must contextualize data in required formats across domains and disciplines. Two-way information flow must occur with enterprise applications, including product lifecycle management (PLM), supply chain management (SCM), enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM), etc., and Operations Technology (OT), such as automation, equipment, IoT, historians, and supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA).#2 PersonalizedFor MES, one size does not fit all. Functional details must serve the language and culture of the specific industry. Beyond that, composable architectures provide a way to address pain points quickly with new functionality. Ideally, the system also provides a low-code user interface for citizen developers to tailor screens and data flows to each role in each plant—perhaps even the individual! Low-code used with suitable MES can deliver workflows for plant employees to access the data they need from (and contribute seamlessly to) the digital thread.#3 Leverages a Comprehensive Digital TwinA digital twin is a virtual model that can both predict and stay in sync with tangible assets and activities as conditions change. In the best case, MES uses models not only of the process and its performance but also of the products it produces. This interaction of the product, process, and performance is what’s physically occurring in the plant. This combination enables manufacturing engineering to better craft the process for each product variant. It also supports ongoing continuous improvement (CI) across all teams.
Recommendations and Next Steps
Set your strategy and priorities for the company and each site considering the eight aspects of competitiveness: decide which matter most to you now? How can they support one another? What priorities and needs do you foresee in the future?
Assess plant operations’ capabilities to support each aspect of competitiveness and create a “heat map” to prioritize IT needs in each facility by top priority, most significant gap, quickest likely improvement, or a combination.
Consider the MOM space and the entire business information and process flow needs in scoping your MES project. Remember, MES is at the center, so it must interact well with people and other systems (i.e., PLM, logistics).
Create a clear set of goals for your MES selection that will drive both obvious near-term benefits and longer-term abilities to remain competitive. Base this firmly on company strategy and priorities.
Educate up and down the organization that MES is not just the functions and modules you need in the plant(s) or data conduit between engineering, IoT/OT and IT, but the structure to ensure all of the data from those becomes usable in-context information.
Evaluate MES based on a full definition of the three characteristics: digital thread-ready, available to personalize fully, and leverages a comprehensive digital twin.
Consider the software provider’s ability to support your company’s long-term needs and their experience in your industry segment(s). Seek a trustworthy partner who can add domain expertise over the long haul.
When you conduct reference calls to peers in your segment who have used the latest versions of an MES offering, expect good results but focus on challenges, timeframes, and not just plant but overall business impact.
Be prepared to have conflicting views of the best MES solution, but ensure that the overall business objectives and long-term digital transformation possibilities stay at the forefront of your selection approach.
*This summary is an abbreviated version of the research and does not contain the full content. For the full research, please visit our sponsor Siemens Digital Industries Software (registration required).If you have difficulty obtaining a copy of the report, please contact us.
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[post_content] => Michelle Boucher and I had the opportunity to get an update on Dassault Systemes’ progress and strategy by attending a relatively small industry analyst day meeting. The event was a joint presentation for two important DS brands, ENOVIA and NETVIBES and allowed us to get a behind-the-scenes look and ask a lot of questions. What did we take away?The DS team shared a lot of details and case studies that helped us get a good picture of the value they bring to customers. What struck us both was seeing how the two solutions are coming together and moving beyond engineering to business level functions. We heard a lot about the 3DEXPERIENCE Platform becoming a business platform that goes beyond traditional engineering and product development capabilities at their broader industry analyst event in June. It seemed like a bold claim, and this meeting shared some of the most credible evidence of progress toward that vision. In particular, we saw:
Case studies that focused on cost, sustainability, quality, and managing complex projects
The ability for NETVIBES to offer analytics applications that leverage common, semantically aligned data from ENOVIA
