Siemens PLM Launches Teamcenter 8, Tecnomatix 9, Joins IBM in Offering PLM Solution

By Jonathan Gourlay

On the heels of a joint announcement made last week by IBM (White Plains, NY) and Siemens PLM Software (Plano, TX) that the two companies were integrating solutions for product development, Siemens announced today hundreds of enhancements and new capabilities in new releases of Teamcenter and Tecnomatix.

Calling the Teamcenter 8 release “one of the biggest Teamcenter releases weve ever done,” Bill Boswell, director of Teamcenter marketing for Siemens PLM, introduced the latest version in a teleconference this morning as a product lifecycle management (PLM) product aimed at driving customer productivity, enabling instant collaboration, powering end-to-end PLM, and ultimately reducing the cost of ownership.

The enhancements are said to focus on three areas: individual productivity, application productivity, and IT productivity. And Boswell pointed to a number of productivity improvements such as Teamcenter 8’s integration with Microsoft Outlook and its integration with Office enabling the editing of product data in Office with live changes reflected in Teamcenter, and the ability to insert data from Teamcenter into Word, Excel or PowerPoint.

It is also closely integrated with popular ECAD tools like Cadence Allegro, Mentor Graphics solutions, Intercept Pantheon, Altium Designer. From within any of these applications users can save native design files and perform check-in and check-out operations, as well as access approved components, populate electrical component BOMs, and share fabrication and assembly data.

The integration capabilities extend to IBM Rational and ClearCase, including support for IBM software like DB2 Information Manager, WebSphere Application Server, Tivoli Access Manager, and Tivoli Storage Manager.

This support was a large part of an announcement made last week at IBM’s Westford, MA, technology center.

According to Mike Wheeler, IBM PLM and Supply Chain Solutions VP, Teamcenter is the first Product Development Integration Framework (PDIF)-ready platform to “deliver tightly integrated IBM middleware offerings that reduce PLM software acquisition and lifecycle costs.”

The aim of all of this is to make Teamcenter the single source of product and process knowledge—by enabling users to interact with Teamcenter from inside the tools and processes they use every day—so that individuals and teams can be more productive.

As a result, Teamcenter 8 is now available on the IBM technology stack and will ship to customers pre-configured with IBM DB2 Information Manager and WebSphere Application Server. For companies that prefer the IBM platform, it means an easy-to-implement solution designed to cut costs and boost IT productivity.

In today’s webinar, Boswell went on to explain that new industry solutions were included with Teamcenter 8. As examples, there are new aerospace and defense capabilities for data management in aerospace programs; consumer packaged goods additions for managing brand, packaging, and artwork; product development capabilities for the softgoods, footwear, and accessories industries; an updated medical devices template; and ehancements to streamline electronics design and development using new BOM verification and electronic part lifecycle management tools, among others.

Siemens PLM says Teamcenter’s flexible service-oriented architecture means it can be deployed as effectively in small businesses as it can large, global enterprises.

Tecnomatix 9 was also introduced today. In a separate webinar, Stefan Linner, VP of Tecnomatix marketing introduced the latest version of the Siemens PLM digital manufacturing solution.

He said the point of Tecnomatix was essentially to help manufacturers “do more with less” by driving higher levels of planning and manufacturing productivity. Linner explained the solution was designed to help factories create new products with the least amount of resource, time, and effort while maintaining high quality.

Tecnomatix 9’s integrated planning solutions enable instant access to the latest product data while supporting capture, standardization, and re-use of process best practices. Tecnomatix also offers tools to validate planning results and automate time-consuming planning tasks more efficiently.

New automation tools in the areas of robot optimization and commissioning, and simulations using improved and customizable human manikins are included.

Tecnomatix 9 includes additional enhancements for increasing planning productivity, usability improvements, and a new manufacturing-tooling library. In addition, Tecnomatix has tighter integration with Teamcenter, enabling seamless manufacturing data collaboration.

Linner also noted Tecnomatix 9 enables companies to improve productivity in other areas of manufacturing such as factory layout and use of space, manual workflow processes, and material flow.

Included in the release are also an enhanced time analysis and management capability that helps determine whether a task adds value or not, and tighter integration between Teamcenter and FactoryCAD within Tecnomatix to improve factory design management and collaboration.

For more information, visit siemens.com/plm.

IBM
White Plains, NY

Siemens PLM Software
Plano, TX