Archive for the ‘Digitalization’ Category
Monday, December 14th, 2020
Due to the coronavirus pandemic, it was not only PROSTEP TECHDAY 2020 that was held online this year but also almost every other event at which we normally make an appearance. In recent months, we have participated in numerous online events with presentations and virtual booths. The feedback was rather restrained: What our speakers missed most was contact with the other participants.
One of the events we have been attending for years is LiveWorx, where we demonstrate the solutions in our portfolio, and in particular our OpenPDM integrations to Windchill, Creo and the IIoT platform ThingWorx, to the PTC community. Although this year’s trip to Boston was canceled, our appearance was not. In one presentation, we demonstrated to participants how our integration platform can provide support for end-to-end digitalization in heterogeneous PDM/PLM landscapes and make data from different enterprise applications available in role-based ThingWorx apps. You can watch the video here.
The 3DEXPERIENCE Conference EuroCentral organized by Dassault Systèmes was also held online this year. Our participation in the event comprised not only a virtual booth but also two live presentations. In the first presentation, we explained to participants how our data exchange platform OpenDXM GlobalX supports 3DEXPERIENCE (3DX) platform users in the context of cross-enterprise collaboration. The second presentation focused on data migration. We used concrete use cases to demonstrate how companies can migrate metadata and CAD data from legacy systems to the 3DX platform in high quality with the support of PROSTEP’s experts and our OpenPDM integration platform. Several presentations were also made at our booth, including one on how 3DX can be incorporated in an EA-based PLM strategy.
Our PLM strategy consultants also responded to the constraints placed on their ability to travel by participating in online events. One highlight was most certainly the joint presentation given together with Bosch at the prostep ivip Symposium in which we presented the current status of the SetLevel and V&V research projects. The two projects deal with the question of how the traceability of simulation steps and results can be ensured when it comes to validating autonomous driving functions. A video of the presentation, which was also shown at the 6th Symposium Driving Simulation, can be found here.
At the same time, our consulting specialists made an appearance in the former plenary hall of the German Bundestag in Bonn as a sponsor of LeanIX EA Connect Days 2020, one of the most important conferences in the field of enterprise architecture management, which was a smart combination of physical and virtual event. In an interview, Dr. Martin Strietzel explains the role EA (Enterprise Architecture) plays in PLM and the digitalization of the product development process and what PROSTEP expects from its collaboration with LeanIX.
We gave a number of presentations at the NAFEMS DACH 2020 conference, which was ultimately held online following several postponements. The presentations covered a wide range of topics from the challenges posed by the digital twin to the role of simulation in the platform economy through to a concrete representation of end-to-end digitalization using the system model in systems engineering as an example. You can find out more about these topics in our white paper.
Some of our customers in the maritime industry like MEYER Werft and MEYER Turku are using the coronavirus crisis as an opportunity to rethink their PLM architectures. Our shipbuilding experts made use of a variety of online activities to help them come up with new ideas. At a virtual booth at PI Marine USA, we showcased our integration platform OpenPDM SHIP, which connects shipbuilding-specific development systems with each other or with mechanical CAD systems and all the leading PDM/PLM and ERP systems. You can find more about this in our white paper.
We also presented the results of a cross-enterprise survey on the digital twin in the maritime industry at the start of the 5th Schiff&Hafen Maritim 4.0 conference, which was held online this year. Details of the study, which attracted a great deal of attention, will be provided in the next newsletter.
By Joachim Christ
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Sunday, December 13th, 2020
Finnish shipyard MEYER Turku, part of MEYER Group and one of the world’s leading builder of cruise ships, ferries and special ships, plans for the future of shipbuilding. In a Proof of Concept (PoC) led by PROSTEP, and in cooperation with TECHNIA the shipyard examined the advantages of model-based, visually supported work planning using DELMIA software in the production process.
MEYER Turku’s aim is to optimize planning and control in production and thus to reduce the production time of individual ships. This requires a restructuring of the historically grown IT landscape, which is strongly adapted to the shipyard’s specific needs. The Finnish engineers use the shipbuilding specific CAD system AVEVA Marine for basic and detailed design of the steel structures (Hull). For work planning and control, production-relevant data is then transferred to NESTIX, a MES tool perfectly adapted to the existing production processes. The software however cannot directly use 3D design models, which makes data consistency difficult and impedes visual work planning.
When looking for a future planning software for manufacturing, the project managers in Finland did not need to look far afield: DELMIA is part of Dassault Systèmes 3DEXPERIENCE already in use as a PLM platform at the sister shipyards in Papenburg and Rostock. In view of the ongoing harmonization of the IT landscapes at the different shipyard locations, the idea of a practical test of the Dassault software in Turku was therefore obvious.
Another obvious choice was to cooperate with PROSTEP’s shipbuilding experts, who have been supporting MEYER for years as system-neutral consultants in the integration of its CAx and PLM landscapes. They took the lead in the project team that was to carry out the evaluation of DELMIA’s Out Of The Box (OOTB) functions from a user perspective. With a view to later productive use, the aim was to clarify whether DELMIA could provide all the necessary functions, how much customizing would be required and how the software could support closer integration of hull and outfitting design in the future.
