Aras User Blog

Communicating for User Adoption in 2 Minutes

2010-08-26T12:31:00Z

Getting users to adapt to change is difficult, no matter what the change may be. In this 2 minute video Doug Draughan at Basic Research discusses his approach to PLM that brought users on board from day one. Basic communicated the flexibility and ease of use of the Aras Innovator architecture, without turning it into a tech heavy discussion. The result? Users throughout the company were as excited about their Aras implementation as the PLM selection and tech teams.

(Please visit the site to view this media)

When Bigger PLM Isn't Better PLM

2010-07-27T18:31:00Z

The excitement our Community is displaying is infectious! Everyday I’m approached by new companies, universities and partners that are fascinated by what they are reading and hearing about Aras. Here's an example... Below is a short highlight video of a user presentation at ACE2010. In it Basic Reserach offers some advice on net getting lured in by the sexy pre-sales promises made by big, legacy PLM vendors. Like what you see? Check back soon for more from Basic Research on implementing Aras PLM software for Enterprise PLM including recipe and packaging management at a consumer goods company.

(Please visit the site to view this media)

What the World’s Leading Companies Know that You Don’t?

2010-06-29T19:17:00Z

Recently, there was a good article on the CAD community web sites titled “Textron and Other Fortune 500 Companies Move to Aras Enterprise Open Source PLM Software” that outlined how major global companies are switching to Aras. It includes some of their reasons for picking Aras over other major PLM systems and how they have achieved results in cross-functional, worldwide enterprise PLM deployments.

Here’s a repost of the article with links to the original articles CAD community web sites (i.e. CATIA, PRO/E, Siemens PLM Software, SolidWorks, Inventor)...

Textron and Other Fortune 500 Companies Move to Aras Enterprise Open Source PLM Software
June 21, 2010 by Tom Gill is the founder of TAG Consulting

What do the world’s leading companies know that you don’t?

Last week it was announced that leading aerospace and defense contractor Textron has selected Aras for enterprise product lifecycle management. Textron’s move follows that of other global businesses such as Lear Corporation and Xerox. What do these market-leading companies, all members of the Fortune 500 and Forbes Global 2000, know that you don’t? Open source PLM software isn’t just for small companies.

Superior Technology

For more than 50 years Textron has been creating state-of-the-art weaponry, surveillance and protection systems for defense, aerospace and homeland security communities. While CIO Tony DeGregario appreciates the value of Aras’s open source model, he knew there was more to Aras than free software. “The enterprise open source approach and elimination of PLM license fees initially got our attention, however, what really drove our selection of Aras was the comprehensive PLM functionality and advanced technology,” said DeGregario.

Aras is a modern PLM solution suite engineered like no other. The Aras enterprise application framework is an advanced model-based service-oriented architecture (model-based SOA) delivering highly scalable, flexible and secure applications that deploy quickly and adapt easily to evolving business needs without complex programming. Aras addresses the entire product lifecycle with out-of-the-box solutions for a wide range of strategic business initiatives, including global product development, new product introduction, configuration & change management, design anywhere/build anywhere, advanced product quality planning, regulatory compliance and others. All the Aras solutions are Web-based and inherently integrated for a simple, consistent user experience.

Textron selected Aras PLM suite to help master their biggest product development challenges. The A&D giant is integrating Aras with SAP to drive strategic cross functional processes such as its stage-gate program, project management and risk mitigation, as well as other traditional PLM functions including CAD file management, and configuration and change management.

As DeGregario explains, “Textron Defense Systems is committed to developing winning solutions to the most complicated engineering challenges and we believe Aras’s approach to enterprise-wide PLM will help us deliver on that commitment.”

Global Reach

More than 80% of automobiles worldwide built today contain one or more components from Lear Corporation. As a leading automotive supplier with 90 years of experience and expertise behind it, Lear is all about automation, integration and continuous improvement. Two years ago, when Lear began evaluating PLM solutions, they were put off by the significant initial PLM license expenses and the cost to expand the system over time to reach all of their users around the world. Then they discovered Aras.

