OpenPLM connects to multiple data sources; integration time reduced to days
San Jose, CA — October 4, 2005 — Centric Software, Inc., a provider of OpenPLM (product lifecycle management) for the extended enterprise, today introduced a new suite of solutions designed to assist in bringing more products to market more quickly, driving top line revenue growth while reducing costs.
Centric's OpenPLM offers connectivity to multiple Microsoft certified application developer (MCAD), electronic design automation (EDA), computer-aided engineering (CAE), product data management (PDM), enterprise resource planning (ERP), supply chain management (SCM) and document management systems. Such connectivity, according to Centric, provides distributed product and project teams with automatic extraction and aggregation of real-time product and operational data for more informed decision making. Further, the company said the openness of the connectivity in OpenPLM solutions reduces the deployment of a PLM solution to days, rather than months.
Centric Software's OpenPLM solutions address the areas of innovation management, new product development and new product introduction, collaborative outsourcing, concept validation, Six Sigma and design-build.
"Leading manufacturers point to successful product launches as critical to their market and revenue growth strategy, yet barely one-third feel this process is under control, listing myriad reasons why product launches fail, stated Mike Burkett, research director at AMR Research in the Alert, "The CIO's Guide to the PERFECT Product Launch," June 2005. The challenge is that product launch is a cross-functional business process that requires seamless execution across groups responsible for defining market demand, designing new products, and supplying and servicing customers."
Chris Groves, CEO at Centric Software, commented that to successfully bring new products to market and programs to completion, companies should collaborate with globally dispersed cross-functional teams, accelerating products and programs from ideation to realization. "Success depends on immediate visibility into the right information at the right time for informed decision making and accelerated program execution, he said. Our OpenPLM solutions mine and merge data from multiple systems, and interpret and present the data in a configurable end-user forum that provides achievement of these operational benefits."
Groves said that customers in the automotive, aerospace, consumer packaged goods, fashion, life sciences and architecture/engineering/construction industries are already using the OpenPLM solutions.
Coleman, a manufacturer of outdoor equipment and camping gear, has implemented OpenPLM to improve its gated product development process by enabling collaboration among its distributed employees and global suppliers.
Also, Siemens Transportation Systems (TS) creates complete cross-functional product definitions and system-level simulations with Centric, for the first time validating total product functionality during the crucial concept phase of railway car manufacturing.
