Amanda Hougas さんのアクティビティ

Partner Solutions Showcase at ACE 2020

Amanda Hougas — Fri, 06 Dec 2019 17:51:00 GMT

ACE 2020 – Own the Lifecycle marks Aras’s 20th Anniversary and Aras is committed to establishing an educational event. In celebration, ACE 2020 will offer new and innovative ways to interact with the Aras Community. Through case studies and solution demonstrations, attendees will learn what is possible with Aras Innovator. Our goal is to educate, network and inspire.

The Aras ACE 2020 Partner Solutions Showcase will be a collection of kiosks that enable you to demonstrate your innovative products, solutions and services in an educational environment.

If you have a case study, solution or service that you think will educate and inspire the audience on what is possible with Aras Innovator, please register at https://events.aras.com/solutionshowcase. Solution entries are due by Jan 15th, 2020 and selection decisions will be made by Jan 31st, 2020.

If you are selected, the kiosks will be provided by Aras at no cost! You won't have to design a booth, choose a location, ship items and track contacts. You just show up, plug-in and demonstrate your solution! Solutions that will be selected are those that the panel feels will be most interesting to the Aras Community. They will show evidence that they solved a problem that had a high impact on the business and they will be presented in a compelling way.

All partner participants, including those that are selected are required to register. There are no discounts or free passes for the event. Register by January 15th for the best pricing.

Again, we look forward to ACE 2020! If you are interested in participating in the Solutions Showcase please follow the instructions at https://events.aras.com/solutionshowcase to find out more. If you are only interested in attending, please register at https://events.aras.com/ace-2020/registration now!

Bridging the Gap Between Systems Engineering and PLM

Paweł Z. Chądzyński — Wed, 13 Mar 2019 19:00:00 GMT

Systems thinking across the organization

Systems engineering, a formal application of “Systems Thinking”, has become critical to design of complex products. Although every engineer, in every engineering domain, practices some amount of systems engineering (e.g., electronic schematics) the relentless increase of product complexity has significantly elevated the role of systems engineers (SEs). This has some critical consequences for the rest of the enterprise, and we had better do something about it! Let me explain…

In the past, systems engineering relied on written specifications and/or drawings which were easy to share and understand but which, inadvertently, were relegated to the shelf once the subsequent key design decisions were made. The product then continued to evolve through detailed design, manufacturing and deployment (maintenance). Traceability between the product in the field and the original systems designs was lost or, more accurately, was never established.

Today, SEs are expected to manage complex systems that often extend beyond a single person’s ability to understand. These systems can no longer be managed by disconnected pieces of paper. In response, the systems engineering environment has evolved to Model Based Systems Engineering (MBSE), where paper is replaced with a digital model. Every detail of that model is digitally traceable to every detail of the product design, manufacture, and maintenance. In turn, that traceability is transforming the role of systems engineering from the original hand-off environment to one where SEs and the system model literally participate in all aspects of the product design and lifecycle. But what does that broader SE’s participation and system model traceability mean exactly?

MBSE traceability gap

To start with, MBSE methodology is implemented via sophisticated modeling languages like SysML. SysML allows SEs to capture incredibly complex system models. These include detailed definitions of requirements, system functions, logical breakdown of the architecture, and an encapsulation of the target physical implementations. It also captures state machines, user activities, system behaviors, control and data flows, interfaces, etc. You get the idea. The resulting model is complex and all encompassing. That’s great for managing complexity on an abstract level (without detailed MCAD, ECAD, or software implementations), but is challenging in terms of exposing what is in the model to the rest of the organization.

To help others understand details of a system model, SEs are forced to generate simplified views of the model for the mechanical, electronic, electrical, and software engineering teams that are responsible for detailed implementation of the system. These views contain partial information extracted from the model: a list of requirements, a table of parameters, and a set of “hard copy” diagrams. That’s great for reducing abstraction of the system model, but it results in a gap between the system model that the SE sees and what the design teams see. The gap keeps both sides in the dark regarding changes implemented by either side since the system model and the detailed designs evolve constantly. So, how can we bridge the traceability gap between MBSE and the detailed MCAD, ECAD and software designs?

Traceability without any gaps is critical because as Aras’ CEO, Peter Schroer, likes to say, “it is all about keeping CEOs out of jail.” Imagine a catastrophic failure of a car breaking system—clearly a life-threatening situation. The immediate task is determining whether the failure is specific to that car model, a family of car models, or a platform of components regardless of the car model. It will be very difficult to do so without being able to trace back all the decisions and relationships that influenced creation of that specific configuration—a Digital Twin that is specific to that VIN. What’s in the vehicle you drive and how it behaves is unique because it is a super-set of how it was designed, where it was manufactured, what options were added by the dealer, how it was driven, and all the maintenance done to it since leaving the dealership (including over-the-air software updates). This has a lot to do with enabling the related Digital Thread which, in turn, facilitates virtual assembly of a Digital Twin. In other words, a Digital Twin (of a specific VIN) does not exist until: 1) a car has been built, and 2) Digital Twin was traversed for that VIN.

And that brings us right back to the gap previously discussed:

Bridging the gap between MBSE-generated data and the rest of design teams
Enabling SEs to interact more effectively with the domain-specific design teams
Maintaining a true Digital Thread between all design artifacts, abstractions, and requirements
Providing effective configuration control and change practices across the entire design and product lifecycle

But wait – does this not sound like the original premise of the PLM platforms?

