Editor’s Pick: Latest Aras PLM Innovator Platform Released

One size fits all drives me nuts. Take cheap socks. That “fit all” range can be as much as two inches, leaving you with a wad of material between your toes to generate blisters. This is not to say that this Pick of the Week is about sock design and darning software. Rather, it’s about the software systems that we use for infrastructure. All of them are tweakable to some extent, but most are really one size fits all. This is the beauty of open systems: You can truly customize the software to your unique needs. Aras recently released the latest version of its Aras Innovator PLM (product lifecycle management) platform and solutions. Aras is an open system, and Aras the company also tries to take the hassle out of PLM from installation to the deployment of new applications that expand your PLM functionality.

Aras the company has gained a rep as a darn good PLM developer. And it just does business its own way, and has for years. For example, long ago they got rid of traditional sales staffs and replaced them with service and support people. You buy subscriptions for an unlimited number of users, not licenses for the chosen few. But most of all you download Aras Innovator as a ready-to-run, open source PLM system and begin creating something for your needs.

Now, that open source business means you can mold and extend Aras Innovator PLM to fit your workflows like a glove rather than adapt your processes to fit an idealized workflow methodology developed by a well-meaning programmer somewhere. Complementing its out-of-box PLM functionality is a full suite of engineering, project, and product management solutions to control and manage processes like BOMs, configurations, product complaints, regulations, requirements, supply chains, variants, and a bunch more. And that means you can build out Aras Innovator PLM to fit your organizational needs as time and budget permit and evolution requires.

A key to Aras Innovator PLM is what’s called the Aras Enterprise Application Framework, a model-based service oriented architecture  —SOA is the acronym you’ve seen. This is kind of a PLM kernel, one that uses model-based technology to define and manage objects. But these graphical models run your system directly in real time rather than being used to develop source code to be compiled. The gist of this for our purposes is that the Aras professional staff, the Aras community, and you can develop, deploy, and modify applications quickly and easily. Administering and updating applications also is simplified with a model-based SOA scheme.

So, now, the new release of Aras Innovator PLM. The main focus here is on enhancements that improve multi-CAD management. The Aras CAD data management functionality already provides full CAD intellectual property management within a PLM environment and across the range of widely deployed CAD and ECAD systems. The company says that the new version’s speed increases, memory reductions, and smaller AML/XML package sizes make Aras Innovator the fastest PLM platform for multi-CAD check-in / check-out operations. This release of Aras Innovator PLM platform also debuts embedded MFT (managed file transfer) capabilities for secure cloud-based file sharing and exchange with full tracking and traceability.

I really have not scratched the surface on what Aras Innovator PLM is all about, so a good place for you to start is to click the link and read more about this latest release in today’s Pick of the Week write-up. While there are links to videos and additional information, the thing you may want to do is download Aras Innovator PLM from the link and see what you think. The file is a remarkably tight 172MB, BTW.

Thanks, Pal. — Lockwood

Anthony J. Lockwood

Editor at Large, Desktop Engineering

Read today’s pick of the week write-up.

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