SmarTeam: The Parent of CATIA TeamPDM1
by John MacKrell, CIMdata, Inc.

This article provides a high-level overview of SmarTeam and, by association, its CATIA-related solution, CATIA TeamPDM1. CATIA TeamPDM1 provides CATIA users with access to SmarTeam's Product Data Management (PDM) capabilities.

SMARTEAM's SmarTeam product is one of a class of Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) solutions that support data and process management. PLM is a set of business solutions that focus on managing the complete product definition throughout the entire product definition lifecycle across the extended enterprise. It incorporates best-practices methods and technologies such as PDM, collaboration, collaborative product commerce, visualization, enterprise application integration, component supplier management, and others. It addresses the needs of the extended product definition supply chain of OEMs, sub-contractors, suppliers, partners, and customers. PLM enables businesses to exploit the potential and promise of both today and tomorrow's technologies and methods, in order to bring innovative and profitable products to market effectively. PLM today is a competitive necessity.

PLM is enterprise oriented with its emphasis on solutions for the complete product lifecycle. The direction of SMARTEAM's PLM program is clearly to provide products that meet the needs of the extended enterprises including their supply chains to collaborate on product definitions. SMARTEAM's family of PDM products, including Dassault Systèmes' CATIA TeamPDM1, are intended to be useful without requiring major investments in implementation, training, and support. This is a lofty goal, and not easy to attain. However, SMARTEAM has taken this challenge and created a range of PDM capabilities that are relatively easy to implement and learn, while being tailorable and customizable to fit the broad needs of companies along with their suppliers and customers.

SMARTEAM is a worldwide organization with headquarters in Israel and offices in Europe, Asia and the US. The majority of SMARTEAM (75 percent) is owned by Dassault Systèmes, with the remainder owned by the employees. SMARTEAM operates as a subsidiary of Dassault Systèmes, maintaining independent management, development, marketing, and sales organizations. SMARTEAM has been in existence since 1995. SMARTEAM has grown rapidly over the past few years and now has a number of substantial installations. Their customer base continues to expand worldwide from over 1,800 customer sites and 50,000 users at the time of this writing.

SmarTeam is integrated with, and can be used in conjunction with Dassault's ENOVIAVPM to provide a solution set that allows companies to take advantage of SmarTeam's support for workgroups and supply chains while using ENOVIAVPM to support high-end enterprise processes such as configuration management and digital mockup. In Addition to CATIA, SmarTeam is integrated with a number of other CAD systems.

The SmarTeam suite of collaborative PDM solutions is aimed at all types of companies that have the need to manage and share information about products they create, throughout the products' lifecycles. The solution set has a generalized architecture and capabilities that can support companies and users regardless of their product development tool set. For instance, engineers can use SmarTeam to manage their CAD data and change processes; marketing people can use it to access designs and specifications for creating proposals or new products, purchasing can access information about materials and purchased parts. Manufacturing engineers can access the design for review and use SmarTeam to manage their tooling designs and the process of sharing BOMs and other data with their ERP system, streamlining the coordination of product design with production activities. Many others in an organization can use SmarTeam to search for and manage all types of product-related information within their business processes.

Some distinguishing characteristics of SmarTeam are that it is packaged to be almost ready-to-use as delivered, with, of course, the normal set of data modeling and adaptations to a company's business processes that are required to use any PDM system. It does not, however, require customization to become a useful data and process management solution. Instead, tailoring is employed to allow users to enhance how the product fits their organization and business processes. To further ease implementation, SmarTeam supplies a number of business templates for various types of usage. There are also wizards that help users adapt these templates and adapt SmarTeam to their specific company needs.

SmarTeam's user interface is based on Microsoft Windows components. Ease of learning was a goal of the product's developers. The interface can be tailored substantially as required to support its users. SMARTEAM's Web-based solutions (SmartBOM, SmartWeb, and mySmarTeam) allow all types of users in both large and small organizations and throughout supply chains to use SmarTeam regardless of computing platform with a user interface that is appropriate to working in the Web environment. The SmartWeb Pro client allows users to view and access data managed by SmarTeam. Its interface looks similar to the interface in SmarTeam. In addition to the profile card, the client also displays the assembly structure so the Web user can navigate through the data for a product. This data can be browsed and selected via the Web client.

