The evolution of the business environment is proceeding at a rapid pace. The complexity of today’s products continues to increase as software and internet connectivity become integral components in products from all industries.
Globalization creates opportunities and disrupts existing markets in the form of extended international supply chains and collaborative partnerships, where new competitors, mergers, and acquisitions can change the landscape of a market overnight. In this fast-paced environment, businesses developing the complex products of tomorrow are facing new challenges as they strive to keep ahead of these evolving markets.
Traditional PLM is failing to grow with today’s products
Product lifecycle management (PLM) systems have helped many companies to stay abreast of changing market conditions over the past few decades. However, as product complexity increases, more and more businesses are finding that their PLM systems are unable to keep up with the shifting landscapes of today’s markets. These traditional, monolithic Product Lifecycle Management systems, many of which were put in place years ago, are constrained by outdated technology and slow, costly upgrades.
This is due in part to the fact that traditional Product Lifecycle Management systems are frequently a compilation of independent modules, forced together through company buyouts and mergers, resulting in a system that has difficulty communicating between applications. These systems often require extended implementation time and expect businesses to conform to their data model, not the other way around. Even more so, they cannot integrate well with other, best-in-breed systems.
Traditional PLM systems were designed to manage mechanical components and are constrained by outdated technology when it comes to managing cross-disciplinary products
In today’s business environment, there is no more room for data silos in the product lifecycle. Product development requires a systems approach where the management of mechanical, electrical, and software components can all be seamlessly integrated, creating a unified digital thread of product data. This digital thread needs to continue unbroken from systems engineering, through product development and manufacturing, and on into service. Additionally, the data and process models should follow your business and engineering processes, not the other way around.
The Aras PLM difference: changing the Status Quo
Aras®, an American developer and publisher of product development software, are different. They are dedicated to providing a new approach to enterprise PLM that is as flexible and innovative as the products it helps to create. That’s why they developed Aras Innovator®, a resilient PLM and PDM solution that will help you to bring innovative products to market quickly and support them throughout the product lifecycle.
Aras Innovator
Aras Innovator® is based on a unique, service-oriented architecture that was built from the ground up to be flexible, scalable, and upgradable. The Aras platform for PLM and PDM can be easily customized to align with your unique business needs and can be seamlessly integrated with the software systems you already use including:
- MCAD including SOLIDWORKS®, Catia®, AutoCAD®, Inventor®, Pro/Engineer®, Creo®, Altium®, Mentor Graphics®, Cadence®, and many more
- Manufacturing tools like MasterCAM® and Siemens digital factory™
- Simulation tools like SOLIDWORKS, Ansys®, and Msc software®
- ERP and CRM systems including SAP®, Oracle®, Microsoft Dynamics®, Salesforce®, and more
- Authoring tools like Microsoft Office 365™ and Adobe® products
- Other PLM / PDM systems including SharePoint®, Agile™, Windchill®, Teamcenter®, Enovia®, and more
And, because of the platform’s underlying technology, upgrades are straightforward and easy, regardless of the amount of tailoring an application has undergone.
Aras is offered as a subscription model that requires no up-front software licensing costs, reducing risk and changing the economics of PLM in your favour with a dramatically lower total cost of ownership (TCO).
Check out the video below to see Aras Innovator in action:
Aras Innovator grows with your business
With the trend toward smart, connected products comes a shift in the way product compliance, configuration management, and design validation is achieved. What is needed to account for these changing products is a digital thread of synchronized information that remains up-to-date across departments and throughout the product lifecycle. To help create tomorrow’s new products, Product Lifecycle Management systems must adapt to this changing environment to efficiently manage enterprise bill of materials (BOM), supply chain processes, embedded software, quality, and more, from the conceptual design phase and out into the field.
Aras can interface with virtually any software, providing an overarching platform for promoting efficient, multidisciplinary collaboration.
With this in mind, Aras Innovator was built to span the entire product lifecycle. With system integrations for PDM, ALM, ECAD, MCAD, ERP, and more, the Aras platform enables a true digital thread to be constructed and maintained, one that stays up-to-date throughout the product lifecycle, no matter the number of versions a part goes through. The core capabilities of Aras solutions includes:
- Configuration management
- Change management
- Project management
- Requirements management
- Manufacturing process planning
Provide you with visibility into the product lifecycle across all disciplines. And as your business and processes change, Aras is built to adapt to your evolving needs.
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