Archive for the ‘OpenPDM’ Category
Sunday, September 26th, 2021
With version 9.3, PROSTEP will be presenting the second major release of its OpenPDM platform for PLM integration, migration and collaboration this year. The main focus of its further development was, on the one hand, placed on improving connectivity to the ALM and ERP world and, on the other hand, enhancing the user-friendliness of the interfaces and reporting functions.
PROSTEP is currently developing a new connector to the application lifecycle management (ALM) platform codebeamer – the result of close collaboration between the ALM vendor Intland and our subsidiary BHC, which specializes in ALM/PLM solutions for electronics and software development. It is intended that the connector be released for OpenPDM 9.3 this year. The new version also includes connectors to the ALM solutions Polarion from Siemens and PTC Windchill RV&S (formerly known as PTC Integrity), to the ERP system from IFS, to the Primavera P6 software from Oracle, and to Cameo Teamwork Cloud from Dassault Systèmes. The Windchill connector has been extended and now also supports PTC Windchill’s REST interface.
New and further developments include further improvement of the export functions and the logic of the connectors to ensure that large data structures can be exported more easily and with a higher level of performance. It is also easier for users to respond to infrastructure problems and trigger automatic retry without administrator support. The mechanism can be managed more finely.
The new semantic check for Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) offers developers much better support when it comes to defining processes for data synchronization. If inconsistencies are identified, they are alerted to potential problems before the first test run with test data.
The representation of the process history has also been significantly improved, which is especially helpful when dealing with a large number of processes. They are displayed in the process report in graphical form, thus making it easier for developers to navigate the graphs and interact with the processes.
The file service in OpenPDM 9.3 now also supports the integration of cloud-native solutions such as AWS S3 buckets. In the context of Infrastructure as Code deployment, new and improved templates are available for automatically rolling out OpenPDM in an AWS or MS Azure virtual private cloud. Support is provided for the container solutions Elastic Container Services (ECS) and Elastic Kubernetes Services (EKS) from AWS, as well as Azure Kubernetes Services (AKS). Deployment can be carried out with proprietary languages like CDK as well as with Terraform.
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Sunday, September 26th, 2021
Downstream processes in shipbuilding require early and bidirectional integration between the PDM and ERP systems used in product development, production planning and production. This was one of the key messages of the third episode of our PROSTEP SHIPBUILDING PLM INSIGHTS webinar series, in which we presented different PDM-ERP integration scenarios to participants.
Product development and realization requirements differ in all industries, which is why companies generally use different IT systems to manage product structures, 3D models, drawings, etc., and material data, routings and manufacturing bills of material. Shipyards are no exception. However, they have special requirements for the adaptability of PDM-ERP integrations because manufacturing processes vary from shipyard to shipyard and sometimes from site to site. In addition, many shipyards use homegrown ERP systems because commercial solutions did not initially cover all their needs.
The main challenge in PDM-ERP integration in shipbuilding is to synchronize the different structures of engineering and manufacturing BOM (Bill of Material) in parallel and bidirectionally, as PLM Consultant Nils Sonnenberg said. He explained the different integration requirements to participants, using the example of purchased and in-house manufactured parts. “We need the development data early in the ERP system to use it for supplier communication, for example, and to better estimate delivery times.” Design options for parts manufactured in-house would also need to be regularly checked against the master record in the ERP system to ensure that the user is only using approved parts.
How shipyards should handle the challenge of needing multiple MBOMs for different locations was one of the interesting questions in the webinar’s closing Q&A session. In other industries, companies use the option of creating a generic MBOM already in the PDM system and only then transferring it to the sites’ ERP systems, Sonnenberg said. But there can be no general answer to the question because it depends, among other things, on whether the company in question has the MBOMs created at the sites on site or at a central location.
On the other hand, the question posed by another participant as to what the ideal combination of PDM and ERP systems for shipbuilding is, and whether shipyards and their design partners should use the same systems, could be answered clearly: There is no such thing as the ideal combination. More important than the question of which systems to use is how to integrate them so that collaboration works. Thanks to powerful integration platforms, this is no longer a technical problem. Helping companies integrate their heterogeneous IT system landscapes is one of our core competencies.
In total, more than 50 interested parties attended the two live presentations on PDM-ERP integration. If you missed the third episode of the webinar, you can watch the recording here. In the fourth episode, at the request of the participants, we will hold a demo session about episode 1-3 topics. We will inform you about the date and agenda in time if you register right here.
