Siemens Steps Up Search & 3D Data Sharing

Siemens PLM Software has come out with a new module intended to make it more intuitive and easy to find product-related data stored not only in its Teamcenter PLM system, but in other systems, as well.

The new addition to Siemens' Teamcenter portfolio is Active Workspace, a highly visual, interactive environment that functions somewhere between a stepped up search tool and a portal that is highly tailored to the kinds of tasks an individual performs in their daily work routine. Used as part of PLM, not as a replacement for PLM, Active Workspace is designed to enable users, be they engineers or others in the product development value chain, to find and easily access intelligent 3D information in order to make better informed decisions while helping cut through some of the complexity that defines most current categories of products.

Active Workspace includes smart collaboration capabilities that make it easy to find and communicate with relevant team members who need to be involved in a decision or task. 
(Source: Siemens PLM Software)

Here's how Siemens PLM Software CEO Chuck Grindstaff described the need for Active Workspace:

All companies and individuals face the challenge of dealing with information overload due to the increasing speed and volume of data coming from multiple sources. Active Workspace helps companies manage this challenge and significantly enhances decision making by reducing complexity and intelligently presenting PLM information that is accessible for all users.

Active Workspace is a central part of Siemens PLM Software's High Definition PLM (HD-PLM) vision, a three-pronged strategy predicated on helping users make better decisions around product design. The first peg of HD PLM is intelligently integrated information, or the idea of knowing what the semantic relationships between information is. Put into a real-world context, that would mean if you were working on the CAD geometry for a particular part and you changed the dimensions, the new geometry would automatically be rerouted to the folks responsible for requirements so they could validate and check the functional requirement against the parameters of the new model, Bill Lewis, Siemens PLM Software's marketing manager, told us.

The second leg of HD PLM is the idea of a future-proof architecture, which Lewis explained as being open enough to support best-in-class tools, whether they are Siemens tools or homegrown and legacy applications. The third piece of HD PLM is a high-definition user experience that is designed for the unique requirements of the individual and their role. Active Workspace, Lewis said, supports all three pillars of Siemens PLM Software's HD PLM vision.

The idea for Active Workspace was spawned from the fact that there is increasing complexity surrounding product development across the board and across industry segments. The other reality is that no one PLM system holds all product-related data, meaning that development teams are often moving between siloed systems and data sources, with no real guidelines or roadmap to where the data they need to effectively make decisions resides.

Touting its groundbreaking user interface, Lewis said Active Workspace functions as an easy-to-navigate portal for helping to not only find product-related data, but to collaborate with peers using familiar capabilities like instant messaging and Teamcenter's own screen-sharing capabilities.

Lewis said:

All of these data sources have great information, but it's very difficult to make all the information actionable. We see development efforts taking a long time because users have to go to a variety of data sources to make decisions, or they don't have access to some systems where critical data resides, or they don't tap into a system because they need to get the job done as fast as they can. All of this risks profitability and the timing of a program. We're trying to provide all the information [users] need to make good decisions in one place so they don't miss out on things that are important to getting the job done.

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Reference : http://www.designnews.com/author.asp?section_id=1394&dfpLayout=blog&f_src=designnews_gnews&dfpPParams=ind_186%2Cbid_26%2Caid_241897&doc_id=241897&page_number=2  Date : 06 June 2012 Time 4: 13 PM