Manufacturers have unprecedented opportunities to add value to their customers. At the same time, these opportunities are making their world more complex. Now, products are going to exist on the product itself. But they may also exist in the cloud and in the app that someone has on their phone. All of a sudden, this idea of product development becomes more interesting and more complex.
The value that can be driven with customers is multiplied by that complexity.
All this means we have to take a fresh look at product development, which also means taking a fresh look at PLM. This fresh look can be broadly catagorised into four areas: smart, connected, complete, and flexible. Let walk through each one of those new features in Windchill 11.
Feature 1: Smart PLM
There's no question that we're doing a lot of things in the area of smart. But the big breakthrough here is idea of role-based app. What PTC has done taken ThingWorx technology and embedded it in PLM. This way, it’s now possible to make role-based apps, which offer breakthroughs in three areas:
- First, we can now offer a user experience to occasional and not everyday users that's more intuitive. They can find information inside of Windchill so they can use it. It's unlocking the power of the investment that these companies have made, sometimes over years and years.
- Second, since it's made with ThingWorx technology, it's already connected. It's already part of the IoT. These role-based apps are mashup ready - you can mash it up with data from other systems or from the equipment itself.
- The third breakthrough is we now can offer new user experiences on top of Windchill without ever having to upgrade the backend system.
And of course, as people search for new information, it's important that we allow our companies, customers to keep their IP protected. So we've improved our IP protection as well.
Feature 2: Connected PLM
In the area of Connected, this is probably the most important breakthrough in Windchill 11. By embedding a ThingWorx extension inside Windchill 11, it now enables quality engineers, in any engineering to now make quality a central part of the product development process. They can mash up quality data with PLM data, with SAP data, with ERP and even with data that's coming off the machine. So they can improve the quality of the product that's in the field or improve the quality of the next iteration of that product.
In addition, Windchill 11 is a smart, connected product. With Windchill performance adviser, Windchill can now be serviced remotely by technical support engineers.
Feature 3: Complete PLM
With Windchill 11, there is significant improvements to the core of Windchill. It has an improved ability to take engineering data or CAD data, turn it into engineering building materials data, turn that in to manufacturing data, turn that into service data, all by improving the performance and usability of the core of the Bill of Materials (BOM) configuration management.
In addition, there have been real improvements in the core of Windchill to help our customers move from CAD data management through engineering BOM management, to really extended PLM. This enables expert users to create more sophisticated implementations of PLM, to drive more value inside their organisations.
Feature 4: Flexible PLM
PTC has done a lot of work with its Cloud services team, as well as in the product itself, to make it easier to administer, easier to install, easier to upgrade, easier to integrate and easier to use. As well, they’ve improved the flexibility by adding flexible ways to buy the technology with subscription offerings, including introducing the ability to use Windchill on SaaS.