These capabilities require both analytics and contextualized product data to work in harmony. The examples shared show not only how NETVIBES is able to leverage digital twin data from ENOVIA as the product backbone but also pull in data from other enterprise systems and the cloud. One use case that really impressed me was a clever approach with one of their leading customers to help them evaluate the impact of raw material price fluctuations on their product cost. It’s not a trivial problem because much of the raw material is consumed lower in the supply chain without visibility to the OEM. I questioned how they were able to gather enough data from suppliers and was pleasantly surprised to hear that they leveraged existing component data as the base and then extrapolated across their procured materials based on a series of logical analyses and assumptions. A very practical approach that sounded more like it was coming from a management consulting firm than a software company. DS is stepping up their role in both products and business acumen, with the intention to start offering Virtual Twin Experiences as a Service. That’s more than we can cover here, but it’s an important evolutionary step for DS as a scientific company as opposed to a software company. They are starting to view business value first with the platform as the enabler. They were very clear that they are selling enterprise transformation / value, and they deliver domain experience in addition to software. They also mentioned three key areas of expansion:
Transition to cyber systems management
Sustainability and business driven Lifecycle Management
Formulated product lifecycle management
These initiatives map well to our “Four Dimensions of PLM Expansion” that we’ve been tracking over the last decade or so and fit well into our view of the future state of product innovation platforms. In addition, we heard a lot about their cloud solutions. They’ve seen a lot of growth, moving beyond startups without legacy solutions to transition larger, more mature accounts to the 3DEXPERIENCE Platform. They also shared a high-level discussion about their data modeling approach, based on a graph database, and the advantages it holds for modeling digital twins, what they call “digital twin experiences.” We’ve seen ENOVIA and NETVIBES present together at a number of events. It’s clear that it’s not just a matter of convenience or economies of scale to speak about two brands at a time. It’s a demonstration of the synergies that help DS make significant progress in evolving the 3DXEXPRIENCE Platform to become more of a business-oriented platform, where NETVIBES extends ENOVIA information and provides value well beyond engineering by bringing in additional data to provide an enterprise-level digital twin. There is still a lot of work to do, but this is the clearest evidence we’ve seen of an organic evolution from an engineering-centric PLM solution to meet broader business needs that appeal beyond Engineering to the executive suite. Thanks to Joe Horine, Susan Lenzi, and Nancy O’Flaherty for your organizing the event and to Stephane Declee, Morgan Zimmerman, and a host of other leaders and subject matter experts for sharing your progress and vision.
[post_title] => ENOVIA and NETVIBES Show Transition to a Business Platform (Insight)
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[post_content] => Manufacturers continue to move product data and product-related processes to the cloud. What’s driving them? What value are they looking for, and what are they achieving? We surveyed 270 companies that design, engineer, or manufacture products to find out.
Please enjoy the summary* below. For the full research, please visit our sponsor Autodesk (registration required).
Table of Contents
Multi-faceted Cloud Benefits
Achieving Significant Benefits
How Does the Cloud Impact Performance
Digitalize Data and Processes
Expand Cloud Data and Processes
Increase Product Data Management Maturity
Integrate Cloud Data and Processes on a Platform
Taking the Next Steps
About the Research
Acknowledgments
Extending the Value in the Cloud
Top Performers Leverage the Cloud for Product Data and ProcessesThe survey shows companies are going beyond primary cloud benefits to improve system cost, deployment, and operations. Although these benefits are valuable, manufacturers need more. They are looking for ways to change how they work. Over three-quarters of respondents say that the cloud is important or critical to driving digital transformation. Top Performers, those that report better product design and development performance, are even more strategic about their cloud adoption. This eBook shares how Top Performers extend cloud use for product-related data and processes and offers recommendations for manufacturers to get the most out of their cloud strategy.
Achieving Significant Benefits
Companies are Gaining ValueManufacturers are achieving multifaceted benefits. Respondents shared the operational and business benefits their company receives from having product-related data and processes in the cloud. These are in addition to IT and general advantages of the cloud span solution categories and are relatively well known. Moving product data and processes offers some unique benefits, as well. For example, high-performance computing (HPC) is the most common benefit. HPC can allow companies the flexibility to perform resource-intensive processes without investing in high-end workstations or enable engineers to work from home. In addition, flexible, scalable compute power makes high-value tools easily accessible to infrequent users or new teams without the need to add additional resources like RAM or GPUs.The Cloud Makes Work Easier and More FlexibleThe next most common benefits are those that make work easier. Moving product-related data and processes to the cloud allows remote and flexible work, supports business agility, allows easier access to data, and enhances collaboration. These are very valuable for today’s distributed product design and development teams. They are also important as companies have adapted to changing markets and ways of working to cope with recent global disruptions like the pandemic. Additional benefits include enhanced talent acquisition and retention, greater supply chain connectivity, better data and knowledge retention, and continuous process improvement.
