Siemens PLM Software, one of the leaders in the full-scale PLM space with its Teamcenter offering, just announced a new product called Insight XT, which builds on the capabilities of Insight, a free data management add-on for its Solid Edge CAD platform. Due to ship in August, the platform promises additional data management functionality for users working with Solid Edge CAD files, including easy vaulting and retrieval of those CAD files and related design data, along with new capabilities related to projects, tasks, and change management.
Like its predecessor, Insight XT is based on Microsoft SharePoint, a collaboration platform used extensively in the corporate enterprise (not just in engineering groups) and with which Siemens has been working for more than 10 years. With the Insight XT release, Siemens is delivering new part, product, and project structures that are required by engineering and manufacturing organizations, but aren't readily available in standard SharePoint document libraries, according to Siemens officials.
With Insight XT, designers and non-CAD users can collect relevant data and attach them to an Engineering Change Request (ECR), and multiple ECRs can be rolled into an Engineering Change Order (ECO) to help organize a series of changes. (Source: Siemens PLM Software)
Karsten Newbury, Siemens' vice president of mainstream engineering, said in a press release:
The volume of associated design data continues to expand, and mainstream manufacturers are under great pressure to affordably manage this increasing data and often struggle with the complexities of data management solutions. XT... helps increase efficiency and allows mainstream manufacturers to have full control of their data and intellectual property.
The software's new visual approach to displaying data relationships and associated tasks will enable users to quickly understand the impact of proposed design changes, officials said. However, for companies requiring multi-CAD capabilities and engineering process data management, Siemens executives said Teamcenter and potentially Teamcenter Express remain more fully functional PLM options.
Insight XT can manage any type of electronic file, so for example a manufacturing organization that has a lot of legacy 2D CAD data can manage these files alongside 3D Solid Edge models using our "multi-document" part structures. We also render Solid Edge CAD models into the lightweight JT format for visualization and wider collaboration.
With this first release of Insight XT we are not supporting direct integration with multiple CAD systems though - just with Solid Edge. We would propose that organizations with a requirement for mutli-CAD data management investigate our Teamcenter Express solution.
Thanks for wading in, David. Just to clarify, so unlike other PLM or new-style data management collaboration platforms, Insight XT is specifically meant for SolidEdge shops. Does that mean it can't handle multi-CAD data? That would surprise me given Siemen's emphasis on open standards like JT Open.
Good point, Beth. You've delivered about three stories just this month that involve search, collaboration, and data management for design engineers. Nice to see the PLM function is taking into account the need to handle the growing challenge of data.
Thanks for the clarification, David. It sounds like this development was prompted by customers who were asking for more out of their existing system -- always a good prompt for improvement.
thanks for reviewing Insight XT - love the title for your blog post! We had more than 40 customers test drive Insight XT at our Solid Edge University event earlier this month and a couple of areas that were commented on very favorably were the visual approach to managing design data and the ability to manage relationships between many types of data (products, projects and ECOs etc.) - both of these are great examples of "taking the sting out of data management".
To respond to the questions below - in terms of applications Insight XT is really focused right now on our own Solid Edge customers - success with Solid Edge means our customers are creating growing volumes of part, assembly and drawing files and many are still using Windows folders and Network drives to manage this data - so meeting their needs is our primary goal. But in the longer term adding these relationship management and visualization type tools to SharePoint should have many more applications!
Our data management users survey showed that fast retrieval of the correct data is still ranked as the number 1 area for improvement that would have the biggest impact on performance. So addressing this fundamental area with attribute, graphical and link-based searches is also a key capability of Insight XT.
I think the benefits are not necessarily tied to certain industries or applications. More likely, they are aimed at small- and mid-size firms that still have the need for centalized data management and collaboration capabilities around product development (what company doesn't), but which have been left out of the PLM equation because of the complexity and cost associated with a platform that is really a process management tool. This offering aims to take some of these key capabilities around pure data management (i.e., applications around engineering change orders etc.) and simple collaboration tasks (design reviews, markups etc.) and make them more accessible and without all the other capabilities that might be considered baggage for smaller firms.
It's really both--storing/finding and sharing parts file, all built around SharePoint, which has a lot of traction within companies already as a collaboration platform. The interesting thing is it's sort of an acknowledgement that traditional PLM systems are too big and complex for many companies who really need help managing and sharing product information with people beyond just engineering departments, which typically use PDM systems exclusively.
Hi Beth. Interesting new tool. What's the advantage. Is it the ability to retrieve files (search) or to manage data (storage and retrieval), or sharing? Seems like Siemens is doing tons now in collaboration and data management.
The 3D printing revolution seems to have a knack for quickly moving technology ahead by way of collaborative effort and even a little friendly competition -- all of course in the name of scientific advancement.
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