Aras helps control costs with freedom from PLM licensing. Unlike PLM vendors who use named license scheme and charge additional fees for each person to access each module, Aras provides complete access for unlimited users with no PLM license costs. Aras eliminates big up-front PLM license expenses, as well as concerns about licensing for the thousands of people that only log on periodically. This was a huge benefit for Lear, who has employees based in 35 countries.

“Our scope is not small,” explained Reynaldo Reyes, Director of Engineering Tools and Processes for Lear’s Electrical Power Management Systems. “We’ll have more than 1,000 users on the system globally and we wanted to make sure everyone could work in our environment without constraints. If there’s a guy in Argentina who only does one thing, I want him to have access. If you break a workflow by taking it offline, that’s it – it’s broken. Other PLM systems never seem to reach everyone in the workflow because sooner or later the license costs become prohibitive. We knew we wouldn’t have that problem with Aras.”

Immediate Value

Xerox is a $22 billion company synonymous with innovation. The company’s 130,000 employees serve a diverse client-base in more than 160 countries. In 2007 Xerox Office Products implemented the Aras PLM software solution and never looked back. Xerox chose Aras for its modern cloud architecture, no-cost-of-entry and ability to show ROI right away. “Aras is different than other PLM products,” said Jared Sund, Manager of Engineering Support, who uses a Big Bang Theory analogy to describe typical PLM products. “Under the PLM Big Bang Theory, you remove everything and then you start building a foundation. 12 or 36 months later you start moving forward. With Aras we started adding value to the business right away.”

Aras’s unique combination of proven Internet technologies, common platforms and open industry standards enable global enterprises to drive continuous improvement and achieve previously unattainable levels of business process innovation. With Aras, businesses can significantly reduce the time, cost and effort necessary to customize and deploy enterprise PLM applications; adapt them to changing business conditions; and easily integrate them with existing legacy systems resulting in dramatic reductions in cycle times, considerable improvements in agility and significantly lower total cost of ownership.

“In the past technology was a hurdle,” said Sund. “The tool couldn’t do it, you were bound by Finance, there weren’t enough resources or you had to wait 6 months to get started. It shouldn’t be that way. Technology should not be hindrance; it should help us move forward. Aras been has been a whole difference experience. Aras gives us the flexibility to keep up with the business and put everyone on the same playing field without trying to fence them in.”

Proven Results

Multinational enterprises compete by striving for excellence in everything they do and aligning their businesses with partners who do the same. These global leaders recognize the full value of Aras LM solution suite – from business model to software architecture, Aras is the world’s most advanced PLM solution.

Aras provides comprehensive PLM functionality that exceeds that of the legacy PLM providers and its innovative architecture makes it far more scalable and extensible than other PLM systems. What does that mean for global businesses? A PLM solution that works from day one, integrates with existing technology investments, and provides a secure, flexible platform for future growth. Factor in a cost savings that averages 68% or more when compared to conventional PLM licensing schemes and productivity gains realized when companies with 10,000+ users make PLM accessible to everyone in the product lifecycle, no matter how remote or infrequent, and one can quickly see that Aras is more than great technology, it’s also good business.

Tom Gill is the founder of TAG Consulting. Contact Tom at http://www.tagconsultingllc.com

What's your take? Will your company be forever stuck looking in the rear view mirror at “PLM from the Past”? Or will your CIO wake up, look ahead and realize the benefits of PLM’s Future? (i.e. Open Source PLM and Aras)

CMII Europe 2010, Notes from Amsterdam

2010-06-29T16:27:00Z

This month we went to Amsterdam for CMII Europe. Well… I didn’t go but Rolf and Antoine from our partner Minerva went and said there were some really excellent presentations and great insights shared. Here are some of their notes from the conference.

CMII Europe brings companies from across Europe and around the world to discuss how CMII configuration & change management is applied in global companies from across a variety of industries. Speakers this year included Boeing, Delphi, Eurocopter, Fokker Aerostructures, Marenco Swisshelicopter, US Navy SPAWAR and numerous others.