Taking the Next Steps
Take Advantage of Cloud BenefitsManufacturers target the cloud for digital transformation and achieve a broad array of benefits. The benefits of the cloud are proven and achievable. Take advantage of the cloud for product data and product related processes to achieve measurable benefits in the following areas:
Operational benefits
IT / implementation benefits
Business / strategic benefits
Follow the LeadersMoving product data and processes to the cloud is no longer on the cutting edge. Instead, it has become the new norm. Companies that aren't taking action, barring specific regulations or circumstances preventing them, are likely missing an opportunity and falling behind those that do. The companies that went first have paved the way for others and helped software vendors mature their offerings. Of those, those that are better hitting their product development targets are further along in their digital transformation. Based on the research and experience of the Top Performers, we recommend:
Fully digitally transform product data and processes making it easier to share, reuse, and collaborate with others across the enterprise and the value chain
Have more fully integrated data and processes in the cloud, providing a complete digital thread and a single version of the truth and coordinated actions that helps accelerate product development, encourage reuse, and drive higher quality
Adopt more mature, best practice approaches to product data and processes in the cloud including
Deploy more integrated cloud solutions or a platform to achieve greater product design and development performance
*This summary is an abbreviated version of the research and does not contain the full content. For the full research, please visit our sponsor Autodesk (registration required).If you have difficulty obtaining a copy of the report, please contact us.
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[post_content] => How can companies leverage the IoT to increase service profitability and customer loyalty? Many companies have found that remote monitoring helps them transform service to dramatically improve service performance. But what’s required to turn machine data into actionable service intelligence? This infographic highlights the key findings from our buyer’s guide on improving service with remote condition monitoring. It shares 5 capabilities that companies need to adopt to monitor machines, identify issues, and react proactively to minimize disruption. The infographic serves as a companion to our Improving Service with Remote Condition Monitoring Buyers Guide. Please enjoy the infographic, below. You can download the full Buyer’s Guide from our sponsor, PTC.
[post_title] => Improve Service with Equipment Monitoring
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[post_content] => I caught up with a really interesting software company that I’ve been following named Soley. I shared a bit about them after our first discussion last year and I was impressed with their unique solution. At that time, I saw how they used cloud, analytics, and collaborative decision-making to understand the impact products have on the value chain. They’ve formalized the approach, which they now call product mining, to help analyze product portfolios to gain efficiencies. They leverage complexity analytics, value patterns, and decision intelligence to create and analyze a graph model (aka enterprise digital twin) that allows their customers to gain transparency into portfolio complexity and inefficiencies so they can reduce ballast and side products. Thank you Maximilian Kissel and Sven Litke for the update.
[post_title] => Update on Product Mining Company Soley (Insight)
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[post_content] => We are excited about prospects for continued service transformation for complex equipment after hearing the latest updates from ServiceMax. We know a new chapter will unfold as the PTC acquisition takes hold. Yet even before that, ServiceMax’s traction in field service management is impressive, with all of its primary product suites scoring new wins to arrive at nearly 400 customers and over 300,000 users. Product-centric from the start, this company differentiates itself by focusing on the service lifecycle for complex products. In their words, they “keep the world running.”A pure-play SaaS provider on the SalesForce platform, we see how they approach new customers and focus on ongoing customer expansions. Voice of the customer activities seem to ensure that the product roadmap meets real needs, and they boast of a wide range of activities to ensure customers are increasingly satisfied with the support, product quality, and documentation.ServiceMax’s acquisition of Zinc in 2020 has become a central capability for enterprise-grade instant messaging. Their acquisition of LiquidFrameworks has paid off in additional sales of their FieldFX product for oil and gas, and as the underlying technology for their directed field service management solution, DataGuide, which shows promise to combat the shrinking workforce and knowledgebase of experienced technicians. They have also invested in mobile apps, with separate mobile apps for technicians to get guidance, collaborate, and for the end customers to be in touch with their service providers.
