by Gary Mintchell | Feb 1, 2018 | News, Software
The industrial software market seems to be undergoing quite a consolidation right now. I’m not entirely sure what that means. There are a couple of underlying factors but slowing growth of the market is often one. Another is that larger companies usually find it more expedient to innovate through acquisition. A portfolio manager or CEO can see what is working in the market and see gaps in their own offerings. Then it’s simply a matter of negotiation.
I don’t know Aras as well as I know many other companies, but interesting that I finally wrote about its digital twin and digital thread strategy this week and then comes the announcement of its acquisition of the Impresa Maintenance, Repair, and Overhaul (MRO) business from Infospectrum.
Aras states it gains a suite of complementary MRO capabilities to help Manufacturers and Owner-Operators digitally transform development and maintenance of complex products. With the Impresa acquisition, Aras will deliver PLM and MRO on a single platform that extends the Digital Thread to the field and provides the foundation for Digital Twin.
The Aras Impresa MRO software will be available as part of Aras enterprise subscriptions and is immediately available at no charge for current Aras subscribers.
As the justification for the acquisition, Aras says, “To stay ahead of competition, manufacturers must continuously innovate next-generation products and offer the flexibility of capacity-as-a-service offerings. As a result, they need to transform how they develop products and plan to service them in the field. Connecting their PLM to MRO gives these companies a path to achieve both goals with a closed loop between product development and field data.”
And further, “Adding PLM functionality enables Owner-Operators to bring product engineering to their maintenance practices. With a combined PLM and MRO solution, they gain the PLM capability necessary to manage designs, decisions, and part selection related to maintenance and service of their assets.”
Peter Schroer, Aras CEO, states, “Companies choose Aras as a digital transformation partner to modernize their most complex engineering and manufacturing processes today and for the future – and have been asking for an MRO application to extend their journey. With the acquisition of Impresa, we are adding a highly-talented team and proven solution to further expand our MRO capabilities and to be first to connect MRO to the Digital Thread on a single platform.”
As part of the transaction, Aras will acquire technology, intellectual property, and subject matter expertise. Aras plans to immediately begin incorporating the Impresa MRO technology onto the Aras PLM Platform to continue to deliver full product lifecycle traceability on a single platform and code base.
by Gary Mintchell | Apr 7, 2016 | Manufacturing IT, Operations Management
I will be attending Hannover Messe in a couple of weeks, therefore you will read much about digital manufacturing leading up to that week, during that week, and recapping the week.
That is not a threat or a warning. It is meant to tempt and tease you. Even though Siemens has been touting the concept for many years, digital manufacturing is here, gaining steam, and solving real manufacturing problems.
I will have two clients at Hannover. While they are paying some of my expenses, in return I will get a ton of inside information. One company is Siemens. It always has a huge presence and unveils new products and technologies. I anticipate a deeper dive into digital manufacturing and the latest on TIA Portal, among other things. The other company is Dell. It has been holding roundtable discussions of thought leaders on a variety of topics. I’ll be moderating one at Hannover on Internet of Things. The lineup of participants promises to generate lively discussion.
One blog I follow in the space “Manufacturing Transformation” begun by Apriso, now part of Dassault Systemmes. This recent post on retired Boeing and Ford CEO Alan Mulally discussing digital manufacturing is instructive.
At Boeing, where he was CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, he pioneered the use of a new generation of computer-aided design (CAD) software that revolutionized manufacturing; then, before retiring as president and CEO of Ford Motor Company in mid-2014, he led the 112-year-old automobile maker’s turnaround from a US$17 billion loss at the end of 2006 to profitability by 2008 – without the aid of government bailouts.
Digital Manufacturing
[From the blog] For example, Mulally believes that the distinction between well-established companies that participate in more traditional industry sectors – ones that existed long before the start of the dot-com era – and so-called “new economy” companies heavily involved in the technology sector will become increasingly blurred.
“I find the whole discussion about digital versus non-digital companies very interesting, but it’s just not true,” he said in a wide-ranging interview exclusive to Compass. “Digital technology, the Internet, information processing and the ever-improving quality and miniaturization of sensors and robotics will enable the quality, productivity and transformation of all industries around the world. All companies will be brought together by databases and systems thinking. Individual companies simply will need to decide which things they are working on to add value in which industry. The enabling technologies will be exactly the same.”
It’s refreshing when someone of that stature “gets it.” The digital transformation beginning with design and product lifecycle management through operations & maintenance which includes what we call the Internet of Things, already provides competitive benefits to companies that have adopted it wisely.
by Gary Mintchell | Aug 28, 2015 | Commentary, Data Management, Interoperability, News, Operations Management
This is a story about data interoperability and integration. This is a much-needed step in the industry. I just wish that it were more standards-driven and therefore more widespread.
But we’ll take every step forward we can get.
Arena Solutions, developer of cloud-based product lifecycle management (PLM) applications, announced that its flagship product, Arena PLM, now offers real-time synchronization with Kenandy Cloud ERP, an enterprise resource planning system for midmarket and large global enterprises built on the Salesforce Platform.
With this integration, the product record can be automatically passed from Arena PLM to Kenandy at the point of change approval. This eliminates errors and accelerates access of product information in Kenandy to create a more cohesive and efficient manufacturing process.
Arena PLM and Kenandy Cloud ERP can now communicate directly with each other, enabling customers to share up-to-date product data with finance, sales and manufacturing departments to ensure accurate financial planning and support operations.
“We are excited to be partnering with Kenandy to deliver a fully cloud-based integrated PLM and ERP solution.” said Steve Chalgren, EVP of product management and chief strategy officer at Arena Solutions. “The integration between our products is simple, clean, and can be implemented quickly. Isn’t that refreshing?”
Using the integration between Arena PLM and Kenandy Cloud ERP, customers can:
- Manage the product development process of product data (items, bill of materials, manufacturer and supplier data) in a centralized Arena PLM system through the entire product lifecycle; and
- Use Kenandy to quickly plan, procure and manufacture products upon handoff of the latest product release from Arena.
Primus Power Benefits from Seamless Integration
Delivering clean-tech energy storage solutions based on advanced battery technology, Hayward, California-based Primus Power was already successfully using Arena PLM for their design and engineering activities. It was essential that their new ERP and existing PLM system integrate seamlessly.
In Primus’ fast moving, design-focused environment, an engineer can now implement a product idea or improvement in the PLM system and within minutes the new part number is generated in Kenandy automatically. Instantly, people throughout the company can find that part; there’s a pricing history for it, a supply history. “People no longer say, ‘Did we order that bracket?’ They can now actually see that it’s on order. They can find the purchase order and the promised delivery date,” said Mark Collins, senior director of operations at Primus. “So much information is now available at people’s fingertips simply because we created a part number that’s now searchable in the system.”
“Cloud solutions deliver business agility in ways that on-premise solutions just cannot,” said Rod Butters, president and chief operating officer at Kenandy. “Together Arena and Kenandy are delivering a solution that can be deployed fast and, more importantly, helps the business run fast. Even though our customers are working with our two products, their entire team sees a single, complete, real-time source of truth from product design to product delivered to bottom-line results.”
I have written about Kenandy a couple of times this year here and here.