Figure 1-SmartWeb Pro Enables Secure Access to the SmarTeam Database from Standard Internet Browsers

SmarTeam provides distributed data vaulting as well as a distributed meta-data database. Distributed meta-data is a requirement for companies with many widely dispersed product development centers and supply chain partners working on common problems, as communication bottlenecks caused by high traffic demands on a single data repository can be an issue. Overall, SmarTeam is a very capable product that the company is continuously improving.

Product Assessment
The basic operating principles of SmarTeam are that users create tree structures by importing data from authoring applications such as office automation, MCAD, ECAD, ERP, etc. They characterize each item's attributes, author identification, right to access, and other factors in profile cards and store related documents into a secure vault. Users can search for information by defining queries, by navigating through profile cards, or by navigating through the on-screen tree description. Trees may be product structure, BOM or document folders. Objects in trees, whatever their type, may be visualized, redlined, annotated, published, sent through a release or other process, or exported. SmarTeam has a built-in viewer for many CAD and other formats.Data sets can be processed and tracked through user-defined and pre-defined workflows. These allow a group of information to follow the steps in a process, including automatic actions such as vaulting and user actions such as approval, SmarTeam enables the streamlining of a wide range of processes, to drive enterprise efficiency and reliability.

CATIA TeamPDM1 is an OEM version of SmarTeam that is available from Dassault Systèmes and IBM. It provides SmarTeam functionality to users of CATIA V5 from within their CATIA environment.

PLM Solutions
SmarTeam-is at the core of SMARTEAM's solution offering and includes all the document management functions required to support a PLM environment.

SmartVault-is a component of the SmarTeam server architecture. SmartVault is a Windows NT server solution that provides high-level security, authorization, and access control over all documents and drawings managed in SmarTeam. These include check-in/out, version control, release control, and others.

SmartFlow-allows workgroups to create and implement work processes with automatic task notification, attachment of documents and part lists, structured workflow templates, etc. Processes are defined and monitored graphically.

Figure 2-Workflow Processes are Defined, Tracked, and Accessed Graphically

SmartGateway-provides the integration between SmarTeam and ERP, SCM, CRM or other enterprise systems such as Microsoft BizTalk Server and IBM WebSphere Business Integrator. SmartGateway provides integrations through adapters to SAP R/3 and Oracle Applications, as well as other ERP integrations that are offered by third parties, such as Baan and J.D. Edwards. It is also possible to use the XML adapter to exchange data with any other XML-compliant system. SmartGateway synchronizes BOMs between SmarTeam and the external system. Releasing an item in SmarTeam can create a material record in the ERP system. SmartGateway can also be configured to reserve the material record when an item is created.

Since the specific implemented configurations of both SmarTeam and the external system are likely to be different at every company, SmarTeam provides tools to ease the definition of the integration including:

• Attribute Mapper maps SmarTeam attributes to selected fields and SmarTeam classes to data types of the external system.
• Operations Mapper links SmarTeam events to external system operations.
• Data Model Designer allows custom scripts to be linked to the SmartGateway server's operations.

mySmarTeam-allows partners in a supply chain to collaborate on product information. This is done by providing partners, suppliers, and customers with access to SmarTeam and SmartVault capabilities through a company's firewall, so they can participate in product definition activities. Documents managed by SmarTeam can be published to mySmarTeam by applying filtering mechanisms so that only authorized users can access selected information, according to their user profile and community assignment.

mySmarTeam offers the following capabilities:

• Collaborative product development portal providing tasks list, news posting, recently used documents list, favorites, etc.
• Filtered access to documents where only selected information are published to mySmarTeam in appropriate folders for each community of users
• Workflow web access, to allow suppliers to participate in workflow processes without having a full SmarTeam implementation
• Project collaboration through revision control, check-in, check-out, and other procedures
• Project explorer, to navigate through product structures
• An interface to mySmartMeeting to organize real time on-line meetings supporting collaboration

SmartBOM-allows users to work with BOMs within SmarTeam or offline (away from SmarTeam). In SmartBOM, BOM information with its related documentation such as CAD assemblies, specifications, or other objects is packaged with a small executable application. This package, or briefcase, can be e-mailed to anyone appropriate, such as a supplier. They can view, edit, add to, redline, and compare versions of the assembly structure without having to install SmarTeam or any other product on their site. All changes and redlines are made within the briefcase and can be sent back to the originator who can compare multiple briefcases and decide what and how to incorporate the changes received into his own SmarTeam vault. This is done by using a synchronization wizard.