As part of the PoC, PROSTEP’s experts developed a concept for converting and transferring the geometry and metadata from AVEVA Marine to 3DEXPERIENCE and coordinated the activities of Dassault partner TECHNIA, which was responsible for testing the DELMIA software and introducing users to the new, integrative way of working. “The cooperation between PROSTEP, TECHNIA and the users at MEYER Turku was very targeted and worked perfectly. We were able to carry out the project in time and budget and achieved all expected results” praised Pekka Puranen, CAD/PLM Developer at MEYER Turku.
During the implementation of the project, the two consulting firms combined their core competencies. The experts from TECHNIA contributed their industrial best practices in applying DELMIA, while PROSTEP brought in its experience with shipbuilding processes, PLM as well as agile project management. In addition, PROSTEP also developed the integration to provide AVEVA Marine 3D model data in DELMIA for testing purposes. The company benefited from years of close cooperation with the Finnish shipyard and the proven in-house integration platform OpenPDM SHIP, whose functions were used to implement the integration.
TECHNIA’s experts tested DELMIA together with the work planners at the shipyard so that they could gain practical experience with the model-based approach. It was found that visual work allows them to control the progress of the work much better. In principle, the PoC was able to map the defined use cases with DELMIA OOTB. For productive use, however, the software would have to be customized in order to fulfil all essential requirements of the Finnish shipyard. For example, an automatic time calculation for the planned work is missing as basis for the resource and capacity planning. “If we achieve a similarly high degree of automation with DELMIA, we will need much less time for work planning due to the integrative approach”, concluded Pekka Puranen.
By Nils Sonnenberg
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Friday, December 11th, 2020
Online conferences can be rather tedious affairs. PROSTEP proved that it doesn’t have to be that way with its PROSTEP TECHDAY. The professionally moderated online sessions with short presentations about key new products and interesting presentations by customers offered participants a diverse and entertaining program. “The quality was almost as good as on TV,” said one of the viewers.
With almost 150 participants, this year’s PROSTEP TECHDAY was better “attended” than ever before. The response was extremely positive. Many of those participating congratulated us via e-mail on the “super event”, the great format, the professional support provided by TV and event host Julia Bauer and the informative and professional presentations by the speakers.
Due to the coronavirus pandemic, this year’s customary meeting of the PROSTEP community took place on screen, to some extent like a TV series with three episodes and different protagonists. Each session kicked off with a brief review of what has been achieved since the previous TECHDAY and how PROSTEP is positioning itself as a partner for the digital transformation. There is no way around the cloud. According to Gartner, 75 percent of companies are navigating their way to the cloud, which is why we, too, have made our software solutions cloud-ready.
In cooperation with the DARZ data center in Darmstadt, we are making our OpenDXM GlobalX data exchange platform available as a SaaS model – an offering that is already in productive use at customers like OSRAM Continental and Valeo Siemens. The cloud offering is soon to be expanded to include additional services such as the data conversion service OpenDESC.com. We also have plans to offer PLM integration to an increasing extent as a service based on our cloud-capable OpenPDM product suite. To facilitate the deployment of applications in different cloud infrastructures, the company is working intensively on integrating technologies like Docker, Kubernetes and OpenShift, said Udo Hering, head of Product Management.
Getting to grips with topics of the future is of strategic importance to PROSTEP, which is why we participate in numerous research projects. They play a key role in the context of developing new software products such as the OpenCLM traceability solution, which product manager Dr. Fabrice Mogo Nem presented to a wider audience for the first time at PROSTEP TECHDAY. As Dr. Mogo Nem pointed out, it is not merely another PDM/PLM system but a layer that makes the relationships between the information distributed across different data silos and domains transparent, thus reducing the amount of time and effort required to find information and ensure requirements regarding traceability are being met. OpenCLM will be available from July next year but can already be put to the test in a proof of concept.
Client for CAD data processing
OpenDXM GlobalX was the protagonist in the first session. In the current version 9.2, PROSTEP has expanded the new web interface to enable administrators to also perform all their essential tasks on the web, as Product Manager Daniel Wiegand explained. A new and powerful CAD client is now available to companies that want to use the data exchange platform without PDM/PLM integration. It analyzes the components stored in a directory and independently puts together the assemblies that are to be sent. The client also offers a convenient 3D preview function that allows the assemblies to be viewed prior to being sent. The OpenDXM Broker can be used to automate processes like data conversion.
We have expanded the range of PDM integrations offered to include a new plug-in for the 3D dashboard that is part of Dassault Systèmes’ 3DEXPERIENCE platform. The plug-in makes it possible for multiple data sets to be sent in a single operation. The roadmap for the next version of OpenDXM GlobalX includes not only improving security functions using two-factor authentication but also another plug-in for the Teamcenter Active Workspace client.
Alexander Meier from the automotive supplier HBPO used the ECTR plug-in as an example to illustrate how quickly OpenDXM GlobalX can be integrated into the SAP landscape and how easy the solution is to use. HBPO develops and manufactures high-quality front-end modules, cockpits and center consoles for the automotive industry. Users at the company can not only create send jobs in their familiar interface but also receive feedback in SAP ECTR as to whether the job has been successfully transferred to the data exchange platform and the data delivered to the recipient.