Have a link to the CMII Europe presentations (keep in mind the ZIP is pretty big – 57Meg)

There was a lot of interest in our advanced CMII configuration management capabilities and the CMII Enterprise solution (see pics below of Rolf busy doing demos and showing people how Aras PLM software solution addresses complex config mgt and enterprise-wide change processes).

For those of you that don’t already know, Aras is 4 Star CMII Certified by ICM… and of course that’s a higher rating than Siemens PLM Teamcenter Enterprise (keep in mind that Tc Unified / V8 is “not CMII-compliant” as noted on ICM web site) and Dassault MatrixOne and V6; which have never achieved any CMII Stars… and of course PTC Windchill; which was de-certified years ago (here’s the old PTC press release from when they originally achieved 1 star CMII cert and the link to today’s CMII Certified Tools with Windchill not on list anymore).

It’s no mystery why the companies that require the most comprehensive Configuration and Change Management capabilities, choose Aras.

Here are some pics from the conference... nice venue... ah Amsterdam, maybe next time :-)

AutoCAD integration for Aras by Prodeos

2010-06-22T21:50:00Z

Yoann Maingon at Prodeos strikes again with another practical (and very cool) add-on. This time it’s a preview of the new AutoCAD integration for Aras Innovator that Prodeos has done.

Main features:

DWG transfer from AutoCAD to Aras Innovator
DWF or PDF creation for visualization
Thumbnail creation
Local file comparison to make sure large files aren’t downloaded if they are already on the person’s local computer

Check out the video demo below and you can learn more about the integration at Prodeos blog Open Source PLM @ Prodeos… that is, if you can read French :-)

(Please visit the site to view this media)

ACE2010 Lear Global PLM - Aras Implementation Highlights

2010-05-26T19:51:00Z

As you all well know by now, the Aras Community event was recently held at the Motorola facility in Schamburg, IL. The event boasted a number of presentations from the entire Community including users, subscribers, partners and a few direct from Aras. Lear in Southfield, MI presented on their Global PLM Implementation process including why they chose Aras and what they look to for the future. While Lear's original presentation was over 30 minutes long - we've scaled it down to give you a few highlights in under 10 minutes. For a copy of the full slide deck please visit the Aras Community Event 2010 International Highlights post by Marc Lind on the main corporate blog.

(Please visit the site to view this media)

Carestream Health Goes with Aras for Global PLM

2010-02-26T19:44:00Z

You might have seen the PLM press today about a pretty significant win for Aras. Carestream Health, which is an international provider of medical and dental imaging systems and other complex healthcare equipment (a multi-billion dollar private equity spinout and formerly Kodak Healthcare Imaging), is replacing their outdated and highly customized global implementation of Dassault's ENOVIA MatrixOne and a whole collection of other legacy systems with Aras.

The CIO at Carestream Health, Bruce Leidal, says, "We're a progressive company and we want to work with other forward-thinking companies who can help us eliminate organizational silos and increase collaborative development to achieve a competitive advantage in the marketplace." He goes on to say, "In switching to Aras we now have a highly capable, global PLM platform that will allow us to consolidate other systems at will, increasing reuse and improving collaboration without continual capital investment in PLM licenses."

David Sherburne, Leader of Global R&D Effectiveness added, "We wanted a single enterprise PLM backbone for engineering, quality and regulatory compliance, tightly integrated with SAP. When compared to other PLM suppliers, Aras offered a solution unique to the industry. Our legacy platform (i.e. ENOVIA MatrixOne) was built a long time ago and we knew we didn’t have the functionality required for the future."

The deployment will be rolled out in phases to support the full product commercialization processes including global product development and supplier collaboration. More than 3,000 users worldwide will use Aras, as well as, suppliers around the world.

This is yet another example of a company that understands the benefits of a more modern and advanced solution combined with the cost advantages achieved at scale with the elimination of PLM license expenses.

The guys at Develop 3D added their own perspective (and a funny title) in Carestream Health dumps highly customised MatrixOne in favour of Aras’ Open Source PLM

What's your take? Is it time to rethink the 'blindly buy whatever the big guys sell' mentality or are only "progressive companies" like Carestream Health going to break free?

