What's a CIPO and how do I use it?

From this hub of German industry, a talented team of engineers and software experts is creating a roadmap to the future of product development and design.

The team is the staff of the CATIA Interoperability Project Office, affectionately known by insiders as CIPO. The office brings together experts from IBM and Dassault Systems to guide customers in making the transition from CATIA V4 to the future-oriented CATIA V5. For two years, CIPO has worked with IBM's largest customers to develop best practices for interoperating V4 and V5. CIPO also has worked industry by industry to identify specific sub-processes inside a V4 main process chain that can be quickly and efficiently moved to V5 to achieve maximum business benefit.

The results of that work are now available to all IBM clients. Technical white papers, implementation and methodology guidelines, and V4/V5 application scenarios have been posted on the Internet at www.ibm.com/de/caeserv/cipo, and more are being added all the time. The team also is offering integration workshops at venues such as the CATIA Operators Exchange (COE) and European CATIA Forum (ECF) and has developed service engagements for client-specific environments that mix CATIA V4 and V5.

"This really marks the first time that IBM and Dassault Systemes have built a competency center in one place that involves investment and staff from both companies," said Dr. Joachim Betz, CIPO Manager. "We have people from all three geographies (The Americas, Europe and Asia Pacific), solutions people and services people, infrastructure people and applications people, all with experience in a wide range of industries. That gives us a tremendously broad base."

CIPO has packed all of this experience into a team of about 20 people. While that means the team can't possible work directly with every customer, every customer can benefit from CIPO's experience through its published materials and public seminars.

In addition to these publicly available sources, CATIA customers can access additional CIPO-generated knowledge through their IBM representatives or Business Partners. These teams have access to even more detailed information not available on the Web through the IBM intranet and through the company's Business Partner extranet. IBM representatives and IBM Business Partners can access both of these sources through their laptops, even from customer sites, allowing them to bring the knowledge right to their customers' doors.

Among the technical projects that have been tackled by CIPO are topics including the transition of SOLIDE, SURFACES and Advanced Surfaces, data exchange, detailed design, libraries, drafting, and infrastructure, plus CATIA V5 internal data organization and CATIA V5/VPM interoperability. Within each of those areas, the team has developed specific pilot projects by industry. In the automotive industry, for example, these projects have included work on subject areas ranging from jigs and fixtures design to engine concepting.

For many customers, Betz said, the most important question is how to work simultaneously in a UNIX-based V4 environment and a Windows-based V5 environment. Another is how to handle data management; many customers mistakenly believe, for example, that they must migrate all of their V4 data to V5. Not so, CIPO advises. For the purpose of documentation and historical records it's just fine to leave data in V4, the team says. Only data that needs to be changed must be transferred into V5.

Recognizing that it can be challenging to start everyone in an enterprise on V5 at the same time, especially in large organizations, customers also want to identify priorities for which sub-processes to begin performing first on V5. CIPO has identified DMU, the design process, application processes and collaboration with sub-contractors as among the prime candidates, and has outlined the methodologies for making the transition and the benefits customers can expect to achieve.

"That's the kind of information customers want to have very much, and they will find it in our white papers," Betz said. "Our goal is to answer as many questions for as many people as possible, and we think these tools are the way to accomplish that."

Interoperating CATIA V4 and V5: The Best of Both Worlds

CATIA V4 is a proven, secure tool that is the standard at leading companies worldwide. CATIA V5 leverages the latest technologies, offering new features, enhanced usability, a choice of platforms and the power of objects. With so much to recommend both systems, how can a user possibly hope to choose?

The short answer is that he doesn't have to. By interoperating CATIA V4 and V5, users all along the supply and demand chain can get the best of both worlds.

For example, if the designer of a new project wants to reuse a part designed in V4, it is no problem. V5 can access and use the V4 data without difficulty - for example, to reference and include it into the design of a V5 product. If the reused part design must be updated, however, the data can be converted to V5 in a simple, straightforward process.

