PLANO, Texas & SHANGHAI--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Siemens PLM Software, a business unit of the Siemens Industry Automation Division and a leading global provider of product lifecycle management (PLM) software and services, today announced the High Definition PLM (HD-PLM) technology framework, which will enable decision makers throughout the product lifecycle to make better informed decisions more efficiently and with a higher level of confidence.

Unveiled at The World Exposition Shanghai China 2010 (Expo 2010), HD-PLM will reinvent cross-domain decision making by uniting users with the people, tools and precise product-related information they need to intelligently evaluate decision alternatives. The users’ experience – delivered through a wide variety of supported devices – will be personalized by actively placing them into the digital context appropriate to their role. HD-PLM will proactively assist users in collaborative decision making, and information will be clarified and turned into knowledge through a highly intuitive visual presentation. Finally, HD-PLM will help users validate decisions against company best practices appropriate for the task at hand.

Harness data; add meaning; create knowledge; facilitate understanding

In today’s highly connected and competitive global environment, pressure is intensifying on companies to deliver more innovative, high-quality new products to market faster. This requires hundreds or even thousands of critical decisions to be made throughout the entire product lifecycle by different individuals from different disciplines all along the value chain. The quality and speed of these decisions can have a profound impact on the market success of a product. Yet each decision may be based on a vast and constantly expanding universe of distributed digital data stored in a wide variety of formats and originating from multiple disparate sources. Compounding this overwhelming challenge is the fact that many product related decisions rely on multiple areas of expertise that may be distributed across the globe.

The HD-PLM technology framework is designed to efficiently turn this massive, widely distributed and heterogeneous collection of data into knowledge, through a tightly integrated set of solutions that will permeate Siemens PLM Software’s entire suite of enterprise applications. These solutions will significantly enhance decision making throughout the product lifecycle by taking users into the realm of advanced data interaction that actively applies meaning to data and intuitively presents rich information in a way that facilitates understanding.

High definition decision making

HD-PLM is based on four basic tenets that define how the technology framework will help users make better decisions faster so they can spend more time innovating.

1. PERSONALIZE – Personalize the users’ experience by recognizing who they are and actively presenting them with only the information they need to perform their tasks.
2. ASSIST – Assist users proactively to make collaborative decisions, by aggregating, analyzing and monitoring information, notifying them when action is required and suggesting collaborators to aid in their decision making.
3. CLARIFY – Clarify the users’ understanding by presenting “rich” information in the most intuitive way and enabling them to navigate to associated data from different disciplines and sources.
4. VALIDATE – Validate user decisions against best practices, by applying analytical techniques to assess alternatives and capturing decision-making best practices for future reference.

An HD-PLM enabled system will, for example, recognize a given user as not just a CAD operator, but also a powertrain engineer or airfoil designer and automatically personalize the workspace to put that individual in the right context for the tasks being performed. The system will then proactively assist the user in accomplishing tasks by informing him or her of issues to be addressed, seeking out pertinent information to consider and individuals to collaborate with based on the activity being performed. Throughout the process, HD-PLM will help clarify information by presenting it in a visually intuitive way and making it easy to access further detail from a variety of disciplines. Finally, through analytic techniques as well as evaluations based on domain, company and industry best practices, decisions can be validated by leveraging available knowledge. As a result, users will not only formulate more intelligent decisions, but they will make those decisions with a significantly greater degree of efficiency and confidence.

All of the pertinent information necessary to this process will be instantly delivered to the right people regardless of location via a wide variety of supported devices including smart phones and tablet computers. By intelligently navigating, integrating and applying meaning to broadly dispersed stores of heterogeneous data, and then leveraging state-of-the-art technology to efficiently act on and distribute this information in a visually compelling way, HD-PLM will help build shared knowledge within an organization and enable “high definition” decision making.

“People have a fundamental need for a platform that creates an opportunity to collaborate and exchange information in order to reach intelligent decisions, and then to understand the impact of their decisions on other stakeholders,” said Joe Barkai, Practice Director, Product Lifecycle Strategies, IDC Manufacturing Insights. “The role of a better decision support system is to allow people to ‘see’ each other, either literally or virtually, communicate effectively on a common platform and then optimize and harmonize their decisions to meet each other's needs.”

Building on a strong technical foundation

HD-PLM builds on Siemens PLM Software’s strong technical foundation established through more than 30 years of software innovations. HD-PLM will expand on this foundation to deliver a consistent in-context decision support environment throughout a seamlessly integrated set of PLM solutions. Upcoming releases of NX™ software for digital product development, Teamcenter® software for digital lifecycle management and Tecnomatix® software for digital manufacturing will establish a cohesive and intuitive decision support environment throughout the product lifecycle and across the extended global enterprise. Users of these integrated enterprise solutions will have a network of cross-domain information to make decisions that are not only relevant to their work, but that take into account the impact on the other domains both upstream and downstream.

In a separate announcement also being made today, Siemens PLM Software highlights how its latest release of NX works with Teamcenter to leverage the HD-PLM framework.

“The HD-PLM technology framework builds on our legacy of breakthrough solutions while expanding on state-of-the-art innovations and leveraging emerging software, hardware and connectivity technology,” said Chuck Grindstaff, executive vice president of Products and Chief Technology Officer, Siemens PLM Software. “HD-PLM provides a technology foundation enabling our global collaborative product development team to produce a common set of integrated software tools that will identify, capture and collate the massive amount of information available both inside and outside of manufacturing enterprises, and then apply meaning to that data using a consistent, compelling and intuitive visual environment. The result is knowledge made instantly available to the right people, at the right place and in the right context to support rapid and intelligent decision making – or what we call high definition decision making.”

HD-PLM Public Introduction

Siemens PLM Software is providing an overview of HD-PLM functionality today at EXPO 2010 in Shanghai and again next month at the Siemens PLM Connection Americas User Conference in Dallas, Texas. For more information on HD-PLM, please visit www.siemens.com/plm/hdplm.

About Siemens PLM Software

Siemens PLM Software, a business unit of the Siemens Industry Automation Division, is a leading global provider of product lifecycle management (PLM) software and services with 6.7 million licensed seats and more than 63,000 customers worldwide. Headquartered in Plano, Texas, Siemens PLM Software works collaboratively with companies to deliver open solutions that help them turn more ideas into successful products. For more information on Siemens PLM Software products and services, visit www.siemens.com/plm.

About the Siemens Industry Automation Division

The Siemens Industry Automation Division (Nuremberg, Germany) is a worldwide leader in the fields of automation systems, industrial controls and industrial software. Its portfolio ranges from standard products for the manufacturing and process industries to solutions for whole industrial sectors that encompass the automation of entire automobile production facilities and chemical plants. As a leading software supplier, Industry Automation optimizes the entire value added chain of manufacturers – from product design and development to production, sales and a wide range of maintenance services. With around 39,000 employees worldwide (September 30), Siemens Industry Automation achieved sales of €7.0 billion in fiscal year 2009. www.siemens.com/industryautomation

Note: Siemens and the Siemens logo are registered trademarks of Siemens AG. NX, Teamcenter and Tecnomatix are trademarks or registered trademarks of Siemens Product Lifecycle Management Software Inc. or its subsidiaries in the United States and in other countries. All other trademarks, registered trademarks or service marks belong to their respective holders.