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Beth Stackpole

Siemens Closes UGS Acquisition

PLM leader UGS has a new name and some new leadership as automation giant Siemens AG officially marked the close of its $3.5 billion acquisition of the company and began talking up integration.

The new UGS PLM Software, which will continue to operate as always as a global division of Siemens Automation and Drives (A&D) Group, will be headed by Tilo Brandis, now UGS president, who most recently served as chief integration officer behind the proposed merger as well as head of Siemens’ Electronics Assembly Systems (EA) division. Tony Affuso will remain as UGS chairman and CEO.

While Affuso will remain focused on strategy and future direction, Brandis will pick up the operational reins, charged with integrating the companies from a product, organizational, and cultural perspective. “Being part of Siemens requires that UGS understands Siemens and that Siemens understands UGS,” said Brandis, in an interview with Design News. “I’ll be the bridge between the two companies to make sure they tie together where they link up nicely.”

The combined company’s goal is to leverage the virtual design world of UGS’ PLM and CAD software as an extension to Siemens’ physical world of industrial automation products. Siemens product lineup includes everything from the hardware controls and sensors used in production equipment to the manufacturing execution systems (MES), process control systems and industrial communications deployed by companies to operate their production facilities.

By integrating these disparate worlds, UGS PLM Software believes it can help companies further streamline and create efficiencies in bringing products to market. “We believe by bringing these two worlds together we can enable customers to have an easier engineering process, from product design through production,” Brandi says.

UGS PLM Software will provide more details on how the two companies’ products line will be integrated later this June.