jeffla376 - Wednesday, December 8, 2010 7:38 PM:
I'm curious if anyone can comment on how mandatory the subscription is? If you send someone capable to training, and potentially utilize some consulting services to get started as well as using the forums, is it doable? What would the biggest pitfalls be with this approach?
Thanks,
Jeff
vishal_trivedi - Thursday, December 9, 2010 7:39 AM:
Hi Jeff,
Please explain the points on which you want clarification ?
I might help on your queries.
-Vishal
friske1 - Thursday, December 9, 2010 12:21 PM:
Jeff,
I have been an open user to Aras going on four years. I have gone through 4 upgrades since then and have had only the Developer and API 2 day training. With that said, I believe I can answer your question that having a mandatory subscription is not necessary and using Aras open-source is doable. Although you will have to do your due diligence in understanding how Aras functions.
We have been fortunate not have used consulting firms for I was able to figure most of our problems out and those I couldn't I found the answers here in the Community Q&A section.
As for pitfalls, I can say there are a few that have cropped up during our use but they were manageable.
· The first was moving from 9.01 to 9.1. I encountered that the data structure had changed slightly. But with the use of the Import and Export tool we were able export out our Modules that we created and import them into 9.1.
· The next pitfall would have been the IE8 release. Because of changes in the browser 9.1 was no longer available to those who had upgraded to IE8 and because the Aras fix came in one of the 6 Service Packs that year we had to wait until the full Release of 9.2. I was able to have those users install the Avant web Browser which utilizes the IE shell and thus allow for the use of Aras in the interim.
· The final, but surely not the last, pitfall was upgrading from 9.1 to 9.2. It was not quite as frustrating as the first but it came with its own problems none the less.
Overall though, I believe it is one of the best, if not the best, open-source PLM software on the market. It offers so much flexibility as well as a straight forward PLM solution.
Hope that helps!
The update steps can be seen here - http://www.aras.comhttp://www.aras.com/Community/forums/p/522/2675.aspx#2675.
jeffla376 - Thursday, December 9, 2010 9:52 AM:
Vishal,
I'm just trying to understand how important the service packs are to having a functioning product. I understand the services (free training and tech support and discounts on consulting) that come with the subscription.
Jeff
scottmahr - Thursday, December 9, 2010 1:19 PM:
We are in the final steps of implementing Aras as our PLM system. While I haven't had to go through any upgrades yet, I have been extremely impressed at how the architecture is designed around expansion. I haven't been to any of the classes, I have been learning as I needed the information. I am a ME by training, but have had some exposure to programming. Prior to this project I hadn't used C#. I have probably worked on this for 2 solid months at this point.
First off, it is great that they have libraries for C#, this allows you to build your own tools to interface with Aras. The first step of our implementation was to upload all the parts in our design. Done manually this would be a huge pain. I was able to write a little GUI that looked at a BOM exported from Solidworks and uploaded all the parts to Aras. This made it a relatively trivial task to get the 500 or so parts in Aras.
The next part of our implementation involved putting quotes into Aras. This is kinda built in to the stock Aras setup, but it is not very powerful. I was able to build my own itemtype called "Quote" and also add all the necessary links to make it work how we wanted to. Once the quotes were in (using the GUI again), I made something that could look at any assembly, and pull quotes based on some criteria (minimum quantity, date quoted, production phase). All of this information was then downloaded to an excel sheet that could used to present the data however you wanted. We also have assemblies that we buy that have consigned parts (where you pay x for an assembly, but then also have to pay for some parts separately). Aras does not understand how to roll up this cost at all (it assumes if you have a price for an assembly, everything is included). This was slightly more tricky, but it is a testament to the flexibility that we were able to make this work too.
We also have implemented our ECO process through Aras. This required some tweaking of the workflows, but this again was easy.
As it stands now, we have a pretty powerful program written in C# that automates everything we want to do with Aras on a daily basis. This has made it very easy for us to quickly implement features, or look at the data in Aras how we would like to see it. While all of this is possible, I do not think that this is necessarily typical. To make this work you really have to have someone very comfortable with wading through forums to figure things out. I am looking forward to attending some of the classes when time allows. Hope this helps,
Scott