Function for hollowing assemblies
TECHDAY’s second session focused on the automated provision of product data from PLM and ERP systems to downstream processes in manufacturing, assembly and service. Product Manager Timo Trautmann explained the technological transformation of PDF Generator 3D, which has become a powerful platform for converting 2D and 3D data into a wide variety of formats, to participants.
It not only allows 3D PDF documents to be created automatically but also makes it possible to publish 2D and 3D data in HTML5 format so that it can be displayed in a normal web browser. An agile release process ensures that customers are always able to use the latest CAD formats as input.
The session also provided participants with a brief overview of the standardization activities being conducted by the 3D PDF Consortium, of which PROSTEP is a member. Significant progress has been made, particularly with regard to ISO standardization of the PDF/ A-4e format as a standard for the long-term archiving of engineering data. The committee is also working on new topics such as the ability to embed native STEP data in 3D PDF documents so that it can be viewed directly with Adobe Reader. As Trautmann said, our roadmap includes support for this option as from version 10.1 of PDF Generator 3D.
One of the highlights of the current version is the new “hollowing” function, which makes it possible to automatically hollow out assemblies and remove components that cannot be seen when preparing them for spare parts catalogs. As Trautmann pointed out, this provides better protection for the know-how inherent in the assemblies. But PDF Generator 3D offers more than just the ability to generate product-specific spare parts catalogs at the touch of a button. The solution also supports change reporting when releasing new data sets by displaying changes made to the geometry or associated PMI information, e.g. tolerance specifications.
The presentation by André Hieke from Siemens Large Drives Applications (LDA) demonstrated just how versatile PDF Generator 3D is. The manufacturer of customized high-voltage motors and converters initially used our software to automate the creation of offer documents in the pre-sales phase. It is now also being used productively in housing manufacture. Siemens LDA thus provides both its own workers and external partners with manufacturing documents without any need for drawings. Unlike the JT technology, which was originally used for this purpose, the 3D PDF-based solution enjoys a high level of acceptance among users. It is therefore planned that it also be implemented in shaft manufacture and at other locations, as Hieke said.
OpenPDM with cloud-capable architecture
The highlight of the third session was the customer presentation given by Clifton Davies from Lockheed Martin Aeronautics. The manufacturer of military aircraft uses our PLM integration platform OpenPDM in combination with Red Hat’s service bus architecture Fuse to export part information, manufacturing BOMs and work schedules from the 3DEXPERIENCE platform or DELMIA to the SAP ERP system and the MES system Solumina from iBASEt. The timeframe for the integration project was very tight and was complicated by a changeover to a different version of 3DEXPERIENCE, which PROSTEP carried out in less than 24 hours, as Davies said in praise. Lockheed Martin wants to use the solution to integrate other PLM systems such as Teamcenter and enable bidirectional data exchange.
As of version 9, PROSTEP has placed the architecture of the PLM integration platform on a new technological footing to facilitate cloud deployment, as Product Manager Mirko Theiß explained. The new process engine is based on the open source software Camunda and makes the graphic modeling of integration processes possible. The connectors can be used independently of the platform and communicate with it via REST APIs. Even though the OpenPDM 8.x versions will to continue to be supported, in the future we intend to place primary focus on the cloud version and also want to develop additional connectors for integrating production planning processes, software development and application lifecycle management (ALM).
We consider our first online TECHDAY a resounding success, even though we sorely missed face-to-face contact with our customers and interested parties.
If you did not have the opportunity to participate online and would like to know more about our solutions, the three sessions are available for viewing.
You can find the records here.
By Peter Pfalzgraf
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Monday, December 7th, 2020
The MEYER Group is capable of supporting most of the drawing management related processes with ENOVIA’s standard functionalities. This is the most important finding of a comprehensive proof of concept (PoC) that PROSTEP’s shipbuilding experts carried out for the shipyard. MEYER intends to reduce the time and effort required for customization and updates by using a more standardized PLM solution.
The MEYER Group is one of the leading manufacturers of cruise ships with shipyard locations in Papenburg, Rostock and Turku, Finland. The shipyards use different IT systems for the generation and management of shipbuilding information, which are to be more closely harmonized in future. In Papenburg and Rostock, for example, an AS/400-based mainframe application is still in use for drawing management together with two ENOVIA versions adapted to selected process steps. The applications are highly customized and are gradually running out of maintenance, which is why MEYER wants to replace them with an OOTB (out-of-the-box) solution that can be used throughout the company if possible. The idea of emulating the existing mainframe functionality one-to-one in the new environment was rejected as too costly and not target-oriented.
OOTB in this context means that there is no need to program customizations in a software beyond configurations already provided by the manufacturer in the platform to provide the required features and functions. However, it does not mean that customer-specific adaptations are no longer possible. The advantage for users is that they can use all the necessary features virtually out of the box, while IT can more easily upgrade installed applications to new versions. However, users must accept that the solution may not optimally support all shipbuilding-specific processes they are used to or that modifications to the processes may be necessary.
Therefore, the core question was whether and to what extent the functionality of the OOTB Dassault solution is suitable for the shipbuilding process requirements of the MEYER shipyard. To find out, the company commissioned PROSTEP’s experts to carry out a PoC. As general contractor, they contributed their project management experience and their knowledge of MEYER’s customer-specific processes to the project, while PROSTEP’s partner CENIT provided the necessary ENOVIA expertise. The two companies worked together very efficiently at the PoC over a period of several months, even though shipbuilding was uncharted territory for CENIT employees.
