Tecnomatix 7.6 Released For Digital Manufacturing

April 03, 2006

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by Jeff Rowe - Contributing Editor
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UGS Corp. has released Tecnomatix Version 7.6 software, the latest version of its comprehensive digital manufacturing software portfolio. Tecnomatix 7.6 includes new capabilities that facilitate the definition and optimization of common workflow processes typical to many manufacturing organizations, while automating time consuming tasks that serve to boost manufacturing engineering productivity in process design and validation. The latest release also includes a variety of enhancements to further improve ease-of-use.

UGS also announced that by more tightly integrating Tecnomatix with its Teamcenter PLM software portfolio and creating closer alignment with the UGS PLM Open business model, it has elevated digital manufacturing's impact on PLM and made significant progress in closing the gap between product and process design for the entire global manufacturing industry.

"The need for speed-to-market consistently ranks high on the business agendas of most manufacturing executives," said Gisela Wilson, Director of the PLM Solutions analysis at IDC. "By supporting manufacturing industry workflows in its Tecnomatix digital manufacturing portfolio, UGS is creating a virtual 'day-in-the-life' scenario for the manufacturing engineer and addressing the critical manufacturing business objective of accelerating production launch and meeting time-to-market commitments."

Enhanced workflow support in Tecnomatix 7.6 is designed to help manufacturing engineers define consistent, unambiguous, error-free processes that are optimized for efficiency. This industry-leading functionality includes support for a variety of common business workflow processes:

A new Robotic Process Simulation offering provides Body-in-White (BIW) users with an ability to accurately simulate and validate complex robotic processes, obtain accurate cycle times and improve the quality of virtual process validation.

A new quoting tool helps suppliers produce fast and accurate responses to RFQs, by reusing best practice processes to select the best quote alternative.

New technical publication capabilities, including a significantly improved user interface, helps customers from all industries produce better process documentation and improve process communication.

"Big enterprises like Volkswagen are facing a huge number of parallel, sequential and interlinked business processes. This leads to a large amount of data that is created across all departments and must be managed in a structured way," said Mr. Tino Reichel, leader for the Digital Factory implementation in the Body in White - Planning in VW. "It is important to understand that every minute we can save during production launch on the factory floor can have a dramatic impact on our product's cost and our company's profitability. The challenge in implementing a digital method for supporting business processes is to enable the creativity of our engineers as well as the technical

implementation of Digital Manufacturing software. It is a prerequisite to have agreed business processes and corresponding organizational support as a basis for such an implementation. Those digital methods should enable to automate or partially automate time consuming planning tasks that are critical elements in the process chain of our enterprise. The new Tecnomatix Software (Version 7.6) allows us to plan ahead for manufacturing and ramp-up processes, improve collaboration and thereby avoid expensive redundant efforts and mistakes in the manufacturing processes. This contributes to improving our bottom line."

UGS has focused many of the enhancements in Tecnomatix 7.6 on increasing the productivity of manufacturing engineering by reducing the time required for process design and validation tasks and improving usability. Some of the major enhancements include:

A new automatic weld point distribution tool assigns, validates and reports on weld point distribution in the process design, replacing a tedious manual process and saving hours of manufacturing engineering efforts.

A process mirroring capability reduces the time necessary to model assembly processes by up to 50 percent.

The automatic path planning capability enables manufacturing engineers to define robotic and/or assembly paths within minutes instead of hours.

A new distributed flow simulation experiment capability significantly reduces time to execute "what if" simulation experiments and optimization.

A wide variety of usability enhancements -- including new color tree indicators, automatic note placement, Windows-like application framework, and interactive parametric report generation -- create a more user-friendly and efficient work environment.

"The latest release of Tecnomatix is consistent with UGS' commitment to providing manufacturers worldwide with the software tools that will help them optimize their efficiency and innovation throughout their entire product lifecycle," said Ziyon Amram, vice president, Manufacturing Solutions, UGS. "Through its enhanced support of common business workflow processes and focus on manufacturing engineering productivity, Tecnomatix 7.6 is helping companies transform their process of innovation through world-class digital manufacturing."

Tecnomatix enables companies to innovate by:

Capturing, managing and leveraging manufacturing process information

Authoring a manufacturing process in an efficient and reusable manner

Validating and optimizing manufacturing processes

Communicating, collaborating and executing manufacturing processes

Although we did not attend this year's National Manufacturing Week conference and exhibition, I've heard from a couple of my peers who did attend that despite what we've all been hearing and reading about lately, there was actually a slight air of optimism surrounding the manufacturing community. A number of emerging technology trends that might affect the future of manufacturing were introduced there and other venues in the past year, and this announcement about Tecnomatix from UGS is further proof that big things are happening in the manufacturing arena.

About a year ago, I saw a poll conducted by the folks that run the International Machine Tool Show (IMTS) that showed that the Top 10 general product categories that IMTS 2004 attendees were most interested in included:

Machining centers

Turning centers and lathes

Milling and drilling

Tools and tooling

Grind and finish

Workholding devices

Quality, test, and measurement

Computers and CAD/CAM software

Sawing and abrasives

EDM and ECM

I'm sure the ranking of most of these polled categories paralleled the amount of traffic the vendors offering products in these categories received at the last IMTS. As you can see, operations ruled. I didn't really see many surprises in this poll, although it's interesting that computers and software ranked eighth. It seems, based on this poll, that attendees are pretty satisfied with their CAD/CAM software and the platforms they run on in favor of other technology areas that provide faster and more flexible actual manufacturing capabilities. Actually, the interest seems to be higher in flexibility than just raw speed.

Equipment flexibility has definitely become a major trend and direction lately on several different levels. Although flexibility means different things to different vendors, most equipment vendors would agree to define flexibility as the freedom and ability to perform a wide variety of tasks; the ability to be reconfigured extensively and quickly; the ability to handle a wide range of raw material;, and the ability to handle several different manufacturing operations with a tool, ideally reducing manual setups, work handling time, and tool inventories. While it can be a complex endeavor to successfully accomplish, technology and equipment flexibility is a major step forward in the areas

of multi-tasking and multi-processing.

Another trend that I have seen emerging in manufacturing is automation integration and not just automation features of specific equipment. For example, I've seen and read about several instances of vendors demonstrating their equipment integrated at different levels of automation to showcase their ability to help customers arrive at the proper level of automation for their particular businesses. One vendor calls this concept "automate to order," where the customer's true needs are evaluated before implementing a blanket solution, and there is no longer such a thing as "one size fits all." What a refreshing concept - putting customers first and providing them with what

they truly need and not just what the vendor thinks they need!

Although CAM software ranked near the bottom of the IMTS Top 10 list, like many of the other areas of technology, flexibility was a major trend and customer demand, along with efficiency. Much like what has happened on the CAD side of the equation, simulation is coming into its own on the CAM side. Programmed tool movements can be previewed for errors and wasted motion and can be corrected, saving machine tools and time. More complex, multi-tasking equipment demands CAM software that is also up to the task, especially with regard to the myriad synchronizations required - a tough proposition to say the least. Several CAM vendors are addressing this problem by forming partnerships with

equipment vendors, and these partnerships are making things better for the respective vendors themselves, as well as their customers.

These are just a few of the things I've been following, but they all seem to point to the fact that technology, properly employed, could very well be a key that leads the way to a North American manufacturing revival. We've got a long, long way to go, but it is a start.

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-- Jeff Rowe, MCADCafe.com Contributing Editor.

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