IBM and Engineous Form Global Strategic Alliance to Deliver Engineering Process

Joint solution enables efficient product design and development in global work environments

IBM and Engineous Software, Inc. recently announced a global strategic alliance to deliver a comprehensive Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) solution for engineering process integration and design optimization. The joint solution can help customers decrease engineering development lead time and cost, improve product quality and performance, and reduce IT operational costs among geographically dispersed design teams and business partners.

Through this agreement, IBM PLM customers can incorporate Engineous' FIPER and iSIGHT technologies as a process integration and design optimization layer within their existing PLM infrastructures. The integrated solutions will allow customers to:

• Drastically reduce design cycle time by integrating workflow process in an automated environment
• Deliver more reliable products at lower training costs by capturing best practices
• Lower hardware investments through effective use of legacy systems and more efficient job distribution
• Eliminate the bottlenecks of ineffective communication by enabling secure design collaboration among partners

Engineous' iSIGHT software enables the integration and automation of commercial and internally developed computer aided design and engineering tools (CAD and CAE). iSIGHT can help accelerate the execution of these tools leading to higher quality, optimized products. Engineous' FIPER software is a Web-based, distributed product development infrastructure that allows organizations to access, execute, and reuse design tools and processes. The software allows resources to be connected within an organization and externally with partners and geographically dispersed design teams.

"Leading manufacturing companies are looking at PLM to improve product time to market, product quality, and to reduce production costs," said Scott Hopkins, general manager, IBM Product Lifecycle Management. "IBM's PLM strategy based on best of breed application software developed by Dassault Systemes, open middleware and consulting and integration services, combined with Engineous' process integration and design optimization applications provide a total solution for manufacturing organizations who want to increase efficiencies and better serve their customers."

"IBM has consistently offered the best overall enterprise middleware solutions," said Dr. Siu Tong, Chairman and Founder of Engineous Software. "These technologies are crucial to our customers' ability to deploy mission-critical applications like our new FIPER technology. We will use this new initiative to bring even better products to our global customer base, ensuring their success through the strong commitment of the IBM's Global Services group to deliver world-class consulting, customization, integration services, and technical support."

Under the terms of this agreement, the two companies will jointly market the FIPER and iSIGHT applications, which make use of IBM WebSphere Internet infrastructure software and IBM DB2 Universal Database to ensure seamless operation with existing PLM environments. IBM Global Services will also be providing implementation, training and hosting services for the solutions.

Over 200 companies have already achieved compelling results with Engineous Solutions, saving millions of dollars and dramatically improving product quality.  The combined Engienous and IBM solution will leverage the power of process integration and design optimization in an integrated IBM PLM environment. According to Joe Adams, Vice President of Engineering, United Technologies/Pratt & Whitney, "Utilizing Engineous technologies, Pratt & Whitney engineers have greatly decreased product design time, and developed products that meet increasingly strict design standards, both of which have saved the company many millions of dollars."

About Engineous Software

Engineous Software, Inc. provides engineering design optimization software solutions and services. The company's flagship product, iSIGHT, enables organizations to explore more design alternatives in less time, dramatically reduce production costs, decrease time-to-market, and create innovative design alternatives. Founded in 1996, Engineous operates numerous sales offices in the U.S., as well as wholly owned subsidiaries in Asia and Europe.

Engineous was selected as a Premier Automotive Supplier in the 2002 PACE awards, and is recognized by top analysts as the worldwide market leader in the Process Integration and Design Optimization market. Customers include leading Fortune 500 companies such as General Electric, General Motors, UTC/Pratt & Whitney, Honeywell, Lockheed Martin, Ford Motor Company, DaimlerChrysler US, Toyota, Nissan, Renault, Hitachi, Peugeot, MTU Aero Engines, TRW, BMW, Rolls-Royce, and York International. Additional information can be found at www.engineous.com.

About FIPER

The FIPER project is a four-year $21.5 million project co-funded by the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) as part of its Advanced Technology Program. FIPER establishes a "Federated Intelligent Product EnviRonment" that streamlines the design of engineered products, integrating legacy and best-of-breed analytical and design tools through a web-enabled environment. Vendor participants will be responsible for adapting their products to work in the FIPER environment. The FIPER joint venture team is composed of a synergistic group of large, medium, and small companies, including the commercialization agent (Engineous Software, Inc.), manufacturing companies (Goodrich, General Electric, OAI, and Parker Hannifin), and universities (Ohio University and Stanford University). This team will develop, demonstrate, and disseminate FIPER technology. The FIPER project will be complete in December 2003. Utilizing the first major release of FIPER 1.0, Engineous has several pilot projects currently underway with major manufacturing organizations. FIPER 1.5 will be generally available for release in 2004.

Pulling It All Together with SMARTEAM – BOM

Efficient Bill of Materials (BOM) collaboration between a company and its suppliers in today's highly competitive global market reduces the product lifecycle and makes a product more marketable.

SMARTEAM provides an integrated environment that, together with SMARTEAM - BOM, enables a company to efficiently manage a product's BOM throughout the product lifecycle and collaborate on the evolving BOM across enterprise departments and with supply chain partners. SMARTEAM stores all the product's data--including mechanical, electrical, and software data--in a single BOM.

