Note: Since this announcement, Siemens PLM Software released the latest versions of its Teamcenter 8 and Tecnomatix 9 software suites. Check out Manufacturing AUTOMATION’s coverage.
IBM and Siemens PLM Software announced joint offerings to help companies share manufacturing plans and product data, and improve the management of products throughout their lifecycle–from design and manufacturing to end-of-life planning and recycling.
“As products become more sophisticated and the number of suppliers and manufacturers increases around the globe,” the company says, “companies need a more intelligent and well-connected framework to support the accurate exchange of millions of data transactions. These transactions are important in the design and manufacturing of mechanical, software and electrical components critical in products from planes and ships to global positioning systems and cell phones.”
Using IBM’s Product Development Integration Framework (PDIF) as a development platform and primary integration environment, Siemens will deliver “ready-to-use” solutions built on its Teamcenter PLM software portfolio and IBM WebSphere and Information Management (DB2). PDIF also enables a richer integration between Siemens Teamcenter and Rational Software Platform for Systems.
Additionally, IBM and Siemens will jointly provide a range of services including consulting and implementation, systems integration and application hosting.” “
“By using a flexible software environment, companies have a framework for marrying key PLM business processes to technology initiatives that offer a structured approach to managing the life of a product,” said Michael Wheeler, vice-president of IBM PLM and Supply Chain Solutions.
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“For line-of-business users from product development to supply chain it means faster access to information and better performance to support collaboration for global product development,” stated Michael Burkett, leading industry analyst and vice-president of AMR Research. “The technology certification is significant in its depth where Teamcenter PLM is now optimized to run on IBM applications including WebSphere and DB2,” he added.
By exploiting the open computing flexibility of IBM’s service-oriented architecture (SOA) and IBM’s PDIF, companies can address the challenge of making sure millions of pieces of data and design plans are exchanged accurately throughout the product lifecycle communities.” The companies says this combination helps companies build, extend and transform their existing infrastructures incrementally over time by allowing multiple systems to re-use business services and incorporate new technologies such as web-based collaboration across the product supply chain.
www.ibm.com/solutions/plm
www.siemens.com/plm