Together with the users at MEYER, the project team analyzed the processes in the legacy systems and defined the use cases to be supported by ENOVIA and the 3DEXPERIENCE platform from scratch. Some of these processes contain automatisms specially tailored to the ship topology. Then the team checked if the processes described can be mapped to the OOTB solution in principle, which standard objects and functions are required for this, how the use of the standard functions affects the processes, and at which points gaps may arise between the previous and the new way of working. The main functions that were considered were project management with milestones and tasks, document management with version management, classification, and the ability to distribute documents to specific people for release.
This methodical procedure met with great acceptance among users. It turned out that they can handle most of the tasks in drawing management with the standard functions. What is missing out-of-the-box is the automatic assignment of ENOVIA objects to the ship topology, i.e. to the block in which the user in question is currently working. There are also a few gaps in the connection to the planning system for the ship development process, which must be closed by developing an interface. In addition, the Excel import must be extended in order to import the drawing lists with thousands of drawings per project into the new environment.
At some points in the process, users will have to change their way of working to be able to use ENOVIA largely OOTB. For example, the software manages drawings or metadata differently than the legacy system, in which they are stored as one object together with planning data such as milestones, deadlines, etc. The project team therefore made the decision to separate the planning aspects from the drawing management and to use the project management functions from the ENOVIA standard. One of the advantages of this separation is that tasks can be defined independently of the drawing, and 3D models and other project-relevant documents can be assigned to the planning data in future. In other areas, the project team was able to provide additional functions from the standard, for example for the ship- or project-specific classification of certain documents as a working standard. This was not possible in this form before.
The focus of the project was expanded several times, so that the project, which was originally designed to last three to four months, ended up taking almost a whole year. As part of the extensions, the project team was commissioned to test the suitability of the OOTB solution also for drawing management at the Turku site, where other IT systems are in use. The PLM experts at PROSTEP concluded that the OOTB solution was basically suitable for this purpose, but recommended prioritizing harmonization for easier implementation.
Following the successful completion of the PoC, MEYER began preparing the implementation in Papenburg. “ENOVIA OOTB is a very important and forward-looking topic for the entire MEYER Group”, says Executive Board Member and Head of Design at MEYER WERFT Malte Poelmann. “Enabling digital and cross-location collaboration within the group in a maintainable PLM platform was the motivation for this project. The consultants from PROSTEP and its partner CENIT made a decisive contribution to the success of the project with their industry and PLM expertise”.
By Jan Bitomsky
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Thursday, December 3rd, 2020
PROSTEP has been providing car manufacturer Daimler with support for the maintenance and further development of its central PDM system for several years. The established project structures, which had evolved over time, reduced transparency and made coordination more difficult. To help address this issue, PROSTEP and Daimler introduced an integrative, agile approach based on the Scaled Agile Framework.
Around 70 developers from PROSTEP and sub-suppliers have been working for several years in a number of small teams at Daimler on maintaining and further developing Daimler’s central PDM system. The tasks they perform also include developing innovative new PLM functions, creating a completely new, state-of-the-art PDM architecture and migrating existing functionality to the new architecture.
In the past, development was carried out within the framework of multiple smaller and larger projects, and the team structure was more technically oriented. Developers often worked on several projects in parallel, which led to resource conflicts and made it difficult to perform forward-looking resource planning. In addition, specialist knowledge was often concentrated in a small number of people, which led to bottlenecks and a considerable risk of losing know-how.
Most of the projects were organized differently when it came to working methods, collaboration with customers, billing models, release cycles, infrastructure, etc. Some teams maintained very close contact with the customer, with no close internal coordination, others used Scrum and worked with the customer’s product owners, and still others worked to a large extent independently. Billing was based on either time and materials or on an agile fixed price. Story points were defined differently for the different commissions, which resulted in different criteria being used for estimates and for billing. These different working models significantly increased the time and effort required for coordination and meant that developers had to adapt to new circumstances every time they took on a new task. Ultimately, they prevented synergies from being exploited and made it difficult to respond to new challenges in a flexible manner.
Agile project based on SAFe
We launched the “PDM goes SAFe” initiative together with Daimler with the aim of simplifying and standardizing development activities in the field of PDM development. Instead of multiple projects with different billing and process models, the objective was to have a single agile project that used as uniform an approach as possible. This new project is based on the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe). SAFe is the leading scaling framework and is used, among other things, to coordinate the work being performed by multiple Scrum teams.
We started off with eight cross-functional teams. However, it soon became apparent that the consistent use of cross-functional teams led to the creation of too many interfaces between the teams. This is why we have in the meantime switched to feature teams, which, unlike fully cross-functional teams, combine within the team the skills needed to implement specific features. A cross-team alignment meeting is used to coordinate the teams. Each team sends one or more delegates to this meeting. The delegates present the concerns of their team and coordinate them with the other delegates.
We have introduced so-called “communities of practice” to promote the transfer of knowledge between the teams. Communities of practice are interest groups in which people with common interests can exchange information on experience already gained and seek advice. Because knowledge transfer is essential, it is promoted within the framework of the project by providing a budget reserved specifically for this purpose.
