Latest Release Includes New Features for Process Planning, Robotics and Virtual Commissioning, and Multiple Enhancements to Optimize Production Efficiency
PLANO, Texas, June 23, 2009 - 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 latest release of Tecnomatix® software, the company's comprehensive digital manufacturing suite. Numerous enhancements throughout Tecnomatix 9 - along with several new features in areas such as process planning, robotics simulation and commissioning - create a solution aimed at helping companies optimize their planning and manufacturing productivity.
''In order to respond to a changing market and prepare for opportunity during economic downturns, companies need to rapidly develop new products while maintaining high quality,'' said Ziyon Amram, vice president, Digital Manufacturing Solutions, Siemens PLM Software. ''The many enhancements and new functionality of Tecnomatix 9 are designed to help organizations increase both planning and manufacturing productivity resulting in production optimization, cost reduction and the ability to efficiently reconfigure manufacturing systems to meet changing market demands.''
Planning Productivity
The Tecnomatix suite, together with the new capabilities in today's release, enables collaborative engineering and improves the productivity of manufacturing planners, supporting companies in their effort to bring products to market faster.
Tecnomatix also leverages Teamcenter® software, Siemens PLM Software's digital lifecycle management portfolio, as an integrated platform for manufacturing planning, from process authoring through simulation to documentation. Enhancements in Tecnomatix 9 support concepts such as re-use of best practices and standardization, as well as tools helping to manage complexity, such as change management. These tools help increase planning productivity and enable planners to do more with less.
One of the principal ways Tecnomatix 9 helps companies drive productivity is through several new features aimed at automating various planning tasks. For example, one new function allows for the rapid creation and exploration of alternate product assembly/disassembly sequencing in order to optimize this planning task and save time in creating assembly documentation. Another automated planning task enhancement uses a higher level task description to manipulate the Jack® human model component of Tecnomatix in 3D virtual environments. This capability can significantly reduce the time required for a simulation study, allowing for the evaluation of various what-if scenarios involving the simulation of humans in a manufacturing or maintenance environment.
Tecnomatix 9 includes several additional enhancements targeted at increasing planning productivity, usability improvements and a new manufacturing tooling library. In addition, Tecnomatix offers tighter integration to Teamcenter, enabling seamless manufacturing data collaboration between Tecnomatix applications and the Teamcenter PLM backbone.
Tecnomatix 9 brings planning and production more closely together, and helps bridge the gap between virtual and real. With Tecnomatix 9, a new solution for Dimensional Planning & Validation (DPV) is being introduced. DPV enables capturing large amounts of as-built data from measurement devices on the shop-floor and managing them in Teamcenter. Product designers as well as manufacturing engineers can leverage powerful search and analysis functions to analyze and compare quality data from various plants and thus optimize product and process.
''With the Tecnomatix solution, we have succeeded in introducing a fully integrated planning system into our company,'' said Roland Weisser, plant manager, ebm-papst St. Georgen GmbH & Co. KG. ''From design and planning to the after-sales stage, we are able to map the entire production lifecycle. The planning data can be re-used at any time and the production planners can access existing documentation for the same process and the same machine or system.''
Manufacturing Productivity
In addition to addressing the planning process, Tecnomatix 9 also contains multiple new features and enhancements focused on manufacturing productivity. These features and enhancements further strengthen the power of Tecnomatix to help companies virtually optimize their manufacturing processes with software tools designed to maximize the productivity of existing lines and facilitate the commissioning of new ones.
In the area of robotics simulation, Tecnomatix 9 offers a number of new capabilities including a new automatic path planning function that significantly reduces the effort for the offline programming of robots. In addition, the Tecnomatix virtual commissioning capability allows for testing real PLC controller programs against virtual manufacturing lines and can lead to a dramatic reduction in commissioning time on the shop floor. Furthermore, standard libraries of intelligent components significantly reduce the time and effort spent on virtual commissioning projects by eliminating the time necessary to manually create logic definitions from scratch.
''Virtual commissioning provides real and tangible benefits and addresses one of manufacturing's fundamental issues: getting product to market in a timely and competitive manner,'' said Dick Slansky, senior analyst for PLM, ARC Advisory Group. ''With today's release of Tecnomatix 9, Siemens PLM Software continues to approach PLM and digital manufacturing in an integrated and holistic manner that is consistent with the needs of its customers. Virtual commissioning represents one of the immediate paybacks of the Tecnomatix digital manufacturing technology and offers a concrete value proposition. Many manufacturers will find that the potential benefits already available provide a compelling reason to embrace this technology today.''
Tecnomatix 9 enables companies to boost manufacturing productivity in several other areas of the manufacturing environment such as factory layout and space consumption, manual workflow processes and material flow.
More realistic digital human models enhance ergonomic studies and aid with the early detection and correction of potential issues.
An enhanced time analysis and management capability includes the ability to analyze value added tasks versus non value added tasks.
Tighter integration between Teamcenter and the FactoryCAD® solution in Tecnomatix improves factory design data management and collaboration.
Multiple improvements to the Tecnomatix Plant Simulation application enhance the users' ability to reduce inventory, detect potential bottlenecks, optimize material flow, and quickly model even the most complex environments.
''The simulation and virtual commissioning applications in Tecnomatix enable us to identify potential issues in a digital environment before they become expensive problems on the factory floor,'' said Jordan Merhib, director of Business Development, Applied Manufacturing Technologies, Inc. ''Tecnomatix enables us to help our customers avoid multiple problems that would lead to missed delivery schedules and lost revenue. We are confident that we will be able to take advantage of several of the new capabilities in Tecnomatix 9 to further improve our customer's overall production productivity.''
Tecnomatix 9 is available immediately. For more information, please visit www.siemens.com/tecnomatix.
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 nearly six million licensed seats and 56,000 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.
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