The SmartBOM package allows people inside and outside of an organization, e.g., suppliers, to access and modify BOMs and communicate their changes back to the originator or to others, who may also compare multiple BOMs and selectively accept changes. It also allows people to work with BOMs while they are disconnected from the SmarTeam server, such as when traveling.

Business Solutions
SmarTeam provides Business Templates that allow users and third-party developers to streamline and adopt the operation of SmarTeam to match the needs of a particular set of users. Templates can reduce the amount of effort required to begin using SmarTeam. For example, in each template the data model and processes are pre-configured to that business area's standard nomenclature and methods of operation. Users can build completely new templates.

Several business templates are available with SmarTeam. These include:

• Power and Process-for designers and managers of plants, buildings, and other facilities.
• Discreet Manufacturing-for users who design and manufacture mechanical products.
• Electronic and Telecommunications-for businesses that design and manufacture electrical equipment.
• Heavy Industry-for companies that build industrial machinery or other heavy equipment.
• Automotive-for companies that build vehicles or parts for vehicles.
• Aerospace-for aircraft and spacecraft builders and suppliers.
• Office Automation-for businesses that work primarily with documents.
• Medical Device-for businesses that require FDA compliance along with design functionality
• Software-for companies that must manage software requirements for their products

SMARTEAM has introduced two Vertical Business Solutions that are based on the current SmarTeam family of products with the addition of best practices and predefined behaviors.

• SmarTeam for Electronics-supports both the mechanical and electrical design processes. It comes with a pre-defined template and additional functions that match the Electronics industry's needs. It is customizable like all the other SMARTEAM products. A methodology guide is provided that describes the best practices.
  
  
• SmarTeam for FDA-provides a validation kit to facilitate the approval process for FDA CFR21 part 11, which is required for companies producing medical devices, drugs, and food products. The solution provides enhanced user security and additional login procedures. It also includes support for audit trail and electronic signature. SmarTeam for FDA can be installed on top of existing SmarTeam installations.

Summary
SmarTeam is pre-configured, tailorable, and customizable. Notably, tailoring is applicable to the data model as well as user functions. Its user interface provides an environment that is relatively simple to comprehend, yet supports a broad set of PLM functions. The technological focus is based on the familiar Microsoft Windows paradigm with which many users are familiar and on Java, which is rapidly emerging as a Web standard. SMARTEAM has elected to use standard or popular tools wherever possible. Because of these factors, the flexibility and adaptability of SmarTeam are quite high and the cost of ownership is lower than might be expected for a PLM system of SmarTeam's capabilities. In addition to SmarTeam's usability and good functionality the product is modestly priced for user companies of all sizes.

Some future directions include:

• Gateways to the Biztalk and WebSphere domains, facilitating SMARTEAM's objective of creating a universal product information collaboration platform.
• Capabilities that support distributed data storage (both meta and managed) and access are being further enhanced.
• Additional CAD integrations are in development or planned, including one for the electrical CAD product Cadence. SMARTEAM is also building an integration with Dassault Systèmes' DELMIA suite of manufacturing support products.

SmarTeam is a good match, especially for companies that design with the tools for which it has been tailored, but also for companies that need PLM functionality that can be adapted to their specific needs and who require low startup and operating costs.

John MacKrell is a Senior Consultant with CIMdata, Inc. (www.cimdata.com), which provides market and technology consulting services in collaboration, PLM and related areas for users and suppliers. The firm also hosts PLM conferences and prepares a range of reports and papers on PLM market trends, technology, and implementation strategies.