Software has provided fewer details about its integration plans.

In general, says Ziyon Amram, Siemens PLM vice president, manufacturing solutions, the company will invest in three areas involving integration of its PLM software with Siemens products—covering factory controls, manufacturing execution system (MES)/PLM integration, and links with other Siemens automation software. More specifically on the digital manufacturing side, the company announced an initiative called Project Archimedes last summer that is focusing on five specific areas: adaptive manufacturing, virtual commissioning, harmonizing lifecycles, hi-fi machining and mechatronics.

The company is partnering with manufacturing customers in each of these areas, and is also continuing on its Tecnomatix digital manufacturing road map that was in place prior to the Siemens acquisition, says Amram. And while a “formal road map” for tighter integration with Siemens technologies is not yet in place, it’s fair to say that the initiatives will not produce “big bang” results, but will lead to “intermediate deliveries” over a multi-year timeframe, he notes. Interested parties should watch Siemens PLM announcements at the Hanover Fair April 21-25, in Hanover, Germany, where additional information will be revealed, Amram adds.

Amram points out that Tecnomatix has had a relationship with Siemens since the late 1990s, even prior to its 2005 acquisition by UGS, so it is not as though the two companies are starting integration efforts from scratch. Like Dassault, Siemens PLM Software has a growing number of customers who are already using virtual commissioning, he says. And Siemens PLM intends further integration to provide digital manufacturing capabilities that go beyond the pre-production uses of virtual commissioning. “At the end of the day, our goal is to enable an environment that would proceed into production as well,” Amram says. The vision involves “true integration” between the virtual and physical worlds, with a single source of data to provide “visibility throughout the manufacturing cycle.”

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