The need for systems engineering within a PLM platform

Let’s be bold and re-imagine the role of PLM platforms in enabling traceability – a complete Digital Thread. With design of complex, multi-disciplinary products, there needs to be a core around which all engineering domains communicate and stay in sync—a common “product” model and a common configuration service that spans all design disciplines. This includes access to the system model that connects MBSE tools with PLM at an appropriate level of granularity. It also includes implementation of a core RFLP representation for the various design disciplines—Requirements (R), Functions (F), Logical elements (L), and Physical elements (P) also at an appropriate level of granularity. Finally, the implementation must allow simplified views of the system model, as related to a specific problem, without having to extract partial data in stand-alone files or static diagrams. This is the essence of a credible traceability.

In addition to core RFLP representations, abstractions such as system model variability and Product Line Engineering (PLE) need to be considered across all phases of a product design. System model variation management (the 150% system that account for all possible variants vs multiple 100% resolved system variants) provides a means for accurate digital thread navigation between the final product and the original design assumptions. PLE manages the engineering of a portfolio of products, thus maximizing reuse, controlling variability, minimizing manufacturing cost, and maximizing manufacturing efficiency. Together they help maintain control of product line diversity across the full lifecycle managed by a PLM platform

MBSE tools will never incorporate all of the concepts of PLM just as PLE will never incorporate all aspects of system model variability. Likewise, PLM will never replace some of the deep functionality in MBSE tools. But, PLM can provide a common set of systems engineering elements including configuration and change management across the lifecycle with traceability, to enable “systems thinking” across the entire organization.

A properly re-imagined role of a PLM system is crucial to connecting the increasingly important roles of SEs to the rest of the design organization. Centrally positioned system models in PLM allow it to act as a connective tissue between the various domain specific disciplines. Together they bridge the existing MBSE gap in a way that is credible and scalable.

Aras Partner Program Changes Webinar [Recording]

Amanda Hougas — Tue, 30 Jul 2019 19:48:00 GMT

Aras Partner Program Changes Webinar: Changes, Improvements, and the Tier 100 Requirement

New Minimum Tier: 100

If you missed it live, you can now view the recording.

To better align with Aras’ 2019 strategic priorities, Aras has made changes and improvements to the Aras Partner Program. This includes raising the minimum Tier to 100.

During this webinar, Jay Pappas, VP of Global Alliances, and Andy Barlow, Partner Program Manager describe these changes and improvements.

Hear about the new partner structure, new channel sales requirements as well as new tools that support all partner business models. This webinar will also include Q&A.

*For partners using MyInnovator, it was updated to Version 12 on July 12th. This presentation describes the specific user interface changes. Watch the demonstration of the new user interface changes and share with subscribers if they have interest in upgrading.

Aras Partner Program Changes Webinar [Recording]

Amanda Hougas — Tue, 30 Jul 2019 14:12:00 GMT

Aras Partner Program Changes Webinar: Changes, Improvements, and the Tier 100 Requirement

New Minimum Tier: 100

If you missed it live, you can now view the recording.

Now Available: Aras Innovator 12.0 Demo Environment

Amanda Hougas — Fri, 26 Jul 2019 16:37:00 GMT

Now Available: Aras Innovator 12.0 Demo Environment

This demo consists of a single environment from which to demonstrate all the functionality of Aras Innovator and its various applications. It is a comprehensive and consistent data set, based on product development of a Makerbot Replicator 3D printer, with a realistic story around it. This version of the environment has been updated work with Innovator 12.0, and includes all applications excluding Requirements Engineering.

Installation of the Aras & Partner Demo Environment requires the newest version of the Aras Update utility, which is available here.

Version 12.0 – Updated July 25, 2019
Aras & Partner Demo Environment – 12.0 Demo Script (Standard Product Demo) (17 MB) - Download
Aras & Partner Demo Environment Installation Package (2.4 GB) - Download
Aras & Partner Demo Environment – 12.0 Installation Guide (233 KB) - Download

Aras Flow - 12.0 - Sideloading Installation Guide (1 MB) – Download

For more details on installing and configuring the Aras Partner Demo Environment, please see the Aras Partner Demo Environment – 12.0 Installation Guide.

In the meantime, if there are any issues installing the Aras Partner Demo Environment package, please contact Aras Labs at araslabs@aras.com. For sales questions and all other inquiries, please contact Jay Pappas at jpappas@aras.com.

Aras Innovator 11 Demo Environments

Amanda Hougas — Fri, 26 Jul 2019 14:27:00 GMT

For Aras Innovator 11 SP15

This demo consists of a single environment from which to demonstrate all of the functionality of Aras Innovator and its various applications. It is a comprehensive and consistent data set, based on product development of a Makerbot Replicator 3D printer, with a realistic story around it. Version 2.0 of the SP15 demo has been updated to include Requirements Engineering sample data.

Installation of the Aras & Partner Demo Environment requires the Aras Update utility, which is available here.

Version 11.0 SP15.1.0 - Updated December 20, 2018
Aras & Partner Demo Environment - 11 SP15 Demo Script (Standard Product Demo) (20 MB) - Download
Aras & Partner Demo Environment Installation Package (1.9 GB) - Download
Aras & Partner Demo Environment – 11 SP15 Installation Guide (1.4 MB) - Download
Aras Flow - 11 SP15 - Sideloading Installation Guide.pdf (923 KB) - Download

Version 11.0 SP15.2.0 – Updated June 13, 2019
Aras & Partner Demo Environment - 11 SP15 Demo Script (Standard Product Demo) (19 MB) - Download
Aras & Partner Demo Environment Installation Package (1.9 GB) - Download
Aras & Partner Demo Environment – 11 SP15 Installation Guide (1.4 MB) - Download

Aras Flow - 11 SP15 – Windows Store - Download

For Aras Innovator 11 SP12

This demo consists of a single environment from which to demonstrate all of the functionality of Aras Innovator and its various applications. It is a comprehensive and consistent data set, based on product development of a Makerbot Replicator 3D printer, with a realistic story around it. Installation of the Aras & Partner Demo Environment requires the Aras Update utility, which is available here.