PLM Summit Highlights Best Practice Strategies

2009-07-01T20:56:00Z

So, last week Aras was at the PLM Summit 2009 in Miami Fla. This conference appears to be emerging as the thought leadership event for global enterprise PLM strategies. I was impressed (again) by the cross-industry line-up of speakers and the breadth of topics.

Here’s a sampling of some of the sessions I thought were particularly informative:
Knowledge-based Lean Product Development – by Ron Marsiglio, former President of Teledyne Benthos
PLM Roadmaps for Sustainable Implementations – by Abram Walton, Ph.D.(c), M.S. Purdue University, PLM Center of Excellence
Strategies to Move from an Engineering-centric PDM system to an Enterprise PLM Solution – by Andreas Lindenthal, President of Metafore
New Thinking: Conquering Tough Economic Times with PLM – by Dr. Michael W. Grieves
What’s Next for PLM? Crystal Ball Perspectives from the Innovators and Visionaries of the PLM Industry – Panel Discussion (I wasn’t on the panel, but you probably already know what my prediction is… open source PLM)

And there were many other interesting topics as well… as a PLM junky, I found it difficult to pick which sessions to attend when the conference split into two tracks… especially since Aras was a sponsor and I also needed to be available to provide demos and talk with people about how the advanced Aras PLM software solutions can help their business.

It’s clear that even in these difficult times, companies large and small are pressing ahead with their PLM initiatives. Problem for many is that their budgets have been cut and the big PLM license expenses required by the major PLM vendors is a significant obstacle. Am guessing that’s why we were so busy at the conference. People want a more modern and cost effective approach to rolling out PLM enterprise-wide: Skip the PLM license costs, go straight to solving business problems with Aras.

I have to admit that my favorite presentation was Ron Marsiglio’s overview of how his team at Teledyne implemented Lean Product Development. This is of course a topic that is particularly near and dear to my heart and one which I feel is not well understood, particularly how PLM supports these types of efforts. Also, thought that Fred Bellio from Mercury Marine has some particularly insightful comments as well.

Was disappointed though that I wasn’t able to make it down in time for the Sikorsky plant tour. John Carty from Aras partner CMC Systems went and told me that the tour was really informative. I always like a good plant tour… but then who doesn’t.

If you missed part of the conference or weren’t able to make it at all, then here’s some good news… the PLM Summit people do something called a Virtual Conference interactive CD-ROM which includes all the presentation slides and audio recordings of speakers and Q&A sessions. It’s almost like you were there.

They’ve even offered to give people from the Aras community a discount on the CD.

PLM Summit
Virtual Conference interactive CD-ROM
http://www.plmnorthamerica.com/virtualconference.asp

Special Aras Community Discount: $500 (Normally $750)
Just Use this Booking Code: ARA-MKT

I understand that they’re going to do another PLM Summit conference next year in the fall. Will have to stay tuned to the PLM Summit web site for more details. I know I’ll be there.

What’s your take? Were the conference sessions informative? Did you pick up some useful tips for your PLM strategy? Or were you too busy shooting a round of golf on the famous Doral course? (if so, don't worry, we won't say a word :-)

Aras Community Network - Winter 2008 Asia

2008-12-30T22:42:00Z

In December the Aras Community Network had two events in Taiwan organized by Broadway Consulting Services and sponsored by National Formosa University, Cardinal Tien College, and Microsoft. The sessions were conducted in Taipei and Taichung.

Over 80 people came to each session to learn about the enterprise open source solutions for PLM and how Aras is being applied to different business processes such as PLM in High Tech Electronics for global new product development and introduction (NPDI). A particularly interesting session covered the custom application of Aras as a comprehensive Food Traceability System that tracks ingredients at every step in the supply chain for quality and integrity.

Company presentations also covered training and implementation approaches to ensure roll-out success and how to break a project into phases. There were several partner presentations as well covering collaborative development initiatives. PLM-ERP integration was particularly well attended.

