Tom Shelley reports on how collaboration technology could be enhanced by Adobe’s acquisition of Macromedia
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Open source is gaining prominence – and not just in the developer community – but can it really slash your costs?
Brian Tinham finds out
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CAD information is being democratised fast. Brian Tinham talks to Adobe’s business development manager Stephen Partridge about the brave new world
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Success depends upon the speed and agility with which organisations and their partners can share information – but the barriers are numerous. Systems are typically designed for internal, confidential operation, yet, as Mark Wheeler, Adobe’s marketing director for Northern Europe, explains, there is huge business benefit in exposing some content to the supply chain.
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Northampton-based race engine developer Cosworth has created a common information window for engineering, purchasing and suppliers that's transformed its business operations. The firm implemented Documentum's eRoom, initially for exchanging CAD information but is now enabling collaboration with customers and suppliers way beyond design.
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For ventilation systems manufacturer Flakt Woods, an
online document management system is transforming its business all the way from customer service to product development and production.
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Finding information fast for good business decision-making is becoming increasingly important. Keith Ricketts tells us how to do it well
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All companies, small as well as large, should be taking on board PLM concepts and tools to beat the competition, advises Dr Tom Shelley
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The chances of finding a supplier that matches your requirements the traditional way are pretty remote. Online matching makes all the difference, says Andrew Ward
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Stannah Lifts' CAD and PLM development work has already helped it quadruple effective capacity for one of its product ranges. Brian Tinham reports
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Paul Doe, chief designer at Mitsubishi MotorSports, tells Brian Tinham how his team is transforming development for the World Rally Championships
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Electrical and electronics giant Legrand reckons it will save time and money all the way from conceptual design to production, through concurrent working across teams and international sites, all by using a PLM (product lifecycle management) system.
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Komatsu UK, one of Europe's biggest manufacturers of hydraulic excavators, has solved problems of managing and tracking new product introduction processes.
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Aerospace and defence company Harmon Manufacturing of Wimborne Dorset reckons it's significantly improved its ability to deliver on-time, and enabled lean and agile production on advanced planning and scheduling (APS).
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We like documents – we’re comfortable with them. That’s because they do the job. Whether it’s an assembly design, a BoM (bill of materials), a work-to list, a purchase order, an invoice, an ASN (advance shipping note), a report: it reflects what users need to know – physically, contractually, legally, whatever. But we don’t like paper. We don’t like its storage, rekeying, constrained views and audit trail issues. We also don’t much like its vulnerability, problems with seeing changes and exceptions, and the barriers paper puts in the way of collaboration, efficiency, flexibility and speed
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If your business is increasingly about engineer- to-order and you’re looking for one seriously big improvement from your IT, look no further than an enterprise system geared to two very specific capabilities. It needs first to be able to automate and thus speed up the processes of getting quotations out, re-using as much know-how as possible. Second, when orders come in, it needs again to be able to re-use that data to automatically configure purchasing and production so that everything is seamless – quite different to most organisations today
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Content management software is fast becoming an investment priority. In part that’s down to an increased focus on compliance. But there are also growing requirements in terms of collaboration for both brand and product development, and e-commerce. And there’s the need to access and maintain structured and unstructured (document) data across acquisitive conglomerates
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Engineering design, procurement and supply chain operations at Northamptonbased race engine developer Cosworth show IT-assisted collaboration at its best. The firm, which implemented the Documentum eRoom system two years ago initially for exchanging CAD information and enabling remote collaboration with customers and suppliers in engineering design, has since extended its application. The result is a common information window for engineering, purchasing and suppliers that’s transformed how things are done
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What’s interesting, beyond the scale of the Acrobat implementation at Airbus, is that it’s not only for PDF documents: the group intends to use Acrobat’s latest features for company-wide and external fast digital collaboration. It clearly believes that Adobe’s new security features are up to the task, and says that it will also be using the audit trailing and archiving facilities
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Fleet Support (FSL), a VT Group and BAE Systems joint venture at the Portsmouth Naval Base, provides ship repair services for the Royal Navy and commercial ships. Pre 2000, the company equipped itself with an Autodesk CAD solution, partly because it was the industry standard and partly because it offered an incremental transition from 2D to 3D. Laptops were equipped for use on location, and the electrical team also adopted AutoCAD with functionality provided through FSL-developed Visual Basic.
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The DTI's Silver project yielded success for the jewellery sector, much of which is transportable. This is British Manufacturing IT at its very best
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PTC, the product development company, has been at the heart of the development of the Airbus A380, the world’s largest passenger aeroplane, unveiled January 18th in France
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When the world's largest laser machine builder moved up from 2D to 3D, it started a chain of events that transformed much of the company's ability to compete. Brian Tinham reports
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Rolls-Royce has been successfully capturing and publishing its intellectual capital on an intranet. Brian Tinham reports on what could be a company lifesaver
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Collaborative engineering in an environment as diverse, complex and geographically distributed as Airbus isn't easy. But it's working and delivering huge savings
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