Manufacturer adopts Sopheon's Accolade as foundation for innovation management processes
Minneapolis and London — March 7, 2006 — Greene, Tweed, a global manufacturer of high-performance seals and engineered components, said it has chosen to adopt Sopheon's product life cycle management (PLM) process and product portfolio management solution.
Sopheon's Accolade system will serve as the backbone application for Greene, Tweed's enhancement of its methodologies for achieving product innovation. The enterprise-wide deployment of the software encompasses company locations in the United States, Asia and Europe.
Founded more than 140 years ago, Greene, Tweed produces customized solutions ranging from plastic, composite and sealing components to fiber optic connectors. For instance, in 1964 Greene, Tweed developed the G-T Ring piston seal for F-4 Phantom fighter jets. The solution remains a core part of aerospace landing gears. Ninety percent of today's commercial and military aircraft contain components developed and manufactured by the company. Greene, Tweed's products are also used in the medical, biotechnology, petroleum, fluid handling and semiconductor industries.
Throughout its history, Greene, Tweed has relied upon continuous innovation for its business success. Greene, Tweed's recent adoption of Accolade is aimed at ensuring successful execution of its newly implemented staged development process. The Sopheon system automates this new process, integrating it into the work environment and daily activities of product teams and executive decision-makers.
Greene, Tweed selected Accolade over alternative solutions because of its ease-of-use and its capacity to make critical data transparent to decision makers. The system is also simple to reconfigure, an advantage that Greene, Tweed said has allowed it to act on its own to create a customized process with supporting tools and components.
We are committed to a structured new product development methodology, said Michael Glessner, vice president and general manager of Business and Technology Incubator at Greene, Tweed. Accolade has made that methodology part of the core operating fabric of our company and provided a solid foundation for our innovation efforts. The flexibility of that foundation has allowed us to build on it, fine tuning information views and process deliverables while implementing other enhancements that continue to expand the value of the system. Accolade will serve as our platform for innovation.
Product life cycle management is a dynamic process, explained Andy Michuda, CEO of Sopheon. To be effective, it must mirror the evolution of a company's business. Trying to support product life cycle management with a static software solution is an open invitation to process failure. Greene, Tweed understands the value of PLM software that allows them to alter their process to match changing business and organizational demands. They exemplify the good things that happen when a client assumes ownership for Accolade and, without the need for assistance from Sopheon's customer-service organization, takes advantage of the software's advanced configuration capabilities. This kind of implementation independence is something we aim for with our clients. It puts them in a position to act quickly and cost-effectively whenever they need to adjust their process to ensure its viability and optimize its business impact.
Additional Articles of Interest
- — For more information on mid-market companies using product lifecycle management solutions to gain competitive advantage, see "Stuck in the Middle" in the April/May 2004 issue of Supply & Demand Chain Executive.