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Friday, September 24th, 2021
PROSTEP first presented the Mars Rover as a demonstrator of its wide range of software and services at its 25th anniversary celebration. Since then, for example, the chassis and housing of the vehicle originally designed by NASA have been further developed and the physical Mars Rover has been linked to the digital Mars Rover in order to map use cases like the digital thread.
New PLM technologies and concepts such as the digital thread, traceability, model-based systems engineering (MBSE) and the digital twin can be very abstract. With the aim of making them easier to experience at events, PROSTEP has built several models of the Mars Rover based on NASA’s design documents. The argument in favor of the all-terrain vehicle was the fact that it is a complex mechatronic product and as such is ideal for demonstrating new technologies and methods. The model can be used universally and, because it is “rocket science”, it can be presented to the media and the public particularly effectively.
The Mars Rovers were used for the first time at PROSTEP’s 25th anniversary celebration in early 2019, and they subsequently also caused quite a stir at the Hanover trade fair (HMI), the prostep ivip Symposium, the IoT Solutions World Congress held in Barcelona and other events. The coronavirus pandemic has only interrupted their career as a major public attraction. We intend to be back on tour with the new generation of Mars Rovers by the first half of 2022 at the latest.
We have used this forced break for a major “pit stop” and have equipped the Mars Rovers with more powerful steering and drive motors. In two student projects, the rocker bogie was optimized using a hybrid (plastic/sheet metal) construction and plastic components manufactured using additive manufacturing processes. This has made the physical model of the Mars Rovers much more robust, which means that it now requires less maintenance after being used. A positive side effect is that the new Mars Rover variant can be used to demonstrate the PLM capabilities of variant management.
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Wednesday, September 22nd, 2021
PROSTEP is collaborating with Intland Software, the company that developed the application lifecycle management (ALM) platform codebeamer, on developing a new OpenPDM connector. It will make it possible for Intland customers to easily and quickly connect their ALM solution to PLM systems or other enterprise applications using our integration platform OpenPDM.
The motivation behind the partnership between the two companies is the increasing proportion of software in smart products and the customers’ need to better integrate software developers and their tools in the overall product development process. Tighter links between ALM and PLM systems is required to achieve end-to-end digitalization across different domains. PROSTEP is taking account of this fact by expanding its OpenPDM integration platform to include standard connectors to leading ALM platforms such as codebeamer. The ALM solution is becoming increasingly popular in, for example, the automotive industry.
The OpenPDM product suite and preconfigured solution packages make it possible for users to implement use cases and application scenarios for the digital thread with a manageable effort. The integration platform already has connectors to all leading PLM and ERP systems and to other enterprise applications, e.g. for requirements management. At the same time, it provides the basis for OpenCLM, our new solution for establishing end-to-end digitalization across domains. In combination with the market leading ALM solution, it lays the foundation for integrating the PLM backbone, requirements management, systems engineering modeling and software repository in one central platform.
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Thursday, July 1st, 2021
With the presentation of Release 9.2 of OpenPDM, PROSTEP has also converted and released the special migration solution OpenPDM MIGRATE to the cloud-enabled technology. Thanks to microservices architecture and the separation of mapping engine and connectors, external migration tools from PLM vendors such as PTC’s Windchill Bulk Migrator can now be flexibly integrated.
OpenPDM MIGRATE is our toolset for data migration that has proven itself in numerous projects. With the new release, we are putting our proven methods and tools on a new technological footing. They enable loss-free migration from older PLM systems to the latest releases of PTC Windchill, Dassault Systèmes 3DEXPERIENCE or Siemens PLM Teamcenter.
In the development of the new release, we have consistently focused on microservices, offering the full flexibility of the new software architecture to our customers. This makes it even easier, for example, to integrate migration tools from PLM vendors into our tool suite. One such tool is PTC’s Windchill Bulk Manager (WBM), which can be used to import user data into Windchill or export it from Windchill in one fell swoop using a variety of scripts.
In almost every migration, our customers have the requirement not only to move the data from the legacy system to the new one; they also want to enrich it with additional information from external sources such as a file or ERP system. We have built on this strength of OpenPDM in the new release. The software prepares this data, merges it, filters out unimportant information and thereby improves the data quality.
