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Right Hemisphere pushes for right collaboration platform
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04/07/2007
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Collaboration right across business functions and supply chains could reach new heights, if manufacturers used standards-based tools, according to Right Hemisphere.
The company, which started a decade ago in New Zealand producing software tools, has been working with global manufacturers like Sikorski, Pratt & Whitney and Daimler Chrysler, proving its point.
It’s also the collaboration powerhouse behind Adobe’s 3D products, and is now working with SAP for standards-based engineering-to-business collaboration.
Says vice president of marketing Rix Kramlich: “What’s becoming apparent is that every company has information that lives on different systems, in different formats. So there’s a great need to normalise that information so that every part of the business can work with it.
“That’s not what most PLM [product lifecycle management] does today. It’s not much more than version control for engineer-to-engineer collaboration.”
He believes there are two distinct approaches to real PLM. “Ideally, it should support bringing product information to the whole value chain, but many believe the way to do that is to bring the engineering information itself into the rest of the value chain. We say, no: normalise the data at the point of creation. Then the rest of the organisation really can start to leverage it and integrate it with their data and systems.”
Kramlich insists that, with most systems, that’s not what’s happening. “Today, a tech pubs guy needs a seat of Pro/E or Catia or whatever, and has to open up the file in that format and do a conversion to make it useful. But he just wants an illustration or animation to take into an Illustrator file or whatever. It doesn’t make sense to have to get the heavyweight engineering data. And what about security – are you going to send CAD data out into the value chain?”
Right Hemisphere’s system does the data normalisation as engineers drop new versions into their PLM/PDM systems, with triggering based on rules that are directly useful to the users.
“So, from a file change, our system can deliver up-to-date 2D to tech pubs or something to procurement, or convert relevant information into a PDF and combine that with BoM [bill of materials] data for collaboration with production.
“We can also put that information in a repository for others to access and change into whatever format they want. That could drive web based applications, such as product catalogues with real time prices – it can feed all downstream applications.”
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Author
Brian Tinham
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