Version 11.0 SP12.1.0 - Updated February 26th, 2018
Aras & Partner Demo Environment - 11 SP12 Demo Script (Standard Product Demo) (20 MB) - Download
Aras & Partner Demo Environment Installation Package (1.8 GB) - Download
Aras & Partner Demo Environment – 11 SP12 Installation Guide (2 MB) - Download
Aras Flow - 11 SP12 - Sideloading Installation Guide.pdf (840 KB) - Download

For Aras Innovator 11 SP11

This demo consists of a single environment from which to demonstrate all of the functionality of Aras Innovator and its various applications. It is a comprehensive and consistent data set, based on product development of a Makerbot Replicator 3D printer, with a realistic story around it. Installation of the Aras & Partner Demo Environment requires the Aras Update utility, which is available here.

Version 11.0 SP11.1.0 - Updated October 13th, 2017
Aras & Partner Demo Environment - 11 SP11 Demo Script (Standard Product Demo) (20 MB) - Download
Aras & Partner Demo Environment Installation Package (1.0 GB) - Download
Aras & Partner Demo Environment – 11 SP11 Installation Guide (3.5 MB) - Download

For Aras Innovator 11 SP9

This demo consists of a single environment from which to demonstrate all of the functionality of Aras Innovator and its various applications. It is a comprehensive and consistent data set, based on product development of a Makerbot Replicator 3D printer, with a realistic story around it. Installation of the Aras & Partner Demo Environment requires the Aras Update utility, which is available here.

Version 11.0 SP9.2.0 - Updated June 23rd, 2017
Aras & Partner Demo Environment - 11 SP9 Demo Script (Standard Product Demo) (20 MB) - Download
Aras & Partner Demo Environment Installation Package (1.0 GB) - Download
Aras & Partner Demo Environment – 11 SP9 Installation Guide (2.6 MB) - Download

For Aras Innovator 11 SP7

Version 11.0 SP7.1.0 - Updated August 24th, 2016
The Aras & Partner Demo Environment for Aras Innovator 11.0 SP7 is available to download from the Aras FTP site. For a demo environment built on the latest open release of Aras Innovator, please download the Aras & Partner Demo Environment for Aras Innovator 11.0 SP9.

For Aras Innovator 11 SP5

Version 11.0SP5.1.0 - Updated April 27th, 2016
The Aras & Partner Demo Environment for Aras Innovator 11.0 SP5 is available to download from the Aras FTP site. For a demo environment built on the latest open release of Aras Innovator, please download the Aras & Partner Demo Environment for Aras Innovator 11.0 SP9.

Save the Date: Aras Partner Program Changes Webinar

Amanda Hougas — Tue, 16 Jul 2019 14:58:00 GMT

Aras Partner Program Changes Webinar: Changes, Improvements, and the Tier 100 Requirement

Friday, July 19th, 2019 10:00 – 11:00 am ET

New Minimum Tier: 100

To better align with Aras’ 2019 strategic priorities, Aras has made changes and improvements to the Aras Partner Program. This includes raising the minimum Tier to 100.

Join Jay Pappas, VP of Global Alliances, and Andy Barlow, Partner Program Manager on Friday, July 19th, 2019 10:00 – 11:00 am ET as they describe those changes and improvements.

Hear about the new partner structure, new channel sales requirements as well as new tools that support all partner business models. This webinar will also include Q&A. Materials will be sent in advance of the webinar.

*For partners using MyInnovator, it was updated to Version 12 on Friday, July 12th. This presentation describes the specific user interface changes. Watch the demonstration of the new user interface changes and share with subscribers if they have interest in upgrading.

Partner Update Q2 2019

Amanda Hougas — Sun, 07 Jul 2019 20:57:00 GMT

Aras Innovator SP12 now Available!
Review our Press Release and additional resources here.

The release features significant usability updates to the Aras web interface enabling greater efficiency for users across the extended enterprise. Platform enhancements also include even more powerful low-code capabilities for application modeling, graph visualization and supply chain security.

Aras Innovator V12 Includes:

Interface Redesign
Powerful New Low-code Application Modeling Capabilities
Enhanced Supply Chain Security
Digital Thread Visualization

PRESS RELEASE AND MEDIA COVERAGE

Stay abreast of information Aras sends to subscribers by following Aras’s News and Press coverage. Visit the Aras News Page for Media Coverage, Analyst Reports, Media Resources, and Press Releases.

P.S. Don’t forget to read our Aras Monthly Newsletter and get updates on upcoming and past events, Aras in the News, Subscriber Info, Aras Labs, Training Opportunities, and more!
Check out the latest newsletters here.

FOR PARTNERS: The PARTNER Portal has a New Look!
There have been a few enhancements since you last logged on:

Most up-to-date marketing material
Aras Innovator demo environments
Access to training
Company announcements

FOR SUBSCRIBERS: The SUBSCRIBER Portal has a New Look!
Check out the updated subscriber portal! There have been a few enhancements since you last logged on:

A new look and feel
Access to past newsletters
Access to online learning
Enhanced support information

PARTNER PORTAL UPDATES
The Partner Program has been reorganized into three business models and certifications within each. This reorganization provides clarity, aligns partners with Aras’ business strategy, and helps Aras and Partners better meet customer needs. The Partner Team is also developing new account, renewal, and expansion requirements to maintain Partner certification. More details will follow end of Summer. You can expect a new Partner Handbook and a PowerPoint Overview Presentation as your guide.