The same is true for data moving in the other direction. If a subcontractor creates a part using V5 but is working with an OEM using V4, the subcontractor can convert and the OEM can read the data in native V4 format. If changes are needed, the subcontractor will make the changes in V5.

"Migration is only required for data which has to be changed in the receiving CATIA version," explains Dr. Joachim Betz, Manager of the CATIA Interoperability Project Office. "For your historical records - for example, the documentation on a plane you designed 19 years ago that is still in service - there is every reason to maintain the data in V4 and no reason to migrate or convert it to V5. Interoperability is the answer."

One of the benefits of V5 is that it is available for the first time for Windows platforms, in addition to the UNIX platform used by V4. By making V5 available on Windows, and by making it so easy to learn and to use, Dassault Systemes has made the power of CATIA accessible to smaller users who could never afford to invest in UNIX.

That's a benefit not only for small and medium-sized companies, but also for the large companies that tend to buy from them. "The interoperability of V4 and V5 will permit integration all up and down the supply chain," Betz said. "OEMs can now collaborate in real time with vendors they never could before, because those vendors can now install V5 and interoperate it with the V4 already in place at the OEMs and Tier Ones."

Because of its expanded functionality, object-oriented structure and ease of use, most customers eventually will want to move all of their operations onto V5. For most, the transition will involve some period of parallel operation - or interoperability - between V4 and V5. Experts have estimated that an automotive manufacturer, for example, will interoperate for three years.

During that period, customers will want to set priorities for moving specific processes to V5. Some processes, such as design, will clearly benefit from the powerful new associative capabilities of V5 and will want to move to the new system quickly. Some related operations - such as manufacturing, marketing and purchasing - which never had access to V4, will quickly benefit from V5 due to its Web-enabled access features. And because V5 supports digital mockup (DMU) and interoperates with a wide variety of CAD systems, V5 facilitates the consolidation of designs created by different teams. In short, V5 provides front-end access designs regardless of the original source, and extends the power of information to more job functions than ever possible before.

"The sub-processes you'll want to apply CATIA V5 to first are those where you'll get considerable advantage, either because you'll have more functionality, better quality geometry, the possibility for integrating with the total process chain or the possibility to reference V4 data rather than migrating it," Betz said. "That's where you'll want to begin creating new data in V5 as quickly as possible."

Other functions, however, can wait until these transitions have been made before joining the party at some later date. And some functions - such as documentation for purely historical purposes on projects long-since completed - such never be moved.

In addition to identifying the sub-processes to migrate first, customers need to consider a few other issues. If you're making the transition from V4 to V5, make sure you've updated your V4 to R2.4. It's free to existing V4 customers, simple to install, and will make your transition much easier. Customers that don't have a data management tool probably will benefit from adding one, depending on the complexity of the products being designed and the length of time the user anticipates interoperating V4 and V5. Strong data management functionality can make life easier, both during the transition and over the long term. Customers who want to know more about the benefits of a data management system such as ENOVIA VPM or to assess the need for a system in their environment should contact their IBM representative or Business Partner.

V5 is famous for being easy to learn and easy to use. However, the philosophy behind the approach to design in V5 is significantly different than the philosophy behind V4. That means V4 users will derive maximum benefit from V5 by approaching their design process from a new point of view that leverages the approach of V5.

The most important thing to remember, however, is that you aren't alone - IBM and its business partners, together with Dassault, are offering help in many forms. They include:

• White papers and other documentation on the CIPO public website, designed to help you understand the issues and make the right choices during the transition. The address is www.ibm.com/de/caeserv/cipo.
• Additional CIPO research available exclusively from your IBM representative or IBM business partner.
• CIPO seminars at the CATIA Operators Exchange (COE), European CATIA Forum (ECF) and other public forums.
• Training, infrastructure consulting and other services engagements designed specifically for your industry and its sub-processes and designed to make your transition smooth and trouble free.

