Demonstrations of Real-World Customer Solutions Showcase Unique Unified Offerings to Help Manufacturers Optimize the Product and Production Lifecycles for Increased Speed and Confidence
HANNOVER, Germany — (BUSINESS WIRE) — April 20, 2010 — The Siemens Industry Automation Division, a worldwide leader in the fields of automation systems, industrial controls and industrial software, today is showcasing highlights of its success around its Unified Product and Production Lifecycle Initiative at Hannover Fair, the world’s leading trade show for industrial automation.
The Siemens Unified Product and Production Lifecycle Initiative was initially unveiled in 2007 following the acquisition of product lifecycle management (PLM) software leader UGS (now Siemens PLM Software). The initiative, now folded into the ongoing operations of the Siemens Industry Automation Division, focuses on the development of new software solutions that unify the product and production lifecycles, thus enabling the company to execute on its software vision.
According to a report published on October 29, 2009 by ARC Advisory Group’s senior analyst for PLM, Dick Slansky, “At this juncture, Siemens has clearly solidified its vision for end-to-end PLM and now delivers solutions based on the original product and production lifecycle initiative. This represented the initial work integrating UGS PLM solutions with Siemens automation technology. Across all industrial sectors, companies continue to focus on productivity and innovation as the major drivers for competitiveness and sustained growth. Siemens addresses these business drivers with an intelligent product and production model that spans all domains of the product lifecycle.”
Demonstrations in Halls 9 and 17 will showcase real-world customer solutions and Siemens’ unique strength in cross-functional integration and reinforce its industry software leadership. A variety of points of integration between the product and production lifecycles will be highlighted including demonstrations of virtual commissioning solutions, a “Virtual Machine” tool offering and several solutions that showcase the integration of PLM and MES (manufacturing execution systems) and PLM with plant design, operations and maintenance.
- Virtual commissioning showcases the latest digital manufacturing software to digitally create, simulate, automate and commission the combination of factory cell and automation hardware solutions prior to capital expenditures while reducing physical commissioning times by up to 50 percent.
- The Virtual Machine replicates a real machine tool in 3D software, including its core controller technology. It is used for pre-machining preparation and can reduce set up time by up to 90 percent on the real machine, increasing machine availability for production.
- The integration between PLM and MES creates a truly integrated approach to manufacturing, resulting in faster time to production, along with improved manufacturing efficiency and higher quality processes. This is of particular interest to process industries, but also to discrete manufacturing industries where knowledge shared between engineering and execution is valued across the product lifecycle. In these operating environments, intuitive access to engineering requirements, production status reports, and non conformance data are essential to improve engineering, ramp up and production run time performance.
- The integration of PLM with software solutions for plant design, operations and maintenance has wide ranging benefits to a number of industries including consumer package goods (CPG), energy and shipbuilding. Concurrent engineering between product and plant boosts productivity while greatly expanded information access across all phases of product and production reduces costs through new levels of reuse. Integrated project management, workflow and configuration management across all domains improves service productivity and reduces production down time.
These demonstrations will showcase the integration that has been achieved through the Siemens Unified Product and Production Lifecycle Initiative and will feature several industry software offerings including:
- Comos, the plant lifecycle management system enabling industrial plant planners, constructors and owner/operators to achieve a globally integrated and interdisciplinary software solution for all lifecycles of an industrial plant. This means future-proof plant management with minimized risks and costs while increasing safety, accelerating workflows and achieving partial automation at the same time.
- NX™ software, the advanced digital product development application used to design many of the world’s most sophisticated products
- Teamcenter® software, the world’s most widely used PLM system
- Tecnomatix® software, the industry’s leading digital manufacturing solution
- Simatic IT, Siemens’ flagship MES platform with industry-specific capabilities in hundreds of installations worldwide.
“The demonstration of these software solutions represents a major
milestone in Siemens achieving its vision of becoming the first software
and hardware provider to unify the product and production lifecycles,
which means true value for our customers,” said Anton S. Huber,
president of the Siemens Industry Automation Division. “Being able to
bring such applications to market was a key driver behind Siemens’ focus
on PLM. Manufacturers will soon be able to choose from a series of
end-to-end software solutions from a single source for fast, reliable
deployment. In addition, since these are open solutions, they protect
companies’ investment and provide them maximum flexibility.”