SALES AND MARKETING MATERIAL
All Marketing materials are available for download in the Partner Portal under Documents and are available for use in your efforts to attract, engage, and educate prospects and subscribers. To locate these assets, please use the following SEARCH TERMS: MRO, Systems, Simulation, Digital Thread

	MRO Campaign MRO eBook - How Third-Party MROs Can Compete in the Age of Aviation Product Complexity MRO Infographic - Are 3rd Party MROs Out of Runway? MRO Brochure - Aras Impresa MRO for Aviation Maintenance
	Systems Campaign Systems eBook - A Systems-Centric Approach for Modern Product Development 5 Concepts for Engineering Leaders Systems Infographic - 5 reasons you need to bring Systems Engineering mainstream
	Simulation Campaign Simulation eBook - A Guide to Simulation for Innovation
	Digital Thread Campaign Digital Thread ebook - How Most Companies are Getting it Wrong with Digital Transformation Digital Thread eBook - A Blueprint for Digital Transformation Digital Thread eBook - The Case for Digital Thread in Industrial Manufacturing Digital Thread Infographic - Don't Get Trapped in the Chasm Digital Thread Executive Summary - Why Your Digital Transformation Projects are Not Living Up to Their Potential

New Partner Introductions
Aras welcomes the following partners to the Partner Community. Feel free to connect with these partners if their solutions or services fit your clients’ needs.

Partner	Type	Region	Certification Status
SAKURA INNOVATION	Services	Japan	Systems Integrator
AutoTechmation Inc	Services	Canada, US, India	Systems Integrator
Acuity Solutions	Solutions	US, Europe, Japan China, Canada, India	ISV
C S Group	Services	Canada, France, Germany	Systems Integrator
Synopsys	Solutions	Asia Pacific, Europe North America	Technology
NTT DATA ENGINEERING SYSTEMS CORPORATION	Services	Japan	Systems Integrator
Intercax, LLC	Solutions	Europe, Japan, US	ISV
Modelon Inc	Solutions	Europe, Japan, North America, China, India, Korea	Technology

Making New Stuff With New Stuff

Verl McQueen — Wed, 26 Jun 2019 14:00:00 GMT

We are using different, and interesting new stuff to build stuff. Labs have developed solar cells using nanoparticle inks to cover the substrate, there is a never-ending search for new battery materials. Storing data in glass, combine shrimp shells with a spider silk protein and you get “shrilk” a tough, biodegradable replacement for plastics, and aerogels that can be used as high-performance insulation and high-end sports clothing—all happening now, or soon. Thermoelectric materials such as skutterudite may someday harvest excess heat from our stuff and create electricity.

The thinnest material made to date, graphene, is only one atom thick, yet is 200 times stronger than steel―flexible, stretchable, self-healing, transparent, more conductive than copper, and even super-conductive. Imagine the stuff to be made! Some possibilities include filtering sea water to make fresh water or capturing CO2 before it gets into the atmosphere to help alleviate climate change. Because of its strength and conductivity, replacing body parts like bones, organs, and nerves may be possible. Or it could be used for the early detection of toxins, viruses, or diseases. By adding graphene to traditional materials such as aluminum and steel, it could be used in the creation of stronger and lighter materials.

But, scaling these advances in technology to a manufacturing level is a challenge today and a potential problem tomorrow.

On the other hand, there are certain entities making new stuff that directly affect your ability to make new stuff. The Federal Register, the government’s regulatory bible, has almost 96,000 pages. Total pages in the Code of Federal Regulations is more than 180 thousand. Although hard to pin down exactly, the burdened cost of regulations in one study was put at $1.9 trillion in 2016 or $15,000 per household. Major rules are defined by The Congressional Review Act as ones that have resulted in, or are likely to result in, an annual effect on the economy of $100 million or more. In 2016 there were close to 130 of these new rules published. The cost of non-compliance is high. Non-compliance costs come from the expenses associated with business disruption, productivity losses, fines, penalties, and settlement costs, among others. Your business has at least a handful, and more likely, a chapter or two of these pages that you need to pay attention to or be fined or worse. And while you as a maker of stuff, certainly must pay homage to more than a few, your management certainly cares as they must sign their own names certifying compliance.

As outlined in previous blogs in this series the ability to make new stuff Need Not Be This Hard, requires New Tools to stay ahead of the competition, incorporate new materials and processes, and avoid regulatory non-compliance.

There are better ways and better tools to make new stuff. Identifying requirements expressing the viewpoint, goals, needs, and objectives of the final product, as expressed by various stakeholders—such as customers, business, technologists, and regulatory agencies that oversee that market space—is the essential first step in making stuff with new stuff. It is an iterative process conducted throughout the product lifecycle. With the ubiquity of electronics, sensors, software, connectivity, variability, omnipresent regulations, and the promise and challenge of new materials and methods, the need for a formal, structured requirements management platform is essential.

One such new tool is the Requirements Engineering (RE) application built on the Aras platform. One of the key strengths of RE is its ability to establish and maintain requirement relationships, internal and external to the PLM platform (Aras Innovator), through the open database and open API. Requirements can be related to multiple items, parts, and documents. Its deployment and use as an integral part of the PLM, leads to more timely meeting of design objectives, faster time to market, reduced product cost, less cross-discipline rework, lower risk of regulatory non-compliance, and more effective resolution of issues that arise during deployment.