A large number of developers and product owners needed training to learn how to use the new agile model. Although some of them had previous experience with Scrum, SAFe was entirely new to everyone.
Different architectures
The two different software architectures pose a particular challenge in the PDM project. The legacy system needs to be kept alive while the new architecture is being built and stabilized. In the past, the two architectures were supported by different teams. The challenge now is to shuffle the members of the teams around in such a way that the knowledge of the different architectures is consolidated without breaking up the teams completely. This is why we have distributed people familiar with the individual technologies across the various new feature teams to the extent that this is possible, while at the same time ensuring that features can, if possible, be implemented by a single team. The aim was to find a reasonable compromise between a focus on features with as few interfaces as possible and the desired transfer of knowledge.
Together with Daimler, we have also introduced a uniform, SAFe-based requirements process. The previous, project-specific individual backlogs were consolidated in a joint program backlog. The product owners define and prioritize the requirements in this backlog on the basis of the available budget. The program backlog is then used to derive the team backlogs.
Another challenge faced in the context of the end-to-end implementation of agile methods was standardization of the different billing models. We had to adapt the estimation criteria and convert the fixed prices into story points in such a way that customers ultimately receive the same service for their budget as before. This would not have been possible without Daimler’s active support and cooperation.
Switch to an agile approach completed
Transformation to the new project structure was performed over a period of four months. The kick-off was followed by a two-month preparation phase, which was carried out in the old project structure. The new project was officially launched at the beginning of this year, followed by an approximately two-month-long familiarization phase. In the meantime, the switch to an agile approach has been completed and initial benefits are already being reaped.
We have taken a major step forward when it comes to development processes, requirements processes, billing models and backlogs. Project structure, roles and communication channels are clearly defined and ensure greater transparency. We have also become much more flexible. There is still room for improvement in the flow of information on the customer side and in the transfer of knowledge. And not all the teams have fully understood and embraced the agile approach. SAFe has however proved to be a good guideline for the new, harmonized PDM project as it is compatible with the customer’s specific needs and we will continue to use it for guidance in the future.
By Frank Brandstetter
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Sunday, November 8th, 2020
Setting up an IT landscape from scratch is a challenge, but at the same time it offers an opportunity to do things completely differently. OSRAM Continental took advantage of this opportunity and moved its entire IT infrastructure to the cloud. The two-year-old joint venture uses PROSTEP’s cloud-based data exchange service to exchange product data with customers and suppliers.
Intelligently networked lighting that automatically adapts to the driving situation and improves communication between the driver, the vehicle and the environment is the future of automotive lighting. OSRAM Continental’s mission is to shape this future. The joint venture between OSRAM and Continental was set up in the middle of 2018, with each company holding a 50-percent stake. It combines the expertise and experience of the two parent companies in the fields lighting, electronics and software.
With a workforce of 1,500, the joint venture develops, manufactures and markets solutions for front and rear headlights, individually controllable interior lighting, and innovative projection systems that provide greater driving safety and comfort. In the future, they will play a key role – especially when it comes to the safety of autonomous driving. Networked light control units that link the different sensor signals from a vehicle with information from other vehicles or the environment provide the basis for this type of intelligent lighting concepts.
OSRAM Continental is headquartered in Munich and maintains a presence at 15 locations in nine countries worldwide. Product development is distributed over Europe, America and Asia, with the largest European development site situated in Iaşi, Romania. The mechanical engineers work primarily with CATIA, but they also use other CAD systems that are connected to the PLM solution SAP PLM via SAP ECTR depending on the project and customer requirements involved. Most of the applications run in a virtual desktop infrastructure, i.e. only views are streamed to the users’ screens.
State-of-the-art IT infrastructure
“With the exception of a few applications, everything runs in the cloud. We wanted a state-of-the-art IT infrastructure,” says Catalina Man, Team Lead IT Operations at OSRAM Continental and, together with her team, responsible for providing support to OpenDXM GlobalX users, among other things. “The biggest hurdle encountered on the way to the cloud was changing the employees’ mindset. We had to convince them that cloud services work just as well as solutions that are installed locally. The issue of security was also a challenge. It can’t be left to the cloud provider alone but instead requires a team that concerns itself with the network and infrastructure. The limited human resources available to support the cloud environment were therefore another challenge.”
In line with its general cloud strategy, OSRAM Continental decided to use the OpenDXM GlobalX data exchange platform from the cloud. As Catalina Man says, there were a number of reasons for choosing PROSTEP’s SaaS solution. “We needed a solution for all the locations that could be implemented quickly and which we could use to securely exchange not only CAD files but also, for example, product marketing videos. We wanted to work with well-known providers, and we were familiar with PROSTEP from our parent company Continental. We also knew that the company offered its data exchange platform from the cloud and then discussed our requirements. It ended up that OpenDXM GlobalX was the best fit for us because the software is very flexible and can be implemented quickly.”