The prepared data can then be initially imported into a new Windchill system with high performance as a “big bang shot” via the Windchill Bulk Migrator. Subsequent updates and delta migrations continue to be performed using the familiar strategies with the proven OpenPDM connectors. The target system does not have to be shut down for these delta supplies or even later migrations of individual assemblies.
OpenPDM MIGRATE basically supports various migration strategies, from migration on demand to selective or step-by-step migration of specific subsets of the data to migration of the entire dataset in one fell swoop. With this extension the customer gets even more options to define his migration strategy. With the integration of WBM, we are significantly expanding the strategic options in the area of big bang migrations. Our goal is to always migrate users and data together in order to achieve maximum performance.
By Michael Buchholz
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Thursday, June 3rd, 2021
What does PLM strategy look like in a world characterized by volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (VUCA)? This was the key question addressed at the first PROSTEP CONSULTING DAY. In three live sessions, those participating learned how our capability-based PLM strategy consulting helps them master the challenges posed by digitalization.
It was the first time that we had organized the PROSTEP CONSULTING DAY. The coronavirus pandemic meant that the premiere had to take place online. We consider the high level of participation confirmation of our concept. The participants attended three sessions with different topics that were held at different times and professionally moderated by Julia Bauer. A quick online survey indicated that approximately 35 percent of those attending were from the automotive industry, followed by 16 percent from the mechanical and plant engineering industry.
In the first session, Dr. Martin Strietzel, head of Strategy and Processes, discussed together with colleagues the topics of the future that are of interest to the manufacturing industry and the challenges that digitalization poses to companies. The hype surrounding digitalization stems the fact that we now have at our disposal the technical capabilities required to utilize it in engineering, in the context of Industry 4.0 and for service purposes. However, an effective digitalization strategy is needed to respond to unforeseen events in an appropriate manner, said Strietzel. “The best answer to VUCA is VUCA, in other words vision, understanding, clarity and agility.”
PROSTEP believes that the digital product lifecycle, with focus on the digital twin, is a key element for getting to grips with the challenges posed in these times of VUCA. One of these challenges, especially for midsized companies, is the internationalization of development and production, said lead expert Peter Wittkop. Without a digital thread, there will always be incompatibilities due to the fact that the changes made to products and tools locally are not communicated systematically. This is why configuration management is becoming increasingly important. “In this context, configuration management refers to the traceability of product information, both horizontally throughout the product lifecycle and also vertically in terms of analyzing the impact that changes have on other domains.”
Companies are not only wrestling with internationalization but also with the transition from what was once a mechanical product to software-based systems, which entails further challenges such as interdisciplinary collaboration or digital validation and verification. Traceability is a key capability that makes it possible to start testing against product requirements early, said senior consultant Christian Buehler.
Complexity as a driver of digitalization
Increasing product complexity is a major driver of digitalization, as the customer presentation by Theegarten-Pactec made clear. The packaging machines for confectionery that the midsized company manufactures have, over the course of the past few decades, developed into complex mechatronic systems with a high proportion of electronics and software. The company is tackling topics like requirements management, systems engineering, agile software development and traceability to ensure that it can maintain its productivity and flexibility in the face of increasing complexity. PROSTEP is helping Theegarten-Pactec improve interaction between IT systems and processes and find an appropriate development plan for the application landscape.
Not only security but also PLM and ALM (application lifecycle management), the digital twin and digital continuity are the topics that are currently of greatest importance to companies. Digital business models are a key driver for the implementation of digital twin concepts, as senior consultant Dr. Lars Wagner explained using a number of different examples.
Digitalization also presents the IT organizations in the companies with new challenges. They have to provide the best possible support for the development of smart, connected products and interaction between disciplines by means of a shared development space, as senior consultant Marc Dreesen pointed out. To do this, the role played by IT in companies needs to be expanded. It must be seen as a proactive innovator that provides new solution concepts rather than merely a reactive service provider.
Customers’ specific needs, product features and business models are increasingly software-driven, as Dr. Steven Vettermann, Manager PLM VV, said during the second CONSULTING DAY session. “Therefore, if you want to be a winner, you need to master the creation of value with software.” The key achieving this is the combination of MBSE and ALM. PROSTEP is familiar with the strengths of the individual solutions and provides customers with support during strategic realignment and the introduction of new tools for ensuring traceability.
