Suppliers of product life-cycle management software are
making their tools easier to deploy and use as interest in the
technology grows among small and midsize enterprises.
For example, Microsoft and Dassault have announced a five-year
partnership which will see Dassault's 3D SolidWorks products and
product life-cycle managers such as Catia, Delmia and Enovia
integrated with Microsoft's SQL Server, BizTalk Server, SharePoint
Portal server software and .net products.
John Squire, vice-president of marketing at Dassault, said
integration would allow the easier creation, editing and sharing of
product-related information and 3D drawings between Microsoft and
Dassault environments.
Don Brown, managing partner at Collaborative Product Development
Associates, said such interoperability was crucial to spurring
adoption of product life-cycle management software among small and
midsize manufacturing companies, which tend to be
Microsoft-centric.
Last month Parametric Technology also disclosed plans to use an
IBM on-demand centre to deliver a hosted service for small and
midsize businesses. The service allows subscribers to use
Parametric's Windchill software.
Likewise, Agile Software has offered a hosted service and
prepackaged suite for smaller businesses, and MatrixOne has
announced the integration of its product life-cycle management
suite with Microsoft's Office.
John Moore, an analyst at ARC Advisory Group, said such moves
came at a time when the adoption of product life-cycle management
technologies - traditionally used only by very large companies -
appeared to be gaining attention among smaller manufacturers.
According to a recent report by AMR Research, companies with
annual revenue of less than $1bn (£515m) will invest more than $5bn
on product life-cycle management technologies by 2008 in an effort
to gain more control over their product information.
"Suppliers are starting to realise the market potential of small
and medium businesses," said Stephen Segal, chief information
officer at window manufacturer Loewen. "We are seeing tier 1
suppliers repackaging and offering high-end tools developed for
complex markets."
Loewen is deploying Dassault's technology to its engineering and
design groups. Eventually, the company plans to use product
life-cycle management to expose product information to sales and
marketing groups as well as customers. "We couldn't even look at
product life-cycle management two or three years ago" because of
its complexity and costs, Segal said.
And cardiovascular equipment maker EV3 is taking advantage of
MatrixOne's industry-specific packages to manage product
development information through its entire life-cycle. MatrixOne's
support of functions and processes specific to the medical device
market, including templates for complying with US Food and Drug
Administration and European Union requirements, made the technology
relatively simple to deploy, said chief information officer Pete
Schaubach.
Jaikumar Vijayan writes for Computerworld