The SaaS solution is installed in the cloud infrastructure provided by the DARZ data center in Darmstadt, which has been certified by the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) in accordance with CIP (Critical Infrastructure Protection) and meets all the requirements stipulated within the framework of DIN/ISO 9001 and 27001 and the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). With its state-of-the-art architecture, infrastructure and building technology, DARZ ensures the highest possible level of protection and availability of data. Catalina Man confirms that all OSRAM Continental’s locations access the cloud infrastructure provided by the Darmstadt data center directly via the Internet and that response time behavior is good.
Integration of an OFTP application
The SaaS solution is multi-client capable and is also used as a multi-tenant application by numerous other customers. OSRAM Continental, however, decided on their own instance as it exchanges large volumes of data with carmakers using the OFTP2 protocol. Which is why PROSTEP integrated T-Systems’ OFTP application rvsEVO in the customer’s data exchange service. It automatically prepares the data to be exchanged for OFTP2 communication when the corresponding recipients are selected. However, it can only be used in combination with a private cloud or a cloud of its own for data protection reasons and due to technical restrictions.
Aside from the OFTP integration, users can use the SaaS solution practically “out of the box”, which makes updates easier. “The software supported almost all our use cases from the word go,” says Catalina Man. PROSTEP implemented an important adaptation for OSRAM Continental that has already been incorporated in the standard application. The size of the WebSpaces for individual users and user groups can be defined individually within the storage quota for the licensed number of users and can also be changed. This was previously technically feasible but had to be performed by PROSTEP support staff. Now customer administrators can do this themselves using the intuitive web interface.
Approximately 250 internal and almost 100 external users are currently registered as exchange partners at OSRAM Continental. The internal users are primarily R&D engineers, but an increasing number of employees from other departments are also sending and receiving sensitive data securely via the cloud platform, which logs all exchange processes in a way the ensures they can be traced. The solution has registered over 6,000 uploads and downloads involving a data volume of more than 500 gigabytes this year alone.
Intuitive web interface
All key data exchange functions are made available to users via an HTML5-based web interface. With the help of external user interface design specialists, PROSTEP has made this interface more intuitive and ergonomic so that even occasional users can use the application without the need for regular training courses. “The new interface has made the application much easier to use,” says Catalina Man. “At first users had a lot of questions, which is why we worked hard to ensure that they understand the tool and feel comfortable using it. We asked PROSTEP to expand existing documentation to include easy-to-understand explanatory videos for example.”
Although the data exchange service is primarily used by developers, OSRAM Continental has not integrated the SaaS solution directly in its PLM environment even though this is technically feasible. “We decided to first make sure that the application is stable for the users,” says Catalina Man. Engineers normally export their CAD data from SAP PLM or SAP ECTR to an appropriate directory, log in to OpenDXM GlobalX using the Web Client, select the files to be exchanged and the respective recipient, and upload them to the platform. Both the files and the exchange processes are encrypted, thus ensuring a high level of security.
Employees who like working with MS Outlook and use it extensively can now initiate data exchange directly from their e-mail program. At the beginning of this year, OSRAM Continental activated the Outlook integration – which is actually a multi-cloud integration because the Office programs run in a different cloud environment – for certain users. Catalina Man says that although connecting across cloud boundaries isn’t a problem, it requires the installation of additional software on the PCs, which is why most users cannot install the integration themselves.
Falling total cost of ownership
The main benefit of the SaaS model for OSRAM Continental is the fact that the company did not have to deal with purchasing and implementing hardware and software. This meant that the data exchange solution was able to go live quickly. It can be scaled up or down as the number of users increases or decreases. No or significantly fewer IT administration and support staff is required. Maintenance of the IT infrastructure and software updates are included in the price, which reduces the total cost of ownership or at least makes it easier to calculate. In a new company, where the entire IT organization has yet to be established, internal resources are scarce. A cloud-based, out-of-the-box solution is therefore the perfect solution.
“For me, the key advantage of the SaaS solution is its flexibility, which makes it possible to respond to new requirements quickly,” says Catalina Man, who is very happy with the support PROSTEP provides and the quality of the support. Review meetings, at which the experts from PROSTEP explain new features and make note of new requirements, are held twice a year following the updates. “The team is very flexible and implements our requirements quickly,” explains Catalina Man in conclusion. “That is crucial to the success of our collaboration.”
By Nadi Sönmez
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Thursday, September 17th, 2020
Following successful completion of an assessment of the current status, the joint research project ProProS being carried out by the Bremen-based Lürssen shipyard group, the Machine Tool Laboratory (WZL) at RWTH University in Aachen and PROSTEP AG is entering the crucial phase. The task now is to develop new methods for end-to-end digitalization of the shipyard’s manufacturing and assembly processes.
Production planning in shipbuilding is characterized by a poor overview of the planning status at the different planning levels and a low-level feedback that is provided late by production. As a result, delays often occur because problems are identified too late and planners have a difficult time finding alternative production paths. The shipyard expects increased digitalization of the processes and the implementation of new tools for anticipatory production planning and control to shorten lead times for the individual departments and result in more efficient use of the infrastructure and available resources.
The aim of the ProProS project is to create a digital twin for the shipyard’s manufacturing and assembly processes that can be used for status monitoring and for optimizing shipbuilding. Together with the WZL’s manufacturing experts, who are responsible for developing the production technology logic, we will be mapping the planning data from the target process (product structure, work orders, assembly sequence, scheduling, etc.) in an end-to-end data model, so that it can be compared in real time with the actual data from production and assembly.
