Editor’s Pick: Social Technology Extends PLM Collaboration

Dear Desktop Engineering Reader:

All design, engineering and manufacturing outfits think and do things differently than the rest of the herd. But a lot of outfits build their processes up from enterprise-level systems like PLM (product lifecycle management) that are only marginally customizable. This means that companies customize themselves to accommodate the software. Shouldn’t that be the other way around?

Aras Corp. has been doing things differently in the world of PLM for quite a while now. Its flagship Aras Innovator platform offers an open architecture that you can customize to your way of doing things and changing times. You also layer in only the open applications you need to address your process and data management and control imperatives – BOMs (bills of materials), CAD models, configurations, ECOs (engineering change orders), supply chains and so on.

Just a few days ago, Aras announced the availability of version 11 of its Aras Innovator PLM suite. Version 11 offers an interesting assortment of new capabilities for program management, file handling and the like. You can learn more about these and other enhancements in today’s write-up. But the key enrichment in Aras Innovator 11 is that now, in addition to letting you do things differently, you can also see things in your PLM system differently than you could before. Aras calls this development Visual Collaboration.

In a nutshell, Visual Collaboration is a functionality that provides you with a secure social technology within the context of your PLM items. That means you can view content, add markups and apply annotations in your product structures and processes like BOMs, parts, models, drawings, documents and change workflows. You can do this to your 2D and 3D files, schematics, Microsoft Office documents, images and more. Items you mark up with text comments link into discussion threads. You have permission features to control comment visibility and participation as well.

For active Aras subscribers, the Visual Collaboration functionality comes as part of Aras Innovator 11. That is, Visual Collaboration is browser-enabled, meaning you do not have to install an application or a plugin. That said, you might just want to check out an app that works with Aras Innovator 11’s new Visual Collaboration capability. See, at the same time Aras announced version 11, it also introduced Aras Flow, a mobile app for the Aras Innovator 11 PLM platform.

Aras Flow provides the means for tablet users to visualize and markup designs, sketches or other content with touch commands or a pen. Again, this is within the context of your product structure.

What this means for you tablet people is that on the road, factory floor or idling at an airport lounge on the way to see a client, you can still participate in discussions and comment threads as well as e-sign documents and vote on things. Aras Flow can send you real-time updates of change workflows and notify you of new comments on a thread. Aras says that change workflows combined with discussion commenting and threading, visualization and markup in a mobile format is a first in the PLM milieu. Aras Flow is available for a no-charge download from the Aras Windows Store.

Aras Innovator 11 coupled with Aras Flow sure sounds like a different way of doing collaboration among cross-disciplinary teams such as design, engineering, operations and quality within your PLM infrastructure. And since the technology exploits the Web, it should enable collaborative activities regardless of where people find themselves and whether or not they are in-house personnel, external suppliers, outsource manufacturers or design partners. Pretty cool.

You can learn more about Aras Innovator 11 and Aras Flow from today’s Pick of the Week write-up. Links at the end take you to more in-depth details. Make sure to check out the video of Aras Flow. For something different, you can sign up for a live demo of Aras Innovator 11 on the Aras website.

Thanks, Pal. — Lockwood

Anthony J. Lockwood

Editor at Large, Desktop Engineering

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

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Editor’s note: Amended to clarify the availability of Visual Collaboration functionality on Feb. 5, 2015.