Download Slides >>> ZIP of ALL SLIDES (warning, it's 52 Meg)
ACE 2011 International was in Dearborn, Michigan this year, and our theme was the “World of the Possible”. It was the best ACE to date and the agenda was packed with overviews of Aras solutions, case studies, PLM best practices and ideas for future collaboration.
For those on Twitter, you can see comments by checking the hashtag #ArasACE
People from 132 different companies in 17 different countries on 6 continents participated, and I want to thank everyone for coming and for making it a really great conference.
For those that couldn’t make it, thought it’d be good to run through some of the highlights, although there were too many for a single post so will have to do a few… and of course you won’t get the energy and enthusiasm. For that, you’ve just gotta be there.
Peter Jump-Starts ACE
Peter ‘Welcomed’ the crowd with an overview of the continued growth and momentum that are occurring worldwide, and ran through some nice examples of other business ideas that were dismissed early on like FedEx.
"The concept is interesting and well-formed, but... the idea must be feasible." -- Yale business professor in response to Fred Smith's paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service
He also made a strong case for ‘Flexibility with Ease’ in any global PLM environment. This ‘Agility’ is the fundamental innovation that Aras brings to the market.
He told the audience, “Aras was founded with one simple idea: that PLM software data models, process models, and business logic, must adapt to business change as fast as the business needs to change. Period. Our technology, our methodology, our business model are all focused on enabling companies to change rapidly.”
Your business is different. Your business is changing. And it should be to compete! Your global PLM platform must enable dynamic change and that’s what we’re doing at Aras.
Download Slides >>> Peter's Keynote
Carestream Health PLM Platform for Global New Product Development, Quality, Environmental and Supply Chain
Carestream Health has more than 7,300 employees in more than 150 countries and is a recognized leader in dental & medical imaging systems, healthcare information solutions, x-ray film and digital x-ray products and molecular imaging systems for the life science research and drug discovery markets. Its products are used in the vast majority of hospitals and professional healthcare organizations around the world resulting in over $2.5 billion revenue annually.
Carestream products range from complex electro-mechanical systems that are high value assets to technically sophisticated SKU-based products. They discussed how their PLM strategy and Aras PLM platform support the globalization of their distributed workforce and a 21st century approach to enterprise-wide processes that cross functional boundaries. There was also a nice overview of their implementation done by Wipro and lessons learned using the “Agile” development (which we highly recommend BTW).
Download Slides >>> Carestream Health on Global PLM Platform & Strategy
Download Slides >>> Carestream Health on Implementation
Nexteer Automotive Realizing an Enterprise-wide PLM Vision
Nexteer Automotive, formerly part of Delphi, is a multi-billion dollar global steering and driveline business which focuses on electric and hydraulic steering systems, steering columns and driveline products for the OEM vehicle manufacturers. The company has 8,300 employees at 6 engineering centers and 20 manufacturing plants around the world.
Nexteer explained how their business continues to evolve and how they needed a secure PLM backbone that would allow them to continually adapt while providing comprehensive functional coverage for global processes including multi-site product development, program management, costing, quality, manufacturing, specs, CAD, prototypes, validation, PPAP and configuration management for complex systems.
Download Slides >>> Nexteer Automotive
Deutsche Blisterunion Achieves Serialized Product Traceability for Quality & Safety
We heard about the innovation at Deutsche Blisterunion where they are transforming the way pharmaceuticals are delivered using Aras for patient-specific individual drug dosage packaging. Aras is being used for high-speed production workflows, compliance, quality assurance and multi-site collaboration, as well as, document management, records archiving and a lot more.
Each dose is serialized for traceability and secure sign-off is achieved with an innovative Electronic Signature solution add-on developed and offered by Datasquare which also did the overall system deployment. Deutsche Blisterunion has really innovated on their processes using Aras and they are now able to differentiate because of this.
Download Slides >>> Deutsche Blisterunion
Advatech Pacific Does Simulation Data Management and Requirements Tracking using Aras and SharePoint
Advatech Pacific is an engineering research & development company that provides aerospace vehicle physics modeling and simulation, communications systems Interoperability, costanalysis tool development and engineering design and analysis services.
They are an ‘open user’ of Aras, meaning they don't have a subscription or pay for services assistance… they just figured it out themselves… they real show “What’s Possible” with Aras. Advatech Pacific provided a detailed overview of the solution they built and used for NASA mission design simulation which performs simulation data management, requirements management (like IBM DOORS, but using Aras), and is integrated with SolidWorks, Thermal Desktop and other systems like SharePoint. It’s quite impressive.
