Siemens Emphasizes Productivity with Teamcenter 8 Release

Touting a focus on productivity enhancements across threekey areas and a message of helping manufacturers do more with less, Siemens PLM Softwareunwrapped Teamcenter8, a major upgrade to the centerpiece of its PLM platform, along with an enhancedversion of its Tecnomatix digital manufacturing software.

Teamcenter 8's user interface has been overhauled to supporttighter integration with the Microsoft Office suite, enabling users to interactwith the PLM platform from inside the tools and processes they are accustomedto using every day. The addition of new integrated modules for content anddocument management as well as formula, package and brand management promoteapplication productivity while the integration of the IBM "blue stack" of technologyalong with support for IBM's Service-Oriented Architecture will make Teamcentereasier to support and integrate with other enterprise systems, easing theburden on IT, officials say.

The announcements come just a week after Siemens announced amajor partnership around PLM with IBM. The pair have been collaboratingfor over a year to ensure the forthcoming Teamcenter 8 comes ready to use withIBM's ProductDevelopment Information Framework (PDIF), a set of extensions built on SOAfor integrating multiple applications, and comes preconfigured with the WebSphere middleware software and DB2database management system. Siemens and IBM officials claim Teamcenter 8 is theonly PLM platform to be so tightly integrated with IBM's SOA and integrationarchitecture, thus eliminating the need for customers to choose between the twoenvironments.

Bill Boswell, Siemens PLM Software's senior director ofTeamcenter product marketing, described the focus of the release as being allabout enhancing productivity, especially when customers are tightening their beltsand trying to do more with less. By expanding the Teamcenter solution with anend-to-end set of components throughout the product lifecycle and by helpingreduce the integration and support issues around PLM, Siemens is hoping toremove many of the stumbling blocks that have been an obstacle for PLM adoptionand to help companies position themselves for future growth. "Best-in-classcompanies are asking the question: How can we be sure we're ready with theright products when the economy starts to recover," Boswell says. "Bybalancing productivity ... that's what this release is all about."

On a individual level, Teamcenter 8 features a number of newenhancements, including extensive use of the Microsoft Outlook user interfaceand improved integration with Office 2007. Specifically, Teamcenter 8 adds a"ribbon" to the Office toolbar, making it easier to interact with productinformation directly from within Word, Excel or other members of the Officesuite. In addition, there is now an embedded "Teamcenter To Do List" withinOutlook to help engineers manage scheduling, workflow and engineering changesthrough their everyday office applications. "Teamcenter looks just like all theother Microsoft Office pieces and all the typical tasks you need to do fromTeamcenter are available without leaving Office with live updates and liveconnections," Boswell says. Earlier Teamcenter versions had limited Officeintegration, only supporting some specific cases around Bill of Materialsexports or edits, he added.

Teamcenter 8 also features much more robust integration withECAD tools, to improve the information sharing and collaboration experience forteams developing mechatronics-based products. Teamcenter menus can be embeddedin logic capture and physical layout tools from MentorGraphics, Cadence, Intercept and Altium, and from within the ECAD applications,users can save native design files and perform check-in and check-outoperations. For tools not supported in the Teamcenter 8 release, Siemens PLMSoftware is offering a new gateway integration application specifically for EDAtools. The upgrade is also integrated with software development tools,including IBM's Rational and ClearCase.

Teamcenter 8 also ushers in an expanded set of applications,including modules for Content and Document Management as well as Formula,Package and Brand Management. In addition to these new modules, the platformoffers enhanced lightweight viewing capabilities for better suppliercollaboration, advanced requirements and project management functions alongwith new industry-specific template solutions for aerospace and defense, CPGand medical devices.

In the area of enhanced IT productivity around PLM, SiemensPLM Software is turning to its new partnership with IBM. Teamcenter 8 is nowavailable on the IBM technology stack, shipping to customers pre-configuredwith IBM DB2 Information Manager and the WebSphere Application Server. Inaddition, the software supports Tivoli Storage Manager and Access Manager alongwith Rational ClearCase and the partners will jointly offer consulting andservices around PLM.

In a related move, Siemens PLM Software announced Tecnomatix 9, an upgrade toits digital manufacturing software that boasts new features for automatingvarious planning tasks, including those around alternative productassembly/disassembly sequencing and human modeling. The software also offerstighter integration with Teamcenter, enabling improved manufacturing datacollaboration between the Tecnomatix suite and Teamcenter PLM backbone.