Concepts for end-to-end digitalization
In the second session, we presented solutions and concepts that help customers get to grips with end-to-end digitalization. PLM is not an entirely new technology, but it is the key to end-to-end digitalization and provides the basis for the digital twin, said principal consultant Dr. Mario Leber. An important aspect of the PLM concept is managing the different types of BOMs. In addition, cross-domain issues such as project and change management also need to be taken into account. And there are hot topics such as requirements management, which according to the survey is an important part of their PLM concepts for three quarters of the participants, as well as the topic validation and verification.
The challenge when it comes to requirements management is ensuring end-to-end digitalization both vertically between customer requirements and technical requirements as well as horizontally between the requirements of the individual disciplines, as the presentation by consultant Veronica Haber made clear. Her colleague, Kim Steinkirchner, explained the different steps involved in verification and validation from component through to system level. Relationships can only be identified if the relevant data sets are linked together consistently. That is the main purpose of PLM.
“The cloud, low-code, ALM – just how disruptive is PLM?” This is this question that Martin Strietzel attempted to answer. The biggest disruption is caused by PLM itself, he said, because the product lifecycle now encompasses a number of new topics, such as the Internet of Things for example, which plays an important role in the context of connecting service and feeding back information gathered in the field. But is that still PLM? Many PLM vendors have recognized the importance of IoT and have acquired companies or developed their own IoT platforms, said Strietzel. The increasingly dynamic nature of the market is due to the fact that the IoT market, for example, is ten times the size of the PLM market.
When it comes to SaaS or multi-tenant applications, the cloud is still underrepresented in PLM environments. This is gradually changing because companies’ confidence in terms of security has grown, said senior consultant Marc Dreesen. At the same time users have become more willing to adhere more closely to standards, while vendors have improved the adaptability and integration capabilities of cloud applications thanks to low-code and integration-as-a-service offerings. Almost everyone now has a cloud strategy, but their offerings are sometimes difficult to compare, which is why PROSTEP has created a corresponding checklist.
Capability-based procedural model
In addition to the ability of companies to change, also with regard to new business models, the future viability of their PLM architectures will be a major challenge in the coming years, said Peter Wittkop at the start of the third CONSULTING DAY session. The strategic combination of a methodological approach and PROSTEP’s wide-ranging PLM-specific know-how will be helpful when it comes to mastering these challenges together. Capability-based strategy development is used to achieve medium and long-term objectives, but it must also be able to respond in an agile manner when the objectives change.
Martin Strietzel and consultant Manuel Ratte explained to participants what PROSTEP’s capability-based procedural model looks like and how it relates to corporate strategy. In the context of enterprise architecture management, PROSTEP understands the PLM architecture to be a multi-layer model that examines processes, data integration and the applications based on a company’s objectives. The consultants use the construct ‘PLM capabilities’, which maps all the PLM-specific topics relevant to the product lifecycle, to make it easier to address the requirements on the three levels. The participant survey indicated that the PLM capabilities that pose a particular challenge to companies are requirements management, product structure management, configuration management and change management.
The capability-based procedural model is one of the core elements of PROSTEP’s consulting approach. As Manuel Ratte explained, the consultants define the actual and target statuses based on the PLM capabilities and in combination with the maturity model. They provide the basis for developing overall concepts regarding the required PLM capabilities, which are then merged to create a target architecture. Based on this vendor-neutral architecture, the consultants evaluate the potential systems and recommend the suitable solutions to the customers. During roll-out planning, they then determine together with the customers how the transition to the new world should be implemented.
Clear documentation of the requirements
Using a number of different examples, Mario Leber explained the work results and the concrete benefits that a capabilities-based consulting approach offers. Of particular value to customers is, on the one hand, the digital maturity analysis, an efficient methodology for classifying the individual subprojects and defining the digital roadmap. It is based on an assessment of the actual and target scenarios or a gap analysis of the PLM capabilities. On the other hand, customers could use PROSTEP’s requirements specification template to document and communicate all their requirements efficiently, individually and transparently.