Overall, the sessions were a great success and participants learned a lot and made new connections. If you're interested in learning more about these ACN sessions check out the post on the BCS site

http://210.192.34.27/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=120&Itemid=2

Aras Community Network - Fall 2008 Europe

2008-10-31T01:15:00Z

Download >>> PLM SLIDES

The Aras community has really grown internationally over the past year and on October 17th we held the first European community event to get people together, collaborate, and share. Once again Microsoft stepped up and provided us with a great venue in Munich Germany for the sessions.

Compelling Vision

Martin Allemann, Aras VP for EMEA, provided everyone with an overview of how the open model delivers both business benefits (Freedom from Licensing, No Capital Necessary) and innovation advantages for companies of all sizes. He explained how the internationalization in Aras Innovator Version 9 gives companies that operate in many different countries and regions multi-language collaboration for more effective new product development.

He also provided a compelling explanation of the advanced SOA for PLM and how companies across industries can leverage the flexibility to satisfy specific competitive business practices; global workflows, compliance rules, and much more. He really set a progressive tone for how businesses throughout Europe and around the world have a proven way to advance business objectives using the enterprise open approach with Aras.

Freudenberg Provides Validation of Success

Freudenberg Group, the largest private manufacturer in Germany with over €5 billion Euro in annual revenues, shared with the community their experience rolling out Aras Innovator to over 26 sites across Europe. Freudenberg has been synonymous with innovation and quality excellence for over a century, and the company strives to achieve a zero error philosophy at all levels of the supply chain. Freudenberg is using Aras as the basis for their strategic new product development quality process they call APQP2. Today, Freudenberg is continuing to expand the Aras deployment worldwide and they explained their strategy for the future.

Prof. Dr. Martin Eigner Explains the Future of PLM

Keynote speaker Prof. Dr. Martin Eigner, the renowned strategic PLM thought leader, Professor at the Technische Universität Kaiserslautern, and founder of Eigner+Partner [acquired by Agile / Oracle] covered his perspective and research on the future of PLM. He makes a strong, data driven case that the days of “do it all at once” PLM initiatives are gone, and that future projects will be incrementally oriented. Deployments will target strategic processes one-by-one, so that PLM business value can be achieve more quickly. The Aras open model and SOA approach embody this new reality providing an ideal means of attaining a real Return On Investment [ROI] much more quickly than previously possible.

Prof. Dr. Eigner also explained how meaningful product development management metrics like time to market and new product profitability measurements will increasingly be important. The ability to deploy actionable PLM dashboards and scorecards is a new requirement that must be satisfied to demonstrate product innovation success and justify new product development investments.

There was significant depth to Prof. Dr. Eigner's findings and conclusions, and I am surely not doing his research justice... its just that my German is not really that good (that's being generous :-) We will have to get him to post a guest blog that provides additional insight at some point in the future.

Collaborate, Connect, Learn

Throughout the community event there was a lot of interaction between the participants and Rolf Laudenbach from Aras provided an overview of the latest solution capabilities and community contributions. It was a great opportunity for everyone to make new connections, share, and learn. All in all it was an outstanding event and an excellent way to kick-off the Aras Community Network in Europe! ... If you couldn't make this one, we look forward to seeing you next time!

Pictures from the throughout the day

Networking Over Breakfast

Enterprise Open Source PLM

Prof. Dr. Eigner Explains the Future of PLM

Download >>> PLM SLIDES

Aras Community Network - Spring 2008 Highlights

2008-05-13T21:19:00Z

Download >>> ALL SLIDES

On Wednesday, May 7th, we had our most recent Aras Community Network event in the Chicago-land area. This time around we've out grown last year's site, and had trouble getting a venue large enough to fit everyone. Luckily Microsoft stepped up and was generous enough host the event so there was plenty of room. Good thing too, because we had people from all over the world come!

Peter Get's Things Rolling!

We kicked off the day with Peter providing an update and talking about collaborative innovation. It's impossible not to get charged up when you start the morning with this much passion and intensity!

