Managing Automation - October 2008 - (Page 31)

[ SPECIAL REPORT ] fice in October 2007 — was the turning point for many employees who had been struggling to understand the intent of the acquisition and the future of Siemens PLM Software. GETTING BUY-IN When Huber called the UGS team into a huddle at the Cypress headquarters last fall, the concept of unifying product and production lifecycles was foreign to the majority of people attending the meeting. Nevertheless, Huber had each manager make a presentation, using the town meeting as a platform for exchanging ideas. Still, many employees couldn’t The company sees Archimedes as much more than a roadmap for future products. — Helmuth Ludwig, Siemens grasp the big-picture vision. “You could feel the stress in the room,” Huber recalls. He, too, felt the stress at times. “There was a lot of nervousness buying this company at this price,” Huber recalls. “It was a stressful time, but we had time to talk about it [and sort things out,] from the integration strategy to the management team.” He used the meeting in Cypress to lay it all out on the table. Slowly, he says, people began to understand. “There was a lot of regular communication with the purpose of educating, because people were still trying to piece things together,” Carrelli says. “There was no single light bulb moment. The light bulbs went off at different times depending upon who you were and where you were in the organization with the different product directions of the company being unveiled.” The good news is the vision caught on, at least internally. “They started to talk about the future where manufacturers would be able to develop personalized products at the same scale, in terms of cost and availability, that mass-produced products could provide,” Carrelli says. “It’s the idea of mass customization.” At the heart of making this all happen was Project Archimedes. Indeed, the company sees Archimedes as much more than a roadmap for future products. “It’s bringing two worlds together; that’s what Archimedes is about,” Ludwig says. “It is focused on technology, the need for a long-term project, and collaboration across different business units to synchronize development plans.” The first-generation Archimedes-enabled products are expected to roll out before the end of this year, officials say, starting with the integration of CAM and CNC to get a precise view of what the CAM operation is doing relative to the specific controller or machine tool. A second development will be geared to Teamcenter for the CPG industry integrated with SIMATIC IT, Siemens’ MES product. The delivery of these first digital factory products will be an important milestone. But Siemens still has a lot of convincing to do with customers. “We are not seeing a huge uptick of the digital factor y,” says Manufacturing Insights’ Barkai. “The idea of virtual commissioning is a good idea, and it’s making progress, but slowly. It looks exciting in theory, but how do you take a great concept from PowerPoint down to the shop floor?” “It is an area of high interest, but a lot of people are still in the experimentation phase,” says Joe Kann, vice president of global business development at Rockwell Automation. “In general, we see people in the ‘we are interested stage’ and not in the ‘we are spending money in this area’ stage.” Perhaps they don’t understand the big picture just yet. “People look at the grand visions that exist in this area and try to match it up against the realities of the environment and the complexities of the real environment and they are hesitant because it’s impossible for them to stop their business model and hit a restart button,” Kann says, referring to the vision Siemens has outlined. “We see things differently than Siemens does,” Kann says. “It is a more complicated world than perhaps the way I’ve seen Siemens describing it.” To that end, manufacturers need flexibility more than anymanagingautomation.com thing else, he says. Given that insight — albeit from a RELATED ARTICLES: competitor — it’s interesting to take a Siemens Startles Industry with UGS Acquisition step back and measure the success www.managingautomation.com/dailynews7 of the Siemens acquisition of UGS, Siemens Closes Acquisition of UGS which will result in a tightly integrated www.managingautomation.com/siemensugs PLM-to-production solution. Is the Enterprise PLM: Will More Integration Siemens acquisition of UGS working? Offer a Cure? As an integrated organization, the www.managingautomation.com/plm8 answer appears to be yes. From a PLM sales perspective, Teamcenter COMPANIES MENTIONED: revenue was up 15% a year after the Dassault Systems www.managingautomation.com/dassault acquisition closed, and Tecnomatix license revenue was up 28%. But as Rockwell Automation www.managingautomation.com/rockwell3 far as Siemens PLM Software’s being the de facto standard for the digSiemens www.managingautomation.com/siemens ital factory of the future, well, the jury is still out. s maonline Photo courtesy: Siemens 31 October 2008 http://www.managingautomation.com http://www.managingautomation.com/dailynews7 http://www.managingautomation.com/siemensugs http://www.managingautomation.com/plm8 http://www.managingautomation.com/dassault http://www.managingautomation.com/rockwell3 http://www.managingautomation.com/siemens

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Managing Automation - October 2008

Managing Automation - October 2008 Contents Take 1 Systems Integration Market Braces for a Wave of Consolidation Kinaxis Launches Program to Lure i2 Customers Patent May Give Mobility a Needed Shot in the Arm New Group Aims at More Efficient Smart Devices Solar, Life Sciences Will Be the Next Frontier For Robots Notes Cover Story:�2009 Companies to Watch Special Report:�Siemens plus UGS: Is the Merger Working? Transformation:�Driving Energy Efficiency Integration: How Clean is Your Data Industries:�Fed Raises Red Flag on Chemicals Product Scan Advertiser Index Next

Managing Automation - October 2008

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