Some of its key capabilities include:

Requirements are libraries of standalone reusable items
Requirements metadata includes customizable classifications and categories
Requirements Documents may group any set of requirements for a specific project or design
In Requirements Documents, requirements are arranged as chapters/sub-chapters
Requirements Documents provide two ways of viewing related requirements: MS Word like native document rendering, Excel like metadata tabulation
Requirements in the context of a requirements document are edited without explicit locking—edits are resolved on save
RE is integrated with the Visual Collaboration panel

New materials and processes may be a challenge but need not be scary. Capturing the initial requirements from all stakeholders and managing them throughout the product lifecycle, under the guidance of the Requirements Engineering application, allows your organization and business to innovate, while improving timeliness, cost control, and quality.

Now Available: Aras Innovator 12 SP1 Demo Environment

Amanda Hougas — Fri, 14 Jun 2019 19:17:00 GMT

**Reminder that these download links will only work if you’re already signed in to the partner portal.

Installation of the Aras & Partner Demo Environment requires the newest version of the Aras Update utility, which is available here.

Version 12 SP1 – Updated October 22, 2019
Aras & Partner Demo Environment – 12 SP1 Demo Script (Standard Product Demo) (18 MB) - Download
Aras & Partner Demo Environment Installation Package (2.5 GB) - Download
Aras & Partner Demo Environment – 12 SP1 Installation Guide (1 MB) - Download

Aras Partner Demo Environment - 12 SP1 Troubleshooting guide (54 KB) - Download

Aras Flow - 12 SP1 - Sideloading Installation Guide (1 MB) – Download

For more details on installing and configuring the Aras Partner Demo Environment, please see the Aras Partner Demo Environment – 12 SP1 Installation Guide.

In the meantime, if there are any issues installing the Aras Partner Demo Environment package, please contact Aras Labs at araslabs@aras.com. For sales questions and all other inquiries, please contact Jay Pappas at jpappas@aras.com.

Aras in the News: Aras Innovator 12 now Available and More!

Amanda Hougas — Wed, 12 Jun 2019 19:32:00 GMT

We thought you'd like to know, Aras has been busy lately. Please take a look at our most recent press releases. Access all releases Aras news and coverage here.

Aras announces:

The availability of Aras Innovator 12. The release features significant usability updates to the Aras web interface enabling greater efficiency, as well as platform enhancements that include even more powerful low-code capabilities for application modeling, graph visualization and supply chain security. Read the full release here. You can also share on Twitter and LinkedIn.
A strategic collaboration with Modelon, an industry leader in model-based systems engineering. This will enable customers to incorporate and utilize the globally-used, open standard systems modelling language, Modelica. Read the full release here. You can also share on Twitter and LinkedIn.
Presence at NAFEMS World Congress 2019 during the week of June 17^th. In addition to being an event sponsor, Aras gave 2 separate presentations that demonstrate our simulation capabilities. Find the details here. You can also share on Twitter and LinkedIn.
Availability of our Requirements Engineering application. Read the full press release here. You can also share on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Feel free to share with contacts that you think may be interested. For questions regarding Public Relations, please contact Kylie Reardon, Aras Public Relations Specialist at kreardon@aras.com.

New Stuff, Old Tools

Verl McQueen — Tue, 11 Jun 2019 14:23:00 GMT

My father served in WWII. He was part of the United States Army Air Force, specifically the 15^th Expeditionary Mobility Task Force stationed in the Mediterranean Theater of Operations. In other words, he was in the US Air Force before it was the Air Force, stationed in Tunisia and later in Italy. He was part of the repair depot with the mission to get damaged aircraft back up in the air and flying. Using spare parts, cannibalized parts from other aircraft, bailing wire and string, they got aircraft back in the air.

He safely returned from the war, married Mom, had a handful of baby boomers, including me. However, the order to get stuff repaired or built with spare parts, bailing wire, and string, was seemingly never countermanded. Washers and dryers were repaired with spare parts. The family sedan was involved in an accident. Cannibalizing from the junk yard soon resulted in a newish car.

Dad was a stereotypical Scotsman, cheap, stingy, or frugal, choose your adjective—he had a limited set of tools. Buying new tools, or appropriate tools for a specific project, apparently was never in the budget. Dad did most of his damage with a couple of screwdrivers, a hammer, a hand saw, a drill, and a motley assortment of wrenches.

Which gets us to the point of all this—let’s countermand the order to create requirements in standalone, old-fashioned authoring tools such as Word or Excel. New order—all requirements should be authored, related, and traced in a specific Requirements Management (RM) application, built on a flexible, scalable, and upgradeable PLM Platform.

All too often we use the tools we are most comfortable with, the tool that seems to fit our hand best, like our screwdriver with the worn wooden handle. We’re talking about the old standbys of Word and Excel. And in some cases, a standalone RM system, outside of the PLM system. Again, you need to create your requirements in a system like Requirements Engineering, where requirements can be bi-directionally traced between individual requirements and various design artifacts across all design domains and their lifecycles (system, mechanical, electrical, software, and documentation).

You have created Marketing Requirements Documents (MRDs), Business Requirements Documents (BRDs), Functional Specifications, and System Requirements Specifications (SRSs). You have authored them in silos and jealously guard them as your “single source of truth,” while sending them via email to various stakeholders for further input and approval outside of any formal process, keeping track of who you have contacted, which have reviewed, and who has signed off—within that monolithic Excel file. Then something changes, and if you are an Agile house, things are changing often and quickly. Whose single source of truth needs to be changed and what else has been affected by the change? How are changes propagated throughout the various documents? Or, how are the changes propagated into and out of the standalone RM system outside of the PLM ecosystem?