One customer that has taken advantage of PROSTEP’s capability-based PLM strategy consulting services within the framework of a comprehensive PLM and SLM (systems lifecycle management) initiative is thyssenkrupp Presta AG. In an interview, project manager Klaus Brandner explained the project’s objectives and the challenges it poses and how PROSTEP is helping the company tackle them. The external consultants were particularly important during the orientation phase, when the diverse requirements of the departments involved needed to be harmonized. Their support, he said, made it possible to get to grips with this demanding task. “The most important contribution that PROSTEP made was to put an end to the stakeholders’ anxiety regarding the new topics.”
PROSTEP not only provides customers with advice when defining their PLM strategy, but also helps them with implementation. At the end of CONSULTING DAY, Peter Wittkop explained the further course of action to the participants. The aim is to implement the project objectives step by step to quickly achieve partial successes and exploit the benefits. This is why PROSTEP believes that an agile approach has proven its worth. Personal relationships and mutual trust provide the basis for collaboration in consulting projects.
If you would like to learn more about the challenges posed by digitalization and PROSTEP’s capability-based consulting approach, you will find the videos of the three sessions here. (Please note, the videos are only available in German.)
By Joachim Christ
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Wednesday, April 21st, 2021
The digital twin is an important, if not the most important, enabler for the digital transformation of business processes and the development of data-driven business models. This is why it is the focus of numerous digitalization initiatives in a wide range of industries. Companies however face a number of challenges when it comes to implementing the digital twin. One of these challenges, albeit not the biggest, is the fact that their existing PLM capabilities are most likely insufficient for this purpose and need to be expanded.
Everyone is talking about the digital twin, or perhaps I should say almost everyone. At CLAAS, a manufacturer of agricultural technology, this term is not used to avoid alienating users with grand terms, as Kai Korthals explains in an interview with the PROSTEP Newsletter. For many companies, the term digital twin is still a buzzword that everyone takes to mean something different. Even in the shipbuilding industry, despite its many digital twin projects, there is still no common industry-wide understanding of what a digital twin is, as indicated by a recent survey conducted by PROSTEP.
A concept study that we prepared together with 3DSE for Airbus Defense & Space significantly sharpened my understanding of the digital twin. The findings have been incorporated in a white paper that I recommend you read. A key insight is that there is, or should be, something along the lines of a generic digital twin that accompanies the product or production system throughout all the phases of its lifecycle – from its as-designed/planned/manufactured through to its as-operated/maintained state.
The phase-specific configurations of the digital twin have a shared data basis, which is also used to derive configurations for the use cases to be supported. Creating a special digital twin for each use case would not be a viable solution as it would create isolated solutions and data silos. The aim must be to keep the digital twin as redundancy-free as possible across all products and variants, which is why it places much more demanding requirements on configuration management.
From the very start, we need to think about how we can weave the digital twin from the digital thread. I would even go so far as to turn the tables and say that it is ultimately the digital twin that determines the requirements when it comes to end-to-end digitalization. It determines which information we need to link for which use case and with which level of granularity. In my opinion, approaches based on data lakes do not work. It must be possible for field data collected while a product is being used to be connected to the correct development data in a transparent manner. Establishing relationships at a later date using semantic searches or AI results is, at most, an 80% solution and always prone to errors.
The key requirement for the digital twin is access to the “core data” in its “atomic” form. This means that we need to move away from file-based product lifecycle management toward granular access to all the information objects in the product development process. Freezing a bunch of documents at specific baselines might improve auditability, but it is no digital twin.
Developers need to know the relationships between individual objects, for example in order to understand what impact changing a requirement will have on a particular function, on the costs, on the manufacturing process, etc. Knowing which circuit diagram is affected is of no help because hundreds of functions can be described in a single circuit diagram. No PLM concept today provides appropriate support, neither in terms of technology nor methodologically. Extending the PLM concept to include additional PLM capabilities is therefore an essential prerequisite for the digital twin and one of the challenges that Airbus is addressing with its Shared digital Enterprise Services.
However, the biggest obstacles standing in the way of digital twin initiatives are not of a technical nature. For one thing, the companies have their own “fiefdoms” with separate system structures and methodology, which in the short term enjoy no direct benefit from end-to-end digitalization at cross-domain level. The initiative should therefore be driven forward in a strategic manner by someone above domain level. In addition, many companies today make a lot of money from service-related activities. A digital twin that results in customers needing fewer services is to a certain extent counterproductive. A major problem when it comes to end-to-end digitalization from development through to operation is the change of ownership of the physical product. As a result, manufacturers no longer have access, or only limited access, to the operating data that would allow them to gain insight into product behavior.
