Burlington, MA August 27, 2002 Enigma this week released the latest version of its solution for the support chain, offering a complete rewrite of its flagship 3C Platform with a native Web architecture and automated production and deployment workflow, and promising reduced cost of ownership and increased productivity over previous versions.
Enigma's 3C Platform allows original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to bundle all the necessary maintenance information for a particular component or piece of equipment into a single application, which they can provide to their operator customers. The 3C system enables service staff to search electronic databases for necessary maintenance information, including through wireless devices, rather than having to wade through multiple paper manuals, bulletins and catalogs.
The provider said 3C Version 8 is going to allow manufacturers, service partners and operators of complex capital equipment to improve the efficiency of support operations, increase equipment utilization and enhance aftermarket revenue.
Built on an open, Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) architecture, 3C Version 8 is designed to integrate the service and support organizations with all other departments in a company, helping the mechanics, technicians and engineers who repair complex capital equipment to become more efficient by delivering instantaneous access to accurate technical information, dynamic visibility into inventory levels and collaboration around best practices, according to Enigma.
With the new 3C, end users can incorporate best practices within the product information and share this knowledge with other mechanics and the OEM. Version 8 allows the OEM to dynamically update previously deployed product information with maintenance revisions and service bulletins and to reach out and receive feedback from their customers. The latest version also lets OEMs provide their customers and service partners with personalized support and point-and-click access to the parts and procedures needed to move a piece of equipment out of the maintenance depot and back into action.
Commenting on the new release, Marc McCluskey, research director at technology consultancy AMR Research, said Version 8 makes the deployment and management of product and service information easier to achieve across a global or local business than the previous version. "Users will be able to collaborate more effectively on information development and updating to keep the business current," McCluskey said. "Customers should see a reduced total cost of ownership with the adoption of the new platform due to the flexibility and scalability of the product design."
Enigma asserted that the flexibility of the solution's n-tier architecture, combined with the J2EE standards-based environment, ensures that companies can incorporate Version 8 into their existing business processes and workflows, such as enterprise resource planning (ERP), product lifecycle management (PLM), customer relationship management (CRM) and content management systems (CMS).
Version 8 can deliver support information through multiple devices including Web, wireless, CD-ROM/DVD and paper. The solution's J2EE and XML-based architecture allows companies to present and optimize information for each of these environments, helping organizations avoid the cost of supporting multiple delivery formats.
"The Enigma 3C Platform is the only software solution available today designed to increase aftermarket profits and customer loyalty by automating and improving the flow of mission critical information to the service technicians in the repair bay," said Jonathan Yaron, CEO of Enigma. "By using Version 8 for their support chain OEMs, operators and their service partners can improve their bottom line with less time spent repairing and maintaining equipment and more time spent with that equipment in production."
For more information on solutions for the service and support chain, see "In the Field and All Grown Up," the Net Best Thing column in the June/July 2002 of iSource Business. http://www.isourceonline.com/article.asp?article_id=2692
