IEN: How can collaborative manufacturing management strategies address problems related to integrating design with the industrial enterprise?
Clambaneva: There are many strategies that can be applied to integrating design with the industrial enterprise. Today, all aspects of IT in the manufacturing world claim to solve these issues, however, studies show that integrating design with the industrial enterprise is one of the effects of a sound product lifecycle management strategy. The core value propositions that PLM brings to the table, along with explosive innovation, is horizontal integration within the various departments of the enterprise. What is also inherent in this process of managing the product lifecycle, which is often overlooked, is the vertical integration within the departments across all the various engineering disciplines, from industrial design, to engineering design, to analysis and rapid prototyping. Also, depending on the product designed, other disciplines might be required to be integrated into the process such as electrical design, systems design such as piping, tubing, or even hydraulics or HVAC. Now relating all this to collaborative manufacturing management in terms of actual tasks performed is the strong suit of PLM since in a system where concurrent design, common Gui and PLM platform is a given, collaboration becomes second nature to even the most introverted techie.
This sharing needs to be done with strong data and user control, using IT for integration, security, systems and data mangement.
IEN: What innovations are in store for users of CAD?
Clambaneva: The latest innovations in CATIA are raising the bar in industrial best practices. CATIA delivers modeling breakthroughs that unleash and facilitate product innovation; the new CATIA Imagine and Shape product enables industrial designers to embrace styling creation at the speed of their imagination. Through a unique 3D artistic model -- based on subdivision surface technology commonly used for 3D animated films -- this product exploits the v5 solution by providing a seamless styling-to-manufacturing process, especially relevant to the electronics and consumer goods industries.
CATIA further extends the scalable suite of products for collaboration with capabilities ranging from review for real-time decision support to a new way for teams to conduct rapid product design. The new CATIA Instant Collaborative Design product enables designers to informally work together on the same design -- either in real time or in an asynchronous mode. It focuses on 3 key activities: connectivity, co-review and co-design.
VPM navigator, a breakthrough for engineering in a PLM context, delivers immersive navigation within the CATIA v5 engineering desktop, and direct access to all product reference information in the ENOVIA engineering hub for easy work-environment building. CATIA extends the depth of capability of VPM Navigator with powerful product-impact evaluation, fostering relational-design best practices and new 3D representation.
IEN: What are the R & D hotspots?
Clambaneva: This is a very broad question and could be answered taking several perspectives. One of the key insights we have from our customers and the leading companies from the various industries that IBM PLM covers is the need for industry-specific solutions. Solutions is a term that many use lightly but within IBM, and even more so within IBM PLM, we have a very strict definition. We are seeing the value of migration of customers from looking for product offerings such as CAD or PDM to looking for packaged industry solutions that contain a collection of software bundles (CAD, CAM, CAE, Knowledgeware, PDM, etc), industry-specific best practices as well as industry-tailored services to put these best practices in place and in context as it relates to each customer within their industry, their supply chain, and customer base. We have been announcing these as they become available for each industry, starting with the industry, customer base, and/or the part of the PLM process that has had the highest priority, and are continuing to complete our industry solution portfolio across the entire lifecycle. Already announced solutions include ones for auto and aerospace and defense. These industry solutions allow customers to focus on what they do best. They can focus on their core competencies, their unique differentiators and processes. Our PLM products become the tools, our client build on the best practices, optimize the process, and collectively these are the enablers of on demand to their customers.
IEN: Will Product Lifecycle Management play an increased role in design? Why/Why not?
Clambaneva: PLM is the natural evolution of the process as design becomes more and more critical to the sustainability and the growth of companies today. There are countless examples of companies that have shown that with innovation being their top priority, PLM is a must have in the eyes of their CXOs. Design is one of the core competencies required in a company that wants to be a leader in innovation and by default must be properly communicated across the extended enterprise. With a successful PLM implementation, a design and innovation culture can permeate and spawn more creativity and even more success. The implementation of PLM having a common product authoring tool, a proper product data management system, and one platform for manufacturing, rapid prototyping, and production ensures that the designs developed are proliferated freely with all the relevant information as required for each person in the company. A custom dynamic digital representation of the design and documentation collected and provided on demand available throughout the company at any time in the product development process? What a concept.
IEN: How can security issues (managed firewalls, spam control, managed virus scanning, etc.) be resolved? What about communication issues (wireless and other protocols, etc.)?
Clambaneva: Security must be implemented rigorously as part of PLM to ensure process, data, application, and system integrity while considering other requirements such as time-to-market, performance, and cost-reduction goals. Security and adherence to PLM processes requires planning and consideration before software selection. This control must address security both within an enterprise and among partner companies, especially where replication of meta-data and/or CAD models is part of PLM processes. Usage of systems management, data management, and web management software implemented with defined roles that limit application and data access is necessary with best practice process definition driving business integration to reduce the chances of accidental security problems, such as error-prone retyping across systems, and intentional security problems, such as hacked data modifications introducing viruses or data corruption.
