Our friend Martin van der Roest of the vdR Group recently penned a blog about his recent experience at an Aras Innovator training class. Martin is no newcomer to PLM software or for that matter, Enterprise Software in general. Best of all he has direct experience with many of the PLM offerings from "the other guys" and with developing custom solutions. For those reasons, his opinion carries weight.
I especially liked Martin's connecting the Aras Innovator data model to the "idea of an atomic level capability." This is such a simple yet profound capability in Aras Innovator - everything is an item! Parts, Drawings, Requirements, lifecycle maps, workflows, users, groups..you get the idea. I bet someone is saying "What about BOMs?" Well a BOM is not an item - it is a structured collection of items. We handle this with, you guessed it, an item. A relationship item to be specific. There isn't anything grand in this item - at the most basic level it captures the Source Item (parent), the Related Item(child) and quantity (in the case of a BOM.). So a BOM is a number of parts (atoms) connected with a number of relationships (chemical bonds) just like a chemical compound.
Why is this important? Because as Martin noted, the atomic concept "completely reinforced the flexibility and customizing capabilities of the Aras Innovator solution." Just like parts(atoms) can be reused in different ways to create new products(compounds) so to can the Aras data model. Different customer are going to have different needs. That may be a simple re-structuring of our existing item types and relationships or that could be a completely new package that is specific to a very unique customer. Either way - we have you covered.
I know, that sounds like a huge promise. But the fact is that is if you look at our case studies and customer videos you will see plenty of examples of making our customers successful. From manufacturing to aircraft layout to chocolate bars - Aras can and HAS done that!
More and more firms are looking at Aras to help them to take on the promises that Legacy PLM has failed to to deliver on. So turn off the Over Promise Alert and take a look for yourself. You don't need to take my word for it. Download it and see for yourself. Want the same great training experience that Martin and so many other have had? Come to Andover or Detroit for a training class. Unlike the other guys - we do not require that you own our software. If there are spots you can sign up. When you are a subscriber - training is free!
We are elated that an industry vet like Martin is "as confident as ever, that an organization can’t go wrong with the platform." Feedback like this adds fuel to our fire!
Posted Wed, Jan 27 2016 1:19 PM by David Ewing Jr.