Over 10,000 enterprise system downloads, more than 30 corporate community projects, new product enhancements, and really exciting contributions from companies like Motorola, Lockheed Martin, Freudenberg, and numerous others.

The idea multiplier effect of having lots of companies participate on solutions to complex business process issues they are all facing is surfacing innovative approaches that are unlikely to come from a single company. This is the power of the open approach. This is what provides an order of magnitude greater innovation over other enterprise software packages companies have been using in the past. This is why "open" is better, period.

ACCO Brands Explains How Innovation & Time to Market Drive Global Growth

With over $2 billion in global sales from products like Swingline, Kensington, Wilson Jones, Quartet, and Rexel, ACCO Brands is focused on increasing global market share with innovative new products that they bring to market much more quickly. A key component of their business strategy relies on Aras Innovator to provide better access to the information people need in Europe, Asia or the US, whether in their office or on the road, including suppliers overseas.

Then, by combining collaboration with online workflow processes like their product change process and the Supplier Corrective Action Request (SCAR) process they are able to manage new product development and introduction more effectively around the world and throughout their global supply chain.

ACCO outlined how Aras gives them the ability to capture new ideas and concepts for the next big thing and provides the structure to get the job done quickly without miscommunications or mistakes.

Download >>> ACCO Brands Slides

XEROX Outlines Business Confidence Through Advanced SOA Approach with Aras

A broad vision for end-to-end enterprise PLM across the lifecycle combined with complex process and integration requirements is driving the Xerox strategy while the practical realities of today's economy are shaping their approach. Today, Xerox is the $17 billion leader in document management with products that span from color and black-and-white printing systems, laser and solid ink network printers, copiers, fax machines, and multifunction devices to "book factories" and digital publishing presses.

The company has a series of large systems already in place that the business relies on such as Teamcenter, PTC Windchill, and Oracle for ERP. Instead of trying to replace existing applications, Xerox is taking a different approach. They explained how they're using the Aras Innovator for business process management workflows and taking advantage of the advanced service-oriented architecture (SOA) to integrate with and wrap around other systems. That way Xerox is able to use the flexibility of the Aras workflows to automate their complex processes, starting with global change management, and tie in information from the other systems as needed without a lot of complicated programming.

Xerox describes this as a "connected" vs. "holistic" approach where they leverage the strengths of each system together to provide user friendly processes that are also easily maintained. They also provided an excellent example of how they have approached the enterprise evaluation, pilot proof of concept, and rollout for Aras Innovator.

Download >>> XEROX Slides

Esterline Aerospace & Defense Describes Corporate Transformation using Aras

Esterline is a global aerospace and defense company with $1.2 billion in annual revenues and over 10,000 employees around the world. Their strategy focuses on high-end industrial markets with growth driven through the acquisition of niche technology leaders. One of those businesses is BVR Technologies Company which is an emerging leader in advanced motion control and avionics products for aerospace, medical, and industrial automation applications. BVR has been operating with paper-based processes and email for years, and needed to automate their product information and processes to support their high growth and scale the business effectively.

BVR showed how they implemented their BOMs, parts with classification for electrical, mechanical, software, and firmware, as well as specifications, procedures, and other documents along with CAD integration for SolidWorks with no central IT support and a busy schedule. "We just laid out a plan, started, and kept going." They attribute the progress and results over the past year to a 'can do' attitude which was evident.

They are taking advantage of the open approach with future initiatives that involve community solutions for quality management and during the presentation one of the audience members offered to share and post their new additions to the meeting manager solution which BVR is planning to use!

Download >>> Esterline Slides

Second Annual Collaborate & Contribute Awards Presentation

We were proud to present the annual Collaborate & Contribute award to three corporate community members for their significant contributions over the past year.

Hayes Lemmerz International received the award for the modular process planner improvement to the quality planning solution which makes it easy to reuse common operations across PPAP documentation structures.

Broadway Consulting Services got the award for translating Aras Innovator into Traditional Chinese (Mandarin) and Simplified Chinese.

Freudenberg in Germany received the award for their work on the Meeting Manager solution, one of the most popular community solutions.