"The most important first step is to think about your various processes today, decide how to transition them, and don't feel pressured to move everything at once," said Betz. "You can do it a little bit at a time - in fact, you should do it a little bit at a time - and we can help you identify the best plan for doing that. But be assured that interoperability works both ways - V4 to V5 and V5 to V4. How much you move and when you move is entirely up to you. But once you experience the benefits of V5, you're going to wonder how you ever lived without it and that will make all the work worthwhile."

Stay tuned to this space in the coming months as we explore a number of issues involved in V4/V5 interoperability. We'll offer tips and techniques to help you make a smooth transition, leveraging the new functionality of V5 while making the most of the V4 system you already know and love.

PLM - the Basics - Part 1: It's More Than Software, but what?

After years of talking about CAD and PDM, suddenly everyone is talking about PLM (Product Lifecycle Management). But judging by what you've heard, PLM is just CAD plus PDM wrapped in a new name, right?

Wrong.

PLM is about more than software. It includes software, of course, but PLM uses your software in a way that takes your business to a whole new level. It's about doing more with what you have so that you can create, design and build more products better, faster and cheaper.

PLM doesn't put more hours in a day or give you more designers - it just makes it feel that way. By eliminating the sequential processes and the down time spent searching for information or moving it back and forth, PLM lets you create more iterations faster with fewer errors, substantially increasing your productivity. And when you give creative people more time you get more innovation.

In short, PLM is about business - the business of dreaming up, designing, building, and supporting products. It's about the products that bring you the revenue to compete and win in your marketplace.

At its fullest, PLM ties together the data and processes for making things. This may sound like a simple statement but its implications are tremendous. It implies an end to the way we used to run a business. No longer does the design department phone the procurement department to check on the availability of a part. No longer does manufacturing see a design only after it is completed. No longer do businesses run through a series of loosely connected silos. Instead, everybody knows what everybody else knows, when they know it.

PLM accomplishes this by connecting enterprise systems into a product-focused framework so that design applications and enterprise applications -- CRM, SCM and ERP -- can communicate with one another. This framework provides an environment where procurement data can affect design decisions, where manufacturing participates in the design process, where the latest consumer insight uncovered by marketing is immediately available to product managers. PLM even ensures that maintenance and support problems can be fed back to design for continuous product improvement.

This framework is not limited to a single company but can span multiple enterprises, embracing every company and system that participates in a product's value chain. That's the way business works today - and PLM is about business.

Breaking it down

Right about now you may be thinking that PLM sounds a little bit like utopia - attractive, but too good to be true. Yet PLM is very real and it's within your reach. The fact is that you can start with the pieces you already have and build toward your goal. What that goal looks like will vary from company to company, and few if any companies will want or need all the pieces.

To understand how it works, it helps to think of PLM as having three parts - product development, collaboration and integration.

Best practices in product development, such as innovation and knowledge capture, are enabled by PLM. Through collaboration, the product development process can be extended across multiple companies. Finally, PLM allows the product development process itself to be integrated with other business processes and enterprise systems such as ERP, SCM, and CRM.

We'll examine each of these PLM components in future issues of the PLM Newsletter.

Where do you fit?

The scope and breadth of extended enterprise business processes today are astounding. A product's value chain can include dozens of companies. Very few companies do it all - designing, building, and supporting a product, without help from someone else.

PLM is similar. Few companies implement the full scope of PLM. Rather, just like business processes, PLM is distributed across a product's entire value chain.

For small and medium companies, this is great news. It means that you don't have to figure out how to "implement PLM." You can implement only the parts of PLM that apply to your role in the overall process for making a product. If you design components, then a robust CAD application and basic PDM will suffice. If you are a manufacturer, then the simple ability to view and collaborate on pre-released designs can make a tremendous impact on your business.

In next month's PLM Newsletter, we'll examine the product development process and the role of PLM in product development enablement. Meanwhile, you can learn more about IBM's PLM Solutions at www.ibm.com/solutions/plm.