The joint project has an overall budget of 3.2 million euros and is sponsored by the BMWi. It is coordinated by the Lürssen shipyard group and is divided into different phases. The first two milestones involve mapping the material flow in order to recognize where the parts to be manufactured are located and to integrate the target data from planning. This data is then to be compared with the actual data in future milestones in order to detect deviations and adapt the planning data if necessary. The project will run until 2022. The project partners are planning to present the first interim results at COMPIT 2021.©
By Carsten Zerbst
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Thursday, September 17th, 2020
Due to the corona pandemic, we will be holding the traditional PROSTEP TECHDAY as online event this year so that customers and interested parties can find out about new products and news from our company without risk to their health. The live sessions will take place on November 17, 2020 and will be recorded. Please, save the date.
PROSTEP TECHDAY is the free forum for the PROSTEP community that takes place every two years. At the event, we regularly inform customers and other interested parties about important innovations in our range of solutions and present them with roadmaps for the further development of our software solutions OpenPDM, OpenDXM GlobalX and PDF Generator 3D. In addition, renowned users will give short presentations to the participants, explaining the benefits of our solutions in productive use.
On November 17, 2020, there will be three independent sessions, each lasting 90 minutes, so that participants will be free to choose whether to participate in one or more blocks. We will also be recording the entire event so that interested parties can watch it at a later date. The opportunity to discuss with the speakers will of course only be available when participating in a live session.
The PROSTEP TECHDAY will focus on our extended range of cloud-enabled solutions. We will explain how you can use our data exchange platform OpenDXM GlobalX with extended functions and integration solutions “On Premise” or alternatively as a SaaS (Software as a Service) model without any installation or operating costs.
We will present the newly developed MicroServices architecture of our OpenPDM platform, which supports PLM integration, migration and collaboration in a hybrid on-premise cloud environment. And we will present our solution for the automated generation of spare parts catalogs and the provision of service content on the Web. We will also give you a first insight into OpenCLM, our newly developed solution for cross-domain configuration lifecycle management and ensuring traceability in complex development projects.
By Peter Pfalzgraf
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Sunday, July 5th, 2020
Two major automotive suppliers have been helped by PROSTEP Inc. to close gaps in the control of the release of their intellectual property and to increase the security, traceability and user-friendliness of their processes with the OpenDXM GlobalX data exchange solution. Each company has purchased several thousand end-user licenses at a fraction of the cost of operating its own proprietary internal portals or other third-party MFT tools. One of the two companies focused on purchasing and ERP integration for the secure exchange of quotation data when using OpenDXM GlobalX. The other has deeply integrated the solution into the PLM environment to seamlessly send large CAD files to development and design partners.
Furthermore, PROSTEP Inc. has enabled one aerospace customer to publish highly configured TDPs for the rapid distribution of lightweight CAD data, parts lists and technical specifications. All data is combined into a single PDF package using PROSTEP’s PDF Generator 3D. Another project in the aerospace industry was aimed at improving interoperability between PLM, MES and ERP through a robust and distributed microservices-enabled Enterprise Server Bus in secure networks. The basis for this is the OpenPDM integration platform from PROSTEP.
In the space sector, PROSTEP Inc. integrated CAD and other product data from PLM and simulation data management systems for a customer. For another, the company started with a proof of concept for the MBSE federation between requirements, SysML and PLM systems. OpenPDM provides the backbone interoperability that coordinates workflow transactions between the systems of different software OEMs. The seamless synchronization of data between two different PLM systems to create the Digital Thread is the subject of a pilot project in the defence sector that will last several years.
“I am proud of the entire PROSTEP team and especially of our team in North America,” commented Karsten Theis, CEO of PROSTEP AG, on the successful fiscal year of PROSTEP Inc.
“In 15 years of our presence in North America, we have built an incredible portfolio of products and technical capabilities to meet the increasingly complex needs of our customers. This has enabled us to fire from all pipes in 2019”.
Commenting on the impact of COVID-19, Theis said: “Fortunately, at the beginning of the pandemic, we had already completed most of our U.S. business for fiscal year 2019 and were in the final stages of delivery. The real test will be the course of the year 2020/2021. Several projects have been delayed, but we hope that they will soon pick up speed again. Like all companies, we are adapting to the new normality of working from home”.
Shortly before the pandemic, PROSTEP Inc. rented larger offices, almost doubling the company’s working space. To date, however, US employees have not been able to work in the new offices for a single day because the move-in date coincided with the first lockdown in Michigan at the end of March. Now they hope to inaugurate the new offices in early 2021.
PROSTEP Inc. was founded in 2006 in Birmingham, Michigan, right in the heart of the US automotive industry. Over the past 14 years, it has made a significant contribution to strengthening our footprint in the North and South American markets. It has become a recognized partner in the areas of data exchange, PLM integration and 3D PDF-based communication for companies in the automotive, aerospace and defense industries across the pond. Not least thanks to our US subsidiary, we are now able to successfully handle larger global projects.
As a wholly owned subsidiary of the PROSTEP Group headquartered in Darmstadt, Germany, PROSTEP Inc. does not publish independent financial information. Customer names are also kept confidential upon customer request.