Do you ever wonder where that requirement that you wrote for another project can be found now? It was written for a project a couple of years ago and would be perfect to use again—if only it could be found. Which project was it and where is the document now?

Aras Requirements Engineering allows you to express requirements content in various forms―text, reusable content structures (ex: paragraphs, graphics, tables, etc.), and shareable parameters. It also has distinct advantages over traditional non-PLM centric tools stemming from the configuration management functionality of the Aras PLM platform, which include:

Versioning (engineering V curve)
Verification (engineering V curve)
Traceability between requirements
Traceability from/to requirements and items such as parts, assemblies, external links, multimedia, etc.
Impact Analysis (on the non-requirement items)
Collaboration (configuration controlled)
Change Management, Workflow, Lifecycle

Requirements Engineering enables traceability within the context of the PLM digital thread. The Data Model approach of RE not only enables defining, managing, and maintaining requirements across the product lifecycle, but also allows capturing and managing the relationships between the requirements. A data model approach supports traceability across an organization’s application eco-system, connecting requirements from multi-sources: text, structured data, parameters, and models; providing a competitive advantage in reducing product failures such as:

excessive product cost
lost time to market
products shipped without meeting all requirements
excessive time in tracing requirements
challenges in meeting regulatory or product quality

Requirements Engineering from Aras can help you with a modern tool that enables:

faster time to market with less rework
reduction in legacy systems technical debt
creation and leveraging of a digital thread though Concept Development, Technical Development, Requirements Development, Specifications, Analysis & Design, Fabrication, Testing, Verification, Validation, and Operations/Support
timely and accurate compliance reporting

Let’s start today, and look outside of our old tool box, full of inefficient tools. Let’s stop creating static, one-off, siloed documents that are resistant to change, reuse, and are untraceable. Instead let’s use a modern tool, Aras’ Requirements Engineering, built on a flexible, scalable, and upgradeable PLM Platform.

Don’t Be a Dinosaur

Mark Reisig — Thu, 23 May 2019 17:00:00 GMT

Last week, I read an interesting article on Engineering.com by Verdi Ogewell entitled, Telecom Giant Ericsson Halts Its PLM Project with Dassault’s 3DEXPERIENCE.

It reminded me of a quote from science fiction author, Larry Niven: “The dinosaurs became extinct because they didn’t have a space program.” In other words, prepare to adapt or suffer the consequences.

The article covers many great points. A few in particular, piqued my interest:

Off With Their Heads

Verdi starts with a quote— “The revolution devours its own children”—from Georges Jacques Danton, an early French Revolution leader, just before he was sent to the guillotine in 1794 by the same revolutionary tribunal he helped form. Verdi is referring to those at Ericsson who lost their jobs over a planned 14-month big bang PLM deployment that was halted after three years. What strikes me is that this is by no means the worst PLM deployment out there, at least in terms of the time involved.

I commend Verdi on his excellent investigative reporting, and anyone that follows him knows he has much more to his credit. But I would point out there are many more deserving CEOs and CIOs slowly killing their companies with bad deployments and not losing their heads. It’s interesting to me that, according to the article, Ericsson is going back to evaluate what went wrong and what their options are for fixing the problem. While this seems perfectly logical, the reaction I’ve typically seen is not to declare failure, but to keep throwing good money after bad, then perform the old ostrich maneuver of sticking your head in the sand to avoid reality. Actually, if this were true, the ostrich would suffocate, so that’s a myth. My advice is to keep your head up, and don’t lose it. Invest in what works.

The Ugly Migration

As best as Verdi could determine, Ericsson’s data migration became a nightmare. “The end result is a difficult-to-read mess,” which caused the system to be become “sluggish, inefficient and, in large parts, it does not work at all when items start pointing/linking in the wrong direction.”

Not exactly sure what is going on there, but they have 400-500 downstream systems and need to revert to using their mainframe, so it sounds like a good old-fashioned PLM deployment to me.

Enterprise PLM and ERP migrations were my life for several years, and those are years I’d like back. But seriously, the short version of migrations is that it’s like a three-legged stool. You have legacy data (possibly in several systems), you have the to-be source data, and you have other systems where some of the attributes are owned (typically downstream systems) that will have some of the same data—except due to poor master data management practices, the data doesn’t match, and then you typically have duplicate parts. It’s never as simple as going from point A to point B, and even after it’s done, it requires building federated integrations that can scale.

If you want to get something this complicated done, you’ll need flexibility in the to-be PLM platform as it will have to work with many other existing systems. This is in addition to all the people, process, and capability considerations―all of which are important.

I would offer this advice to anyone considering stepping up from legacy: You should own all aspects of your data. Never buy an enterprise system that does not have open APIs and an open schema and never pay for that right. When you have open access to your data, integrations, upgrades, and migrations become much less costly and risky.

A Solution not Fully Developed

“Another important weak spot that doesn’t make things easier is that Ericsson chose to invest in a solution, 3DX, which was not fully developed for product development in telecom. On the contrary, one of the basic concepts in the deal was that the companies would jointly develop this piece within the framework of the 3DX platform.”

First, there is no such thing as a fully developed PLM, and never will be because every business is unique and trying to differentiate themselves by being more unique. This is coupled with the fact that change continues to accelerate unabated and does so during and after the deployment. Unless you plan to stop shipping product, the ability to customize, upgrade, and integrate with other systems across the lifecycle continues indefinitely. This is business, and in a good one, there is no end.