Download Slides >>> Advatech Pacific
We also had a number of really great sessions by industry thought leaders and tech analysts that helped us see what is truly possible and made some excellent points about what companies need to do to maximize the value of PLM and where the industry is headed.
Download Slides >>> PLM for Improved Product Lifecycle Decisions
Joe Barkai, Practice Director, Product Lifecycle Strategies, IDC Manufacturing Insights
Download Slides >>> The ROI of PLM
John MacKrell, Vice President, CIMdata
Download Slides >>> Beyond PLM Panel
Oleg Shilovitsky, Beyond PLM Blog (moderator)
Vasco Drecun, Siemens
David Sherburn, Carestream Health
Peter Schroer, Aras
Community Solution Showcase
This was our most popular session last year and it was even bigger this year. The showcase is where people get 10 minutes to share / show off their own innovative solutions, add-ons, ideas and enhancements. It’s a nice way to get a quick overview of the “World of the Possible” where you see some of the more sophisticated solutions that global companies have developed with/for the Aras Innovator PLM platform.
We saw a lot of really extensive solutions like the Formula & Recipe Management that American Italian Pasta Company has deployed by PSC Group and the Fashion & Apparel solution in Aras by Plural Technologies, as well as, Green Design Workbench for sustainable product development by HCL.
There were also lots of cool demos such as the 3D parts search for Aras from ShapeSpace, the enhanced structure browser by Datasquare and Google Maps & Charts integrated into Aras by Prodeos.
Overall, it was a great way to see about 30 of the over 80 solutions available on Aras Innovator. I can’t fit it all in here so am planning on doing a separate post that covers the slides, videos and demos. In fact, I think we’re going to have to trim it back next year so my head doesn’t explode :-)
People were coming up to me and saying they were “Blown away” and amazed by the diversity of solutions on Aras. I think it’s great to see so many people taking advantage of the advanced capabilities in the Aras platform.
Collaborate & Contribute Awards
With all the votes tallied, we were proud to present the annual Collaborate & Contribute award to three corporate community members for their contributions based on Significance, Popularity and Impact.
XEROX - Concurrent Development on Multiple Simultaneous BOM Configurations with Effectivity
Carestream Health - Windows Authentication in Workflow Maps
Datasquare - Electronic Signature Connector (from the Deutsche Blisterunion deployment)
Breakout Sessions, Workshops and Other Sessions
This year there were more breakouts and workshops than ever and on the last day we went over solution vision and direction as well. Here are the session slides:
Download Slides >>> The Aras Vision & Roadmap
Download Slides >>> What's New in Aras Innovator
Download Slides >>> Aras Community Collaboration Communication & Innovation
Download Slides >>> PLM and The Connected Cloud
Download Slides >>> Trubiquity and Aras Connected Cloud
Advanced Track
Download Slides >>> Overview of Alternative Roles-based Clients
Download Slides >>> How to Think About Aras Integrations
Download Slides >>> Understanding Federation and Web Services
Download Slides >>> Tuning for Global Multi-Site Deployments
Download Slides >>> Deploying Enterprise Search in a PLM Context
Basic Track
Download Slides >>> Introduction to Aras Solutions
Download Slides >>> Introduction to Advanced Capabilities in Aras
Download Slides >>> I Installed Aras, Now What? (video)
Download Slides >>> How to Start Your Aras Implementation
Download Slides >>> Subscriptions, Services, Solutions & More (How to think about Aras and How we Make Money)
Business Track
Download Slides >>> Sustainable Product Development (by HCL)
Download Slides >>> Why Document Management Isn't Enough (by Razorleaf)
Download Slides >>> Delivering on the Promise of Product Innovation (by Kalypso)
Download Slides >>> Enterprise Product Level Information Development & Deployment Case Study (by Carestream Health & Wipro)
Download Slides >>> Building the Intellectual Capital of Innovative Organizations Through Aras-Based Knowledge Platform (by Infosys)
Networking at receptions was really energetic and went on late into the evening. We also made the breaks 30 mins for extra networking during the day as well which worked out great. There was a lot of collaborative discussion and numerous connections were made between companies. If you met someone and didn’t get their card, but would really like to get in touch with them feel free to send me an email. Will be happy to make the connection.
It all came together for a really great ACE. Seems like people have a better idea about the “World of the Possible” and how they can make it reality with Aras. The level of enthusiasm was excellent and I’ve got a lot of people to follow-up with from the conference. I would also like to personally thank everyone for coming and participating, especially the people who presented, it was outstanding.
We look forward to seeing you at next year’s ACE conference. In addition, we will be announcing local and regional ACE sessions in the newsletter and on the web site throughout the year so stay tuned.
Download Slides >>> ZIP of ALL SLIDES (warning, it's 52 Meg)