For further information, please contact: paul.downing@prostep.com
By Paul Downing
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Tuesday, April 7th, 2020
Digital Twins offer the possibility to simulate the behavior of physical assets, to monitor them during operation and to continuously improve them. The data and models from planning and development form the context in which the operating data can be interpreted correctly. Putting them together from the wealth of available information is an essential prerequisite for the use of digital twin applications.
The Digital Twin is the digital image of a physical object or system, which can be a product, a production plant, but also a company or a process. The Digital Twin connects virtual planning and development models with the real product or production world in order to give people a better insight into the system and its condition or behavior. A vision in the sense of Industrie4.0 is to enable technically complex systems to control themselves autonomously and behave more intelligently through digital algorithms, virtual models and status information.
The functional relationships of a product or a production plant are defined based on customer requirements and in consideration of a multitude of legal requirements in product planning and development. Without knowledge of these interrelationships, the operating data that the real asset captures and provides in its later product life cannot be interpreted correctly. If you do not know how a machine or system is actually supposed to function, it is not possible to identify the causes of deviations from this target state or behavior beyond doubt and take appropriate countermeasures. At the same time, knowledge of the history of origins is also important in order to be able to assess for what reason, for example, a bearing has failed and which other machines could also be affected by the problem.
This connection between the real asset and the development and planning models describing its history is called a digital thread. It is the digital “red thread” that links the information of a real product instance across processes and IT systems. On the one hand, this makes it possible to bring together all the information from the life cycle of the product instance or the real asset and thus forms the basis for the creation of a digital thread. Without a digital thread, the digital twin can be reproduced manually, but it is difficult or impossible to keep it up to date. On the other hand, traceability along the Digital Thread allows decisions in development and production to be questioned and optimization potential to be identified with the help of the operating data.
Management of product configurations
From a PLM point of view, the starting point of the digital twin is a specific configuration of the product or production system, for example the asset in its delivered state. This includes not only mechanical, electrical/electronic and software components with their models, but perhaps also service-relevant information, such as the service life of certain components. Bringing this information together and maintaining it manually is time-consuming and error-prone, especially since the configuration changes over the course of the product’s life, whether through software updates or other measures in the context of maintenance or further development of the asset. The expectation of today’s PLM systems is to automatically extract the configuration for the Digital Twin and keep it up-to-date.
We speak here of the concept of Configuration Lifecycle Management (CLM), which makes it possible to generate temporally valid views of the product across IT system boundaries and to manage product configurations across all phases of the product lifecycle. The main function of CLM is to create and keep consistent the various views of the digital product model during the life cycle, and to document their validity over time. To do this, it uses cross-system and cross-discipline baselines. These baselines document the state of the configuration at a certain point in time or maturity level and thus also control the representation of the Digital Twin. They enable companies to immediately and reliably answer the question at any point in the process whether and how the product or asset meets the requirements placed on it or in what state the asset was at a defined point in time, for example, which product configuration was delivered to the customer.
In order to manage the configuration of a product along its entire life cycle in a traceable manner, the use of a powerful PLM integration platform with connectors to all IT systems involved is required. As an intermediate layer spanning all IT systems, it creates the prerequisite for bringing together the information from the individual IT systems in a way that corresponds to the digital thread concept.
Cross-company collaboration
In industries such as mechanical and plant engineering or shipbuilding, companies face the challenge that the manufacturer who builds and provides the Digital Twin is not necessarily the operator and user who feeds it with operational data. Both the digital data and the operating data, or at least part of it, must therefore be exchanged and synchronized across companies in order to keep the Digital Twin up to date and to be able to use the operating data for the continuous improvement of real assets. Questions such as data security, protection of intellectual property and ownership of the data therefore play a very central role in the development and use of a digital twin application.
More and more customers today require their suppliers to deliver digital data and models to support Digital Twin applications along with the physical assets. CLM can be used to control not only the amount of information provided, but also the level of detail of the information and the formats in which it is delivered. They can be compiled largely automatically and made available to the customer as a data package, for example in 3D PDF format.
In order to maintain digital consistency in cooperation across company boundaries, the exchange partners must first agree on the scope of the information to be exchanged and agree on common standards for handling this information. But the central question is where the Digital Twin should live? PROSTEP is convinced that it is advisable to set up a joint collaboration platform for this purpose, which will become part of the information model. This platform will provide customers with the information they need to build their Digital Twin application while the development process is still underway and will also allow them to synchronize changes to the master models during operation if necessary. The common platform can also be used to link parts of the operating data required by the manufacturer for new service offers such as predictive maintenance or product improvements with the Digital Thread.
Three building blocks for the Digital Twin
The foundations for the Digital Twin are already laid in product development and production planning. To bring it to life and keep it alive, the digital umbilical cord must not be cut. This is why an integration platform is needed that makes the digital information from the various authoring and data management systems available at any time. A powerful configuration management system that manages the relationships between the information scopes and their validity is essential for building a Digital Twin. However, digital consistency is not a one-way street. In order to derive maximum benefit from the product twin in terms of closed loop engineering, traceability between Digital Twin and Digital Thread must be ensured. The creation of a collaboration platform maintains digital consistency even beyond company boundaries.
By Lars Wagner
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