Per the article, it came down to joint development on a platform, so the platform and company were critical.

A good practice is to develop and keep an updated heat map of all your applications/systems with all the integrations. In green, all of the applications that have or can be configured. In red, all of the areas that need to be or have been fully developed. And in yellow, those areas that just require(d) low-risk customization. Once you begin doing this, you will see it change every year. And you should because your vision should always slightly out-pace technology, but your PLM should be as close as possible to both. Additionally, I’d recommend “As-Is” and “To-Be” process maps, a plan around organization change management, the right cross-section of functional and IT team members. And let’s not forget dinner.

Choosing PLM Over Dinner

Verdi describes that the Dassault vision and roadmap played an important role in Ericsson’s decision. But there were other less technical reasons: "It didn't hurt either that our chairman of the board (it was Leif Johansson at this time) knows Bernard Charles well and that they have eaten several dinners together.”

I know this begs the question: does your next PLM go better with red or white wine?

I’m thinking if this is how you’re going to decide, go with something a lot stronger.

I might be out on a limb here, but when choosing an enterprise PLM solution, I’d keep my chairman at home and send the PLM team to dinner. It will be a lot less expensive. And if anyone asks how you like your PLM, answer “well done.” Sorry.

Double Vision and who Picks up the Tab

There is always an element of needing to partner with an enterprise software vendor to get what you need and potentially gain a competitive advantage. But to be a partner, you both need skin in the game, which, means to the company, don’t pay everything upfront in license costs. If you do, that shared vision begins to be a double vision—your vision and the software supplier’s next prospect’s vision. This is why I like the subscription model, because it forces the software company to focus on the customer.

And in the interest of transparency, the software company should display a public roadmap: Aras Roadmap.

The Dinosaur Space Program

Believing that all the PLM vendors have a sustainable platform to accomplish an ambitious industrial-grade solution is like backing the dinosaur-led space program. In case you don’t believe everything said at dinner, have the software vendor develop the application in front of you. I’d go a step further and watch the upgrade, but that’s just because I work for Aras and apparently like rubbing it in.

As an appetizer, here’s an even simpler test that I am borrowing from one company (true story): have 20 users find the same part in a couple of minutes. Too simple, right? Apparently not. And the cost to eliminate said vendors was low. You can do this over coffee.

The Big Bang

I’ve done both big bang and incremental approaches successfully. Verdi’s article does a good job articulating the pros and cons of incremental approach versus the big bang. In short, it’s less cost and higher risk for the big bang. Since I know your PLM universe needs to continue to expand so long as you’re shipping products, I’m in the incremental camp. You end up with better time to value, better total cost of ownership, and a sustainably improving product platform that will continue to yield hard benefits and make your company more competitive.

Need for a Platform, not a “buzzword”

In the end, Verdi concludes that “over time, Ericsson must invest in a ‘beyond PLM system,’ a functioning Product Innovation Platform, as defined by analysts Gartner Group and CIMdata.” He hit the nail on the head. Going back to my heat map—you’re always configuring, customizing, integrating, and upgrading. Therefore, the key is a sustainable, open, industrial platform that can integrate to other systems, develop applications, and customize applications. This is what IDC, Gartner, and CIMdata refer to as a Product Innovation Platform, described by CIMdata here.

Here is how Aras rates against that criteria according to CIMdata: CIMdata's Assessment of Aras Product Innovation Platform.

Don’t be a Dinosaur

Finally, don’t bet your future on a buzzword. Before making a huge PLM investment, take the time to make sure your PLM vendor has an actual platform. Have them show you their spider chart. And here’s the hard reality: they won’t do it, because they can’t.

Don’t be a dinosaur—be prepared for the unexpected with a truly resilient digital platform.

Is Your Platform Transformation-Ready? New Strategic Requirements for Digital Transformation

Jill Newberg — Wed, 15 May 2019 21:14:00 GMT

Platform technology can power, or hinder, a company’s digital transformation. Earlier this year, this was the subject of a webinar, Digital Transformation: Platform Implications, with CIMdata Vice President, Stan Przybylinski, and Aras Strategy SVP, Marc Lind.The two discussed new requirements for industrial platforms to enable Digital Transformation initiatives. So, what differentiates one platform from another? Is your enabling technology transformation-empowering, or transformation-impeding, and how can you tell the difference?

1 – The Pace of Change: Can Your Platform Adapt?

“Tomorrow’s digital processes don’t exist today.”

Technology is advancing rapidly, and disruptors emerge quickly. To compete or, better yet, to get ahead, companies must be able to adapt their product and business strategies quickly. Rigid platform technologies are antithetical to digital transformation because they require companies to “lock in” business processes, tool integrations, and teams. With these technologies, any variation from heavily prescribed, out-of-the-box processes requires coding expertise and customizations that may be impossible to upgrade. Improving on this locked-in custom code later, or even attempting to upgrade the system to take advantage of the vendor’s latest release, is costly, disruptive, and can be as resource-intensive as a full re-implementation.

Tomorrow’s product and business requirements are not yet well-defined and, in many cases, are unknown or emerging. This means that any out-of-the-box software that doesn’t accept customizations easily and upgrade anyway, is ill-equipped at worst, and a gamble at best, when it comes time to adapt to tomorrow’s business needs. Companies need a platform capable of sustaining digital transformation, not one that prevents changes later.

Quickly adapting to new customer needs, new business strategies, and new product technologies as they evolve, not just right now but well into the future, is a new requirement for both a business and its platform. To sustain digital transformation, companies require the option to customize platform functionality today, and introduce new customizations and new processes offered by the vendor, tomorrow: in other words, it must offer a rich set of out-of-the-box functionality that is specifically designed for flexibility, customization, and upgradability.