Offering your products as a service provides an elegant solution to this problem. But you might not want to wait that long before you launch your digital twin initiative. We recommend that you tackle concrete projects that offer economic added value as soon as possible. PROSTEP can provide you with effective support in this context. We have the required expertise and a wealth of experience implementing digital twin concepts in a variety of different industries.
By Karsten Theis
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Monday, April 5th, 2021
January saw the launch of the joint project “ICT-enabled model-based impact analysis in product development”, or ImPaKT for short, which is being funded with the support of the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). Within the framework of the project, PROSTEP will be extending its OpenPDM family to include a software module for the cross-domain coordination of changes and validating the functionality of the solution together with industry partners.
The more complex and variant-rich products become, the more time-consuming it is for companies to reliably analyze and evaluate the technical and financial impact of changes. The challenges grow when a large number of partners and domains are involved in the product development process. Impact analyses are designed to help companies identify the possible impact of product changes in advance.
A consortium or research institutes, software vendors and user companies, under the leadership of the Heinz Nixdorf Institute at the University of Paderborn, is developing a model and IT-based approach with the aim of making this type of analysis in product development easier. The joint project, which was launched in January, will run for three years and has a project volume of approximately four million euros.
The number of product variants is constantly growing. Every modified detail means changes in the design and production processes of all the partners involved. When it comes to developing complex products, incomplete and distributed data and knowledge bases, media discontinuities in the information flows, a lack of supplier integration and the large number of variants make engineering change management (ECM) a time-consuming and error-prone process. In the joint ImPaKT project, the consortium partners intend to develop a solution that makes it possible to efficiently analyze the impact of changes on the basis of a comprehensive data and knowledge base, while at the same time making the complexity of variant management more manageable using function-oriented impact analyses.
The integration of mechanical, electronic and software components in a single product requires an interdisciplinary development process. A key objective of the project is the development of a reference architecture for end-to-end model-based system development that links the partial models in the existing data repositories created during the development of mechanical, electrical and software system components and creates a common parameter space for changes. The project partners will develop and implement methods for a fully integrated impact analysis using model-based systems engineering (MBSE) and artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms on the basis of this integration platform. Standards for integrating impact analysis in process management and cross-enterprise collaboration are also to be defined.
In addition to the HNI, the Institute for Machine Elements and Systems Engineering at RWTH University in Aachen, the software companies CONTACT Software, Itemis and PROSTEP, as well as the user companies Eisengießerei Baumgarte, Hadi-Plast Kunststoff-Verarbeitung, Hofmann Mess- und Auswuchttechnik, CLAAS Industrietechnik, Knapheide Hydraulik-Systeme and Schaeffler are involved in ImPaKT.
The software partners will be implementing a demonstrator based on the ImPaKT reference architecture. The industry partners’ primary task will be to validate the suitability of the project results for supporting impact analysis on the basis of three case studies.
PROSTEP is contributing its many years of expertise with system modeling and the development of reference architectures to the consortium project. Building on this architecture, we will be developing certain basic services for performing cross-system impact analyses using artificial intelligence (AI). We will be using our integration platform OpenPDM, which is implemented at by over 200 customers worldwide, as the basis for implementing the demonstrator. OpenPDM is the world’s leading solution for synchronizing and migrating PLM data and processes in a wide variety of application scenarios and domains.
We intend to expand the software to include essential ALM and ECM aspects within the framework of ImPaKT. Once the project has come to an end, it is intended that the solution, which is designed as a demonstrator, be turned into a commercial product and marketed under the name OpenCLM. Maintenance of the solution is a prerequisite for long-term commercial use of the project results and provides a benefit outside the circle of consortium partners.
By participating in the consortium project, we not only expect to be able to establish interesting contacts with customers and universities and expand our AI expertise. We also hope it will provide important impetus for the further development of our OpenCLM solution in the direction of cross-system and cross-domain impact analysis. This is a prerequisite for being able to coordinate changes to complex products with an acceptable level of effort.
By Martin Holland
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Thursday, February 11th, 2021
The first PROSTEP CONSULTING DAY will be held 15 April 2021 – a date to enter in your calendar. With our interactive online event, we want to show customers and interested parties from manufacturing industry the strategic concepts we use to help them shape digitalization so that they are better prepared to meet the challenges posed by rapid change.
