“Obfuscation” is the term for scrambling of the data and/or table names, property names within the PLM database.

This is the way the other major PLM / PDM systems were / are designed.

The database table for the Part Master is not called / labelled “Part” – it’s labelled “0034543908543TG324” or something else confusing like that... the data are sometime split into different tables so that access is non-intuitive.  This is “obfuscation” and it’s done by design. PLM systems have traditionally (and still are) very hard to get at the data and figure out, sometimes impossible.

It’s a serious issue for interoperability, for reporting / BI, for system customization, for integration, etc, etc.

There are whole multi-day conferences that cover nothing but this topic for both PLM and CAD, like the Collaboration & Interoperability Congress and the Global Product Data Interoperability Summit (GPDIS). In fact, Longview Advisors recently published a survey and report on Interoperability problem as one of the top issues in the market.

All the CAD / PDM vendors know they’re doing it and do not proactively tell customers.

A company has to be savvy enough to understand that it’s standard practice with all the other PLM systems for it to even come up – it’s typically only understood by very large A&D, Automotive, High Tech Electronics companies that have been thru multiple PLM/PDM system implementations and are dealing with supply chain collaboration issues. Otherwise, people don’t understand it or even think to ask about it...

It’s about Lock-In. They are making it extremely hard to migrate away from their system to alternatives or even integrate with existing systems (which forces rip & replace scenarios and the purchase of more licenses for the lock-in vendor).

Aras is an open and transparent data model that is designed in a very simple and straightforward manner. Parts are in a table called “Part”, Suppliers in a table called “Supplier”, etc. and you have complete access along with a published data dictionary.

That’s very different from the other major PLM providers and one more way that we are helping companies take control of their own destiny.

We purposefully designed Aras to be as straightforward as possible to simplify interop issues, make systems integration easier, enable faster customization and transparent reporting / business intelligence / executive dashboards.

Also, if Aras doesn’t work for your company... you can migrate to something else quickly and easily.

It’s your data, your system, your decision. Period.

What’s your take? Are you ready to blindly guide your company into a PLM lock-in trap? Or are your eyes “open”?

Photo from Pyzam.com