We now understand more of the momentum behind PTC’s announcement that it will acquire ServiceMax. Both are product-focused, and ServiceMax stretches into the in-use product lifecycle. ServiceMax’s momentum, whether on its own or as a SalesForce FSM add-on, delivers strength for PTC to build its business.Thank you, Gordon Benzie, for taking the time to update us! We look forward to watching the progress of the combined PTC/ServiceMax business and conversations with Sumair Dutta and others.
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[post_content] => I had the opportunity to meet with the Duroteam to get an update on their progress. We’re paying attention to Duro because they’re applying agile paradigms created for software development and making them applicable to companies that develop hardware. This is a novel approach that’s proving promising for software-intensive products like those in space, industrial electronics, and consumer device industries. They’re taking a unique approach, adapting PLM principles to agile product development with Github style workflows. Duro has made significant progress since we last spoke. In particular, they’ve improved customer onboarding, enhanced and extended integrations, provided more configurability, and made their APIs more capable to provide their customers with more process flexibility. At the same time, they’ve grown their team and their customer base. Duro is definitely an up-and-coming PLM vendor to watch. Thank you Michael Corr, Andrew Pisula, James D White, and Aphrodite Brinsmead for your time.
[post_title] => Duro Makes Progress in Agile PLM for Hardware (Insight)
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[post_content] => We spoke with Hexagon following a recent event launching their Nexus platform. Hexagon already offers a wide range of solutions supporting the product lifecycle, including design and engineering; production; and metrology and inspection portfolios from its Manufacturing Intelligence division and others including the newly acquired Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) and quality management (QMS, ETQ) solutions. This release gives Hexagon a platform to connect across their solutions, and solutions from others, to execute and automate workflows that cross application boundaries. They’re taking a data-centric approach to connecting heterogeneous solutions, providing contextual data to streamline across steps in the process and create a common digital thread. Hexagon is calling Nexus a “digital reality platform.” They compare it with a digital twin. They say it’s different, though, because it is connected in near-real-time with products and machines to integrate information support automation in addition to user-driven tasks. In their words, Nexus “connects applications, hardware, and anything creating data in a democratized manner.”An example we explored during our call was an electronics designer changing a printed circuit board in their PCB design tool that would share the relevant change with a mechanical designer in the CAD tool. In addition, they pointed out it could autonomously run a simulation in the cloud to validate the resulting change, for example heat exchange. The example helped me grasp the fact that Nexus is intended to share data directly between different applications and tools, not just pass the information to the next user in a traditional workflow. That level of data integration is highly valuable. The platform provides central services like visualization and analytics and will be offered as Nexus Platform Services. In addition, they’re busy developing Nexus Applications on the platform, including several announced in the launch event and a roadmap of solutions in development. They will also provide partners with the ability to develop applications for Nexus and plan to create an active ecosystem of applications and services offered through Nexus. In the future, they intend to open application development to customers so they can create their own connected workflows.Hexagon has a wealth of solutions for manufacturers, and now has a platform and strategy that will allow customers to get the most out of them in a connected, data-centric, cloud-based platform. Thank you Stephen Graham and Robin Wolstenholme for taking the time to provide more detail and answer our questions, Michelle Boucher, Julie Fraser, and I appreciated and enjoyed it.
[post_title] => Hexagon Launches Digital Reality Platform, Nexus (Insight)
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[post_modified] => 2023-03-27 14:15:51
[post_modified_gmt] => 2023-03-27 18:15:51
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We spoke with Hexagon following a recent event launching their Nexus platform. Hexagon already offers a wide range of solutions supporting the product lifecycle, including design and engineering; production; and metrology and inspection portfolios from its Manufacturing Intelligence division and others including the newly acquired Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) and quality management (QMS, ETQ) solutions….
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