connect the SFC [Shop Floor Connect] system directly to machine tool controllers so that we can offer a ‘PLM connected DNC’ capability,” he said. “DNC is the old term still used for Direct Numerical Control. Using SFC for Teamcenter eliminates the need for separate, unmanaged shop-floor PC-based DNC systems.”
“What we’re seeing is a shift to the democratization and the availability of more simpler analysis tools.”
With Shop Floor Connect, users get a Web inter- face for accessing all the necessary work package elements to build parts. They can do this via any Web-browser-enabled device including tablets or PCs on the shop floor.
Closing the Loop Until recently, PLM systems lacked a critical link in connecting enterprise systems to the shop floor. “If you look at the PLM vision in total, one of the pieces that’s missing in general is a continuous loop into the shop floor for operations management, manufactur- ing execution systems [MES], quality, data collection, and further into analytics,” said John Todd, business development sales director, for the Delmia brand (Au- burn Hills, MI) owned by Dassault Systèmes (Velizy- Villacoublay, France).
In 2011, Dassault acquired a key component of the puzzle with its purchase of MES developer Intercim (St. Paul, MN), which earlier acquired the Pertinence manufacturing operations intelligence suite of soft- ware. “We’ve filled out the equation for a continuous loop for PLM,” said Todd, who formerly was president and CEO of Intercim. With the latest Delmia V6 Release 2013, the company has added a host of enhancements to its
3D collaborative applications, including new tools in Delmia Robotics Spot Welding (RSW) that allow robot programmers to automatically generate a robot task that includes the spot operations for a group of welds. Spot welding programs can also be analyzed and optimized prior to downloading to robots, and V6R2013 now supports the display of Weld Study Analysis results during collaborative review sessions.
Going to the Cloud Some newer cloud-based initiatives, like Autodesk Inc.’s (San Rafael, CA) PLM 360 system announced in February 2012, potentially could shake up the PLM market, offering substantially lower-cost alterna- tives to the more established PLM developers. Other lower-cost PLM systems primarily are PDM-based systems that do not offer engineering elements, such as the cloud-based system from Arena Solutions (Foster City, CA). Autodesk has had great interest from custom- ers with its low up-front costs and very low pricing model, said Rob Cohee, senior manager, PLM and Product Management, Autodesk Inc. (San Rafael, CA), developer of AutoCAD. The company, which has offered an on-premise PLM system called the Vault since 2003, in September 2012 announced a partnership with Jitterbit (Oakland, CA), a developer of flexible application and data integration software, to work on new integration tools to be used with Autodesk’s on-premise system and cloud-based PLM 360.
“Our combined approach to PDM and PLM really
answers some of the concerns that our customers had,” noted Cohee. “What I’ve found is that a lot of times we’re at the table with customers because we’re a cloud-based application.” Many customers are intrigued by the PLM 360 pric- ing, both low initial costs and monthly fees, as well as the system’s fast deployment capabilities, Cohee said. “There is an overall dissatisfaction with the PLM
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