2 – The Shared Nature of Change: Does Your Platform Scale?

“You’ve got to have a platform that can scale as the business grows, as the complexity grows, and as the participants are increasing throughout the lifecycle.”

Like dominoes, one change to a product’s data or lifecycle processes affects many other stakeholders, processes, and datasets. The ability to handle large datasets, growing numbers of users, and diverse processes, while continuing to evolve, is another new platform requirement that will enable digital transformation.

Connecting to the new people, processes, and technologies that will drive a company’s new product and business strategies requires the platform to be capable of inserting new technologies, initiating new workflows among new stakeholders, and connecting to more teams across the extended enterprise. Is your platform locked into today’s requirements, or can you extend it to accommodate new, evolving requirements of the business?

Similarly, does your platform lock you into a single software vendor and their compatible offerings, or can you connect your current tools and technologies to the platform to support existing best-practices? The requirement to “rip and replace” technology to accommodate a single vendor is an impossible ask. Prescribing the use of one vendor’s tools can grind business to a halt with re-training and new infrastructure needs. In today’s heterogeneous technology ecosystems, experts will, more likely than not, need tools from another vendor anyway, requiring them to work around the platform’s limitations and break the digital thread of product data and traceability. Changing your technology and processes to accommodate a single vendor’s limited processes and offerings amounts to the tail wagging the dog - especially when your expertise and your IP has made you, not them, successful in your industry thus far.

Platforms to enable digital transformation must be specifically designed to connect to new tools, experts, and processes in a vendor-agnostic way so that companies can continue to add innovative offerings from new and emerging providers. The ability to choose from among the best new technologies as they emerge, not just the ones offered by a single vendor, is critical to maintaining a competitive edge.

3 – The Interconnectedness of Change: Is Your Platform Open?

“You need to connect to all aspects of your business to be able to make that transformation.”

Platform technology has evolved from simply enabling product innovation, to powering business innovation, to advancing supply chain and industry innovation. This means it must be able to connect with other systems throughout the enterprise and across the value chain. To enable co-design scenarios for collaborative product development, and for lifecycle processes including manufacture and maintenance, the platform must support security and collaboration for many users from both internal teams and external partners across many different types of data.

Valuable data to support products, services, and business strategies comes from multiple domains. Can your platform assimilate a new domain into its data model—and can it interoperate across the supply chain? Does it understand data and processes across new domains like manufacturing, simulation, MRO, systems engineering, and beyond? Can your teams access and customize the data model, in a low-code/no code way that’s easily accessible and intuitive, or with coding if they so choose, and still be able to upgrade the platform?

The data model must be expansive, customizable, and continually expandable as the types of information it must connect to are expanding, as well. The architecture and data model must be dynamic, because, like your business, they are now subject to change. With traditional platforms, integrations can be very difficult to upgrade. But with an open data model available for connectivity to other tools and systems through completely open APIs, companies truly own their data model, change it whenever and however they need to, and can access their data freely.

Companies need open access to their own IP, along with the ability to change not only the data itself but the platform it resides on, including the related metadata generated by the platform. This is critical not only for today but for future machine-learning scenarios. Without access to the data model at every level, to ensure its accuracy, the opportunities for misinterpretations and misdirected analyses goes up. Machine learning algorithms need complete access to accurate data to train them, and they won’t work without this open data access in the future.

Conclusion: The Only Constant Is Change.

“With a lot of other solutions, the solution sort of ossifies. You evolve to a certain point in time, but then it gets to be very difficult to make those changes that you need to adapt.”

For rigid technologies, changes to hardwired, OOTB features, even if they are improvements needed by the company—even if they are improvements offered by the vendor—become impossible to make. Let that sink in: improvements become impossible to make.

If you can’t change, update, improve, and make a platform technology work for your teams, your products, and your processes, that technology is currently hindering your company’s ability to transform. Is it even a platform at that point, or just another siloed tool? Companies embarking on digital transformation can’t risk their future, unknown business strategies—and the future, emerging needs of their customers—on technology they can’t change.

ACE 2019 Partner Session Follow-up

Amanda Hougas — Mon, 06 May 2019 13:40:00 GMT

Thanks for joining us at ACE 2019! It was another great event for the Aras Community.

On Monday of ACE, we held our annual ACE 2019 Partner Session where we discussed business and customer success goals, company updates, and partner enablement. We also received valuable feedback that will help the Aras Partner team provide you the best support possible to build your business.

Please see Slides - ACE 2019 Partner Session Presentations in the Partner Portal under Documents to find all Partner Presentations merged into a single pdf.

Here are the key takeaways from the ACE 2019 Partner Session:

Focus on Annual Reoccurring Revenue (ARR), Retention, Expansion and manage CHURN
Aras 2019 goal is continued 50+% annual growth
Increased Customer Satisfaction reflected by Retention and Expansion
Partners have increased responsibility for new lead generation
Partners success is measured with accounts in the 100’s à 1000’s of users
Partner Certification requirements will be updated in the coming weeks
Partner Quarterly Reviews will be scheduled in the coming weeks
Aras Partner Portal is being updated. Provide feedback to help us improve this communication tool.

If you need help with your Aras marketing programs please reach out to Mandy Hougas ahougas@aras.com as she is responsible for Aras Partner Marketing.

Any questions/comments on ACE 2019 or the ACE Partner Session please let me know. - Jay Pappas

Here are a few candids for you all to enjoy!