In the afternoon we had an overview of the Aras Innovator solution direction and discussed a variety of collaborative community projects, partner add-on solutions, and new improvements!

Of course there is no requirement to contribute back to the community, however, it's clear that everyone recognizes the benefits and that more collaboration and resulting contributions provide advantages for the entire corporate community. People discussed their company's business initiatives and where and how they plan to collaborate, there are many options for participation:

Ideas, Concepts, Innovations
Specifications, Documentation, and Use Cases
Development, Testing & Verification
Sharing Your Story, Blog Posts, Contribute to Forums

During the breakout sessions a wide range of topics was covered including integration connectors for ERP and CAD systems. Partners were the most active corporate community members in the integration area providing commercial solution add-ons to Aras Innovator.

xPLM discussed ERP integration strategies for SAP, Oracle, and Infor systems and touched on their CAD adaptors for CATIA, NX, and PRO/E. Several different approaches were discussed for CAD integration ranging from Design2Enterprise's 'publish upon release' format to ICP's managing 'work in process' with deep CAD data extraction capabilities.

Download >>> xPLM ERP & CAD Integration Slides

Download >>> ICP CAD Integration Slides

Download >>> Design2Enterprise CAD Integration Slides

Other breakouts included the collaborative project for managing Bill of Materials complexity with Variants & Options presented by The GSI Group, and an overview of the open model approach. On the technical track Bill provided insights into optimizing for global deployments and the internationalization capabilities in Version 9.

Download >>> GSI Slides on BOM Variants & Options

Download >>> Open Model Advantages Slides

Download >>> Version 9 Internationalization Capabilities

Download >>> Technical Considerations for Global Deployment Optimization

With the day behind us we all went over to the reception at the Westin! This year's Aras Community Network turned out to be a great opportunity for members to meet in person, discuss collaboration, and learn about the latest innovations.

Thanks to everyone for coming! ...and if you couldn't make it this time we hope you can join us for the next one!

Delphi Makes Change Management Solution Contribution

2007-08-30T01:28:00Z

Recently notable enterprise community member Delphi made a significant solution project contribution for everyone interested in CMII configuration & change management.

Like many other organizations, Delphi recognizes that it is quite difficult to get a complete & accurate impact analysis on proposed engineering changes.

What Delphi has done is develop a method for ensuring a thorough change review that includes both a process & algorithm for Affected Items analysis. The method identifies parts, assemblies, documents, tools, and other important items that require review for design change impact.

Delphi was going to patent the method, however, after further consideration they have opted to donate it to the community in the true spirit of openness so that all companies can benefit.

Delphi implemented the method in Aras Innovator as Microsoft enterprise open source making it a valuable free add-on. An additional benefit is that by using Aras the Affected Items Wizard can be used to complement and extend a company’s existing PDM, PLM or ERP system.

Any company that is looking for a better way to manage the change process will recognize how the Delphi contribution results in:

· A step-by-step way to perform comprehensive change analysis

· Logs audit trail of decisions made, who made, and when

Check out the Affected Items Wizard and help your company manage changes more effectively.

Affected Items Wizard >> Download Here

http://aras.com/Community/files/folders/solution_add-ons/entry25.aspx

FMEA Risk Management Short Demo

2007-07-25T15:25:00Z

People regularly ask about the benefits of using a database-driven software solution (as opposed to a desktop system like FMEA-Pro) for Failure Mode & Effects Analysis [FMEA] risk management, and about the powerful features in the Aras Quality Planning solution for FMEAs that are not available in any other package.

The Aras Quality Planning solution with FMEAs is the direct result of collaborative development with Delphi. Delphi’s progressive approach to risk management is an extension of the basic FMEA methodology to include these key features:

FMEA Libraries – Online libraries provide a knowledge base of previous findings and lessons learned from field failures, previous designs, reliability testing results, and customer complaints. Failure modes, effects, causes, and preventative measures, as well as, standard criteria descriptions for Severity, Occurrence, and Probability to Detect are all collected in a single location and organized by product family. When a FMEA is being done for a new product or a redesign, previous related items are preloaded for faster more comprehensive completion and consistent categories enable better analysis.

