Aras Launches Mobile Strategy to Expand PLM User Base

Aras Flow mobile app enables mark-up and secure social collaboration throughout the enterprise and extended supply chain. Image Courtesy of Aras

Aras is now looking to break new ground in the mobile arena with a pair of new apps and a plan for partners to create an ecosystem of their own custom-designed mobile solutions.

Aras sees mobile as an opportunity to make design data available to users outside of the traditional 3D CAD space who might leverage the information for different use cases and who otherwise, might not have had access to the data, according to Peter Schroer, Aras president.

“This is not targeted at the design engineer sitting in front of CAD on a 24-in. screen—the mobile use case for those guys is not very compelling,” Schroer said. “The work they are doing is massive, and a big screen makes sense because there isn’t much you can do on a 4-in. screen, even from home.”

Yet the same 3D CAD files and other product-related data is just as important to manufacturing engineers, quality engineers, suppliers, and top management—an audience that has traditionally shied away from PLM due to its complexity and less than friendly user interfaces.

That’s exactly where Aras’ mobile strategy comes in, Schroer said. “Aras’ strategy is to make PLM ubiquitous so all employees can make decisions based on the strong fundamentals of what’s approved and what’s not approved,” he said. “The thousands of users in manufacturing and quality are not going to log into [PLM] because it’s too heavy and they can’t use it. We need to bring PLM to where they are, and mobile makes a ton of sense for that.”

To do so, Aras is announcing a pair of new mobile apps along with a development strategy aimed at cultivating an ecosystem of partners who can build their own custom mobile apps.

Aras Flow combines the ease of social collaboration with compliance-grade security, enabling users to stay informed and take action. Image Courtesy of Aras

Aras Flow, available in November, combines workflow and secure social capabilities to foster collaboration among constituents during the design process and to aid in better decision making. The app lets an engineer kick off a workflow or launch a discussion thread during the design process to explore whether a part should be machined or cast, for example, or to solicit specific information from a supplier. The collaborators can engage in real-time chat and have all the information they need to provide context to the discussion from their mobile device.

“It has the immediacy of a text, but it’s a text from the PLM system,” Schroer explained, which is central to the issue of security. “Users want the immediacy and convenience of mobile, but they need to do it within the PLM security context. Facebook is great to get people collaborating on a topic, but it’s simply not where you want to put secure PLM data. You need to replicate that data in a secure infrastructure, and we call that secure social.”

The other app, Component Finder, is a component search tool based on a full-blown product Aras announced in October. Aras partnered with IHS to connect the latter’s cloud-based CAPS Universe Electronic Component Data into Aras PLM to help design teams quickly find the right parts based on availability and environmental compliance, among other factors. The mobile app will let users tap into the IHS database directly on the shop floor or from wherever they are, fostering greater flexibility.

Along with the apps, Aras is releasing a drag-and-drop toolkit that will allow developers and enterprises to easily create their own role-specific and purpose-built apps for Aras PLM. “The two out-of-the-box Aras apps are the tip of the iceberg of our mobile strategy,” Schroer said. “We want to enable the community to create thousands of apps themselves. There’s potential for a lot of really high value, interesting use cases—things we haven’t thought of.”

Aras’ mobile apps will be available initially through the Microsoft Apps store.