In recent years PROSTEP has provided advice to numerous companies in a variety of industries in the context of defining their PLM strategy and restructuring their existing processes and systems landscapes. Although these are primarily mid-sized companies from the mechanical engineering, plant engineering and automotive supply industries, they also include manufacturers of automation technology, logistics systems, shipyards and companies from the aviation industry. The experience gained from these projects has been incorporated into our capability-based approach to PLM strategy consulting.
The trigger for many of these consulting projects is the increasing pressure for change brought about by digitalization. Customers contact us as vendor-neutral consultants because they are feeling that how their process and system infrastructures are designed will play a crucial role in ensuring their successful positioning in the market. And they see that, because of the complexity of the issue and the wealth of possibilities involved, they need a partner to provide support during this transformation. But they also want to know where they stand with regard to the potential for improvement compared to other companies and in the context of the technical possibilities available. They often lack the market overview needed to do this.
PROSTEP CONSULTING DAY will give participants an opportunity to benefit from the experience that our PLM consultants have accumulated. In three 90-minute slots, we will provide them with information about the challenges posed by digitalization in manufacturing industry and present an overview of the key approaches to solving these challenges from the perspective of processes and systems. Finally, they will learn about the methodology behind our capability-based PLM consulting based on interesting examples from customers.
The event is divided into three consecutive slots that build on each other in terms of subject matter. The first slot will address the concrete challenges that industry faces when it comes to dealing with digitalization. How will companies cope with the switch from product to system provider, and how can they organize themselves in an appropriate manner for digital business models and the digital twin? Does the cloud offer answers to these questions?
The second slot will deal with the solutions that are available to manufacturing industry. It will address topics such as systems engineering, end-to-end digitalization and the interaction between systems during the product development process. An examination of the PLM and ALM (Application Lifecycle Management) system solutions currently available on the market will be particularly interesting.
In the third slot, we will show you how to use the concept of capability-based strategy consulting to develop and implement a future-oriented PLM strategy based on your specific requirements.
Look forward to an exciting keynote when PROSTEP CONSULTING DAY kicks off. And don’t forget to register as soon as possible. That way we can keep you up to date about the agenda and exact schedule of the event.
By Martin Strietzel
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Sunday, January 17th, 2021
A few weeks ago, Alstom completed the takeover of Bombardier’s railway division. However, the two companies already worked closely together beforehand on the development and production of the new generation of metros for the Paris transport authority. The former Bombardier sites use the OpenPDM integration platform to import the engineering data for production and assembly into their PLM environment.
Under the project name MF 19, the Paris Metro is getting a new generation of rail vehicles for the lines operated with steel wheels. The contract between the operating companies and the now “married” consortium partners Alstom and Bombardier Transportation provides for the delivery of 44 trains worth 530 million euros to be put into service between 2024 and 2026 – with the option of a further 410 trains. Alstom will essentially supply engines, drive chains, on-board electronics and IT security systems, while the former Bombardier site in Crespin, France, will be responsible for the design and production of car bodies, bogies, air conditioning and interior components.
Through the acquisition of Bombardier Transportation, the French Alstom Group expands its global footprint and becomes a world leader in mobility solutions, present in 70 countries, employing around 75,000 people and generating pro forma combined revenues of around €15.7 billion. At the same time, the acquisition expands Alstom’s portfolio of innovative rail technology products and solutions. The portfolio ranges from light and regional trains to high-speed trains and also includes new strategic products such as people movers and monorails. With a fleet of 150,000 rail vehicles, the company has the world’s largest installed base, which is also the foundation for expanding its leadership in the service business. In the signaling segment, it now ranks second in terms of sales.
Both sides need construction documents
Alstom and Bombardier have a long history of joint consortium projects. “Due to the often very large project volume, such projects are nothing unusual in rail vehicle construction,” says Edouard Hundemer, who is responsible for the OpenPDM project and end-to-end integration of MF19 engineering tools at former BT in the Bombardier Information Systems division. “However, a special feature of the MF 19 project is that both partners must be able to build the complete trains. They therefore need all the information and documentation required for assembly, even if not everyone manufactures all the subsystems.” In this way, the clients want to ensure faster delivery of the new metro generation.