The relevant parties efficiently and easily perform tasks or add value to the BOM. Companies save substantial time and expense by avoiding the need to send quantities of documents to those in the process.

 Toolbar gives easy access to rich BOM functionality

These SMARTEAM – BOM functions are presented in further detail below.

BOM View: View Types provides a multi-level view of a BOM (see figure) and an abbreviated BOM view for calculating BOM costs and items more easily. Red Line marks all operations (Add, Update, Delete) with a corresponding color. The BOM Editor enables all editing operations (Add, Update, Delete, Replace, Copy, etc.), with a friendly interface and fewer mouse clicks. Show BOM differences tracks and monitors changes throughout the BOM editing process. Use BOM effectivity filter enables viewing of a tree filtered by effectivity date, with effectivity on the objects or the links. Export BOM to Excel report creates a multi-level BOM Excel file shown in BOM View. Create BOM briefcase generates a BOM briefcase from within BOM View.

BOM View

BOM Briefcase Generation Wizard generates a BOM structure briefcase from the SMARTEAM database; this briefcase contains all relevant SMARTEAM data (linked documents, vendors list, etc.). By electronic transfer (email, web, and ftp), the company can use this briefcase to easily and securely exchange data with suppliers and sub-contractors. The received BOM briefcase is a standalone application that can be viewed and edited without SMARTEAM (viewing is built-in; editing requires a SMARTEAM - BOM Briefcase license).

Copy Tree Wizard: Generate BOM structure generates an initial (first-time) product structure based on a SMARTEAM CAD document structure. Edit BOM enables, as part of the BOM generation, the editing of the structure of the generated product in order to adjust the engineering CAD structure to the product's manufacturing structure.

BOM WhiteBoard (BWB): Edit BOM structure edits a BOM structure in a standalone environment. Mark files for review marks files within the BWB for review, for purposes of ECO approval. Change history tracks the changes proposed in the BWB and in BWBs used in prior ECO processes. BOM View features displays all BOM View features. The same features available in BOM View are available in the BWB tool.

BOM White Board (BWB)

Compare View: BOM Compare enables full comparison of BOM structures with the ability to view all changes made between every two selected objects, and an export to Excel functionality.

SMARTEAM - BOM Compare View

Consolidation Wizard enables the originating company to compare numerous BOM structures that have come back from suppliers and customers. The company can then select the best offers and consolidate them into a single BOM which is then synchronized back into the SMARTEAM database. It is possible to consolidate two Briefcase packages or one such package and the SMARTEAM BOM structure.

SMARTEAM - BOM Consolidation Wizard

Synchronization Wizard: Synchronize a BOM briefcase to SMARTEAM enables all or part of the changes from the BOM briefcase to be synchronized back into the SMARTEAM database. Edit BOM provides the same functionality as SMARTEAM - BOM View. BOM Differences allows the user to view differences between the BOM package and SMARTEAM data in the database.

Expressing PLM with SMARTEAM
by Avichay Nissenbaum, Executive VP IBM Channel & Corporate Marketing, SMARTEAM Corp.

SMARTEAM Corporation was founded on the concept of bringing the benefits of Product Lifecycle Management to the mid-market. Until the mid-90's, PLM was strictly the domain of just the largest manufacturers, typically encompassing multi-year, multi-million dollar projects. With its revolutionary Windows platform and easy customizability, SMARTEAM opened up the value of full-featured PLM to discrete manufacturers and suppliers. Early mid-market adopters were those who had either extraordinary need or foresight.

Times have changed, however, and the global economy is now compelling companies of all sizes to better leverage information technology in order to compete. According to the July 2003 AMR Report entitled "Mid-Market Manufacturers are ready to invest in PLM", 73% of mid-market manufacturers are either likely or very likely to evaluate a complete PLM system, if it can be simplified to address their functional needs and adhere to tight project timelines.

The ability to quickly process RFQs and quote a competitive but profitable price is cited as the single biggest reason small to medium-sized businesses are interested in PLM - which is no surprise, since this "pain" directly impacts upon revenue and profitability. Additional expectations from PLM include: Cost estimation, Propagating the BOM to manufacturing, Initiating and executing a design change, Sharing design drawings externally, Design review and approval, and Initiating a purchase request.

SMARTEAM has joined with its key marketing partner, IBM, to address mid-market needs by packaging cost-effective, bite-sized PLM solutions for modular, yet easily-customizable implementation. These are being rolled out by IBM in the form of industry-specific, PLM Express solutions.

Over the coming months, new SMARTEAM packages will enable manufacturers across industries to take advantage of proven Best Practice processes. The first of these "Express" packages will include Multi-CAD Engineering Data Management, Bidding, Collaborative Design, and Shipping & After Sales. Others will follow in short order.

The time has clearly come for small and medium-sized manufacturers to benefit from the latest that PLM technology has to offer. SMARTEAM's new, CAD-neutral, Express offerings will appeal both to new customers, as well as to those currently using just a subset of SMARTEAM's capabilities.

And so, SMARTEAM enters a new stage in the execution of our original mission: to enable manufacturers of all sizes to bring better products to market faster and effectively service them throughout their lifespan.