Journey into life management

Product Lifecycle Management - the ultimate integration of all CAD, CAM and product information management functions, seems to have finally crossed the border from hope to reality. Whereas a year ago, major companies were talking about their ‘working towards’ the integration of all their engineering related systems, there are now those who claim they have achieved it. Nobody is saying it is easy. In the words of Tony Affuso, president of EDS PLM Solutions, “PLM is not for the faint hearted. It takes a lot of work.” But what they are saying is that it is achievable, and that it is well worth doing. The occasion was the EDS annual forum on the subject, this year held at their corporate headquarters in Plano, Texas. There was as always, the significant gap between the claims of salespeople, that a company could integrate all their functions in 90 days, and the experience of customers, who seemed to have typically needed around 20 months. This meant that the customer stories were a little dated, since they referred to successful implementations of SDRC I-Deas, Metaphase, Unigraphics and I-Man, whereas EDS has been working hard to bring all these products together under one roof under new names. The company is therefore now pushing the names of NX, named as the NeXt generation CAD technology to ultimately replace I-Deas and Unigraphics, and Teamcenter as the new name for the data management and collaboration software which embraces what are currently called Metaphase, I-Man and other modules which cement everything together. Latest product releases currently available are: I-Deas 9, Unigraphics 18, i-Man 7, e-Vis 4.1, Teamcentre Enterprise 2.0 and Solid Edge 12. Packaged solutions have been developed for aerospace and defence, automotive suppliers, and high tech electronics. ‘Near term’ packaged solutions are being prepared for: consumer packaged goods, marine and naval and after markets. While the work required for a full implementation should not be underestimated, the cost of the basic bricks and cement is surprisingly modest. “A small business can start building PLM with a single seat of Solid Edge and one of e-Vis, explains Tony Affuso. On the other hand, a larger company might have 200 seats of CAD, 500 seats of Teamcentre Enterprise, 250 seats of e-Vis and 100 seats of manufacturing simulation software for a total software cost of around $10 million or an average $10,000 per seat.” He added that he considered implementing PLM as ‘a journey’. The advantage of using an integrated IT approach is that digital data is only entered once, and there is a single 3D model associated with all relevant information from marketing concept through detailed design and manufacturing to disposal and recycling. The object is to reduce mistakes, make relevant information available to everyone who needs to see it, save time and reduce paper. Nobody at the forum claimed to have a truly ‘paperless office’. Kathy Evans, of Goodrich Aerostructures told Eureka that her company still had to print out documents to be signed off in their business of supplying kits of parts for aerospace. The PLM solution adopted also involved Catia for CAD, and SAP as well as Metaphase 3.2 for the PDM. Deployment included the need to incorporate the management of engineering reports up to 10,000 pages long. Having to work with systems supplied by competitors is far from unusual. Somebody asked Dick Brown, the CEO of EDS, also present, “Are you willing to work with evil competitors?” he answered: “You won’t stay in business unless you do what your clients want.” William Carrelli, president of business strategy and marketing, described the present stage of business as ‘coopetition’ and specifically mentioned agreements with PTC and Autodesk. Customers were coy about exact cost and time savings, but Johannes Schaede, vice president engineering for German printing machine makers, Koenig and Bauer mentioned a 32% time saving in one of design projects. His cited figures of 65 hours for design using 2D CAD, plus 404 hours to produce derivative drawings and bills of materials, as opposed to 106 hours using 3D CAD, but requiring only 21 hours to produce derivative data. He warned that users should tread carefully when choosing their PLM system, because, “With PLM, you can’t install a system and try another. The terms of divorce are even more disastrous than in private life.” Koenig and Bauer chose Unigraphics and I-Man. Mr Arno De Taeye, general manager Hardside Samsonite Europe described how use of Unigraphics, I-Man, e-Vis, and Net Meeting now allowed Samsonite to quickly combine a case body designed in Germany, a handle designed in Oudenaarde in Belgium, and a hook designed and made in the Far East. The product is the company’s new ‘Hardlite’ business case for portable PCs, which has a hard frame and soft side panels, and has to be able to be opened out flat on a desk, but be limited to a 30º opening if held on the shoulder. Mr De Taeye said that Samsonite had a particular problem because the company had many competitors, and that it was said that some of those in China regarded copyright as ‘the right to copy’. Thanks to their ability to use their software to collaborate across the world, he claimed they had achieved: “simultaneous design anywhere, simultaneously changeable with PCM change management.” This formed part of a ‘glocal’ company policy, which was explained as being, “As global and possible and as local as needed.” Underlying all the EDS design related products is the Parasolid modelling kernel, originally invented in Cambridge more than 20 years ago in a process begun by Ian Baird, a graduate student there when he wrote a thesis on B-Rep solid modelling. One of the most interesting recent enhancements to the Unigraphics CAD element to make use of Parasolid is a new module to capture 2D concept design sketches. Right at the end of the forum, those still remaining were treated to a demonstration of how a just-into-production Matsushita (Panasonic) video camera had started as artistic, shaded 2D plan and elevation drawings, which were captured and mounted orthogonally These were then pulled into shape to form the sides, top and bottom and ends of the enclosure. Eureka had previously seen a similar demonstration with Catia, capturing the somewhat less complicated shape of a mobile telephone. We gather that this is one of the leading edge areas of CAD development with the eventual goal of capturing 3D perspective sketches, without losing any of the concept designer’s design intent.