Collaboration is a major challenge in the consortium project, and the merger of the two companies did not automatically resolve it because the IT landscapes have not yet been consolidated. “Basically, each partner wants to use its existing IT systems and methods for design and engineering, if possible, to avoid the cost of acquiring new systems and retraining its engineers,” says Hundemer. “At the same time, however, both partners must ensure the PLM paradigm of single source of truth when collaborating.”
To simplify collaboration, a separate development environment was set up for the MF 19 project at Bombardier’s Crespin site, which in a sense replicates the system and process landscape at Alstom. This makes it easier for the developers of the two consortium partners to synchronize their engineering data, which is particularly helpful in the early development phase with its large number of changes. For the new colleagues at Bombardier, however, it means that they must subsequently integrate the data into their own PLM landscape in order to maintain collaboration with suppliers and to be able to supply the downstream processes in manufacturing and assembly with construction documents.
The PLM landscape at the former Bombardier sites is relatively uniform, with two or three main systems. As the central PLM system, the “Rolling Stock” division uses the Siemens Teamcenter Enterprise (TCE) software, which is gradually being replaced by Teamcenter UA. Enovia 3Dcom, a CAD-related data management system, is also used to manage the CAD models. The mechanical assemblies are normally designed with the CAD system Catia V5 from Dassault Systèmes, which is also used at Alstom.
OpenPDM controls the data import
The data import into TCE or Enovia 3Dcom is controlled via PROSTEP’s PLM integration platform OpenPDM, which the new group division already used for the joint development of the ICE4 with Siemens. “We had good experience with the software during the ICX project and thus knew that it would work well on our side,” says Hundemer. “In addition, we could be sure that we met the EN standards in terms of verification requirements.”
The requirements in the ICX project for Siemens, however, differed significantly from those in the MF 19 project. In the former, OpenPDM supported both the export and import of CAD data and product structures in the ongoing development process, with the Catia files being converted into the neutral STEP format to protect intellectual property. OpenPDM also controlled the reconversion of incoming STEP files from Siemens into Catia format during import. However, in this case the company did not need the complete construction documents, as it only acts as a supplier of certain components. The trains are built by Siemens.
In the MF 19 project, the engineering data from the common development environment is to be integrated into the PLM world of the former Bombardier locations when a certain level of maturity is reached, in order to be able to use it for subsequent processes. For this purpose, they are provided in a coordinated format that OpenPDM can read. The PROSTEP solution imports the CAD and PLM data and maps them to the global data model of former Bombardier, which is quite different from the Alstom data model of the development environment. Part of the metadata moves together with the CAD files into the CAD-related data management, while the other part is created in TCE or updated after changes.
Data is imported at the push of a button
In principle, the import and mapping of data can be fully automated with OpenPDM. However, the former Bombardier team opted for a semi-automated approach in order to avoid having to immediately update every small change in the development in TCE or Enovia 3Dcom. PROSTEP has enhanced the solution so that it continuously compares the version statuses and informs the key users of changes. They can import new data sets or parts of them at the push of a button. OpenPDM also offers the possibility of importing files that have not yet been released, e.g. from long-running components, so that they can be used for request for quotations, for example.
One of the biggest challenges in the OpenPDM project was the mapping of the different data structures, as Hundemer points out. With the help of PROSTEP, however, they were able to overcome these challenges without any problems. Hundemer is very satisfied with the support he received from the collaboration experts: “It is always good to have a partner who understands his product in depth and knows how to implement it at the customer’s site. The people from PROSTEP were always approachable and often the ones who had the solution ready. This made the ramp-up much easier.”
Standard solution for collaboration
Although – as is usual for large companies – a large number of stakeholders and external service providers was involved in the project, whose coordination was also made more difficult by the Corona pandemic, the implementation and testing of the new integration solution, including going live, only took a good six months. The project partners were of course able to build on the experience and preliminary work from the ICX project. The software did not have to be installed from scratch either, because the French locations simply access the existing instance in one of the company’s data centers.
The aim is to provide the departments with a uniform solution for collaboration in joint ventures and consortium projects, as Hundemer concludes. “In the Information Systems department, we have developed a strategy for integrating partners and suppliers into the extended company, in which OpenPDM plays an important role. We will therefore certainly continue to work with PROSTEP.” Possibly, the solution will even be expanded so that in addition to CAD and PLM data, requirements can also be exchanged via OpenPDM in the future.
By Mirko Theiß
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