FMEA, Process Flow Diagram, Control Plan Association – Unlike desktop applications and spreadsheets all three quality planning documents are inherently associated in the Aras solution. So, when a line item is added to one of the documents it is automatically added to the others as well ensuring that these important documents always remain synchronized. The business benefits include more consist compliance and better risk mitigation.

FMEA Action Items – As opposed to a system that one person uses alone, the Aras FMEAs are based on an enterprise system that enables team collaboration and visibility, and includes Action Items for closed-loop risk management. As priority areas of Risk are identified [high RPN] actions with deadline dates are assigned to specific people. An email alert notifies the responsible person and the related activities are recorded in the Aras solution to ensure that the risk has been mitigated.

Ease of Use – Intuitive screens and superior usability make the Aras FMEAs easier to use than any other system on the market.

These key features along with many more provide a robust risk management approach unlike any other system available, and of course the same Aras solutions developed with Delphi are available for download and use at no charge.

To see the Aras FMEAs and other quality-related PLM capabilities attend one of our live webcasts

Webcast: FMEA Risk Management

2007-07-18T22:47:00Z

On Tuesday July 17th we held another webcast with Angelo Scangas, President of QSG, covering the important aspects of Failure Mode & Effects Analysis [FMEAs] for effective risk management to reduce liability and achieve compliance.

Pre-recorded On Demand Webcast: FMEA Risk Management for Today’s Business Environment

Download Slides: http://www.aras.com/blogs/DocumentView.aspx?file=FMEA-Risk-Management-QSG-Aras-070717.pdf

Topics Covered in Webcast:

Learn about the principles of risk management planning in developing procedures and practices to analyze, evaluate and control risks
Understand the application of the risk analysis to mitigate product risks and reduce product warranty recalls and liability
Learn to apply the FMEA risk analysis methodology for your business
Develop the principles of risk management planning and create procedures and practices to analyze, evaluate and control risks
Understand the different industry expectations such as reporting requirements for automotive customers and regulatory requirements for medical devices as covered by EN ISO 14971 “Medical devices - application of risk management to medical devices”
Hands-on approach to FMEAs and a case study on implementation
Risk priority metrics for risk identification

Speaker Bio:

Angelo Scangas

President, QSG

Angelo@QualitySupportGroup.com

Angelo Scangas, specializes in quality process improvement, Lean Six Sigma, and ISO certification consulting. Angelo's extensive consulting and training experience include advanced product quality planning, FMEA, problem solving, internal auditing, project management, and SPC.

Angelo is a member of the ASQ Quality Management and Automotive Divisions, as well as AIAG, serving as a Certified AIAG, IAOB and RAB-Lead Auditor.

http://www.qualitysupportgroup.com/

Structural Concepts Workflow Demo Recording

2007-06-15T18:33:00Z

Structural Concepts Corporation has grown by more than 30% over the past 2 years and has used the Aras solutions to scale the business by extending their existing Aras implementation for PLM to include sales order configuration and manufacturing process planning.

Structural is a midsized US-based business with over 30 years of expertise designing and building innovative temperature controlled display cases. The company is a leader in providing foodservice, supermarket and convenience store operators such as Starbucks, Wal*Mart, Hilton Hotels, and Safeway with specialized products designed to merchandise grab 'n go products, bakery, deli, floral, produce and other specialty foods and perishables. Structural's products are engineer to order [ETO] and configure to order [CTO] based on a series of standard platforms.

Structural has used Aras to grow their business significantly by cutting order to delivery time by 50% and increasing productivity and new product engineering throughput for improved customer responsiveness to win new business. In addition, they have incorporated Lean into product development to streamline preparation for manufacturing and ensure operations readiness.

Structural also recently won the Progressive Manufacturer of the Year Award by Managing Automation for their use of Aras and the business results achieved.

Demo recording by Viktor Anderson, Director of Engineering for Structural Concepts, has been moved. To see the Aras workflows for PLM attend one of our live webcasts.