Velocity platform attacks Asia SME market
THE new Velocity product lifecycle management technology, specifically for SMEs, has been released on a grand scale in Asia.
Velocity - recently launched in Australia and New Zealand by plm - is hitting the Asian SME economy through a major consortium involving UGS (whose product suites are represented in Australia by plm ), Hewlett Packard, and Intel, to drive product lifecycle management (PLM) to mid-market manufacturers in Asia.
Called the Velocity Series Consortium, consortium members are confident it will help mid-market manufacturers reduce costs and minimise barriers to innovation.
This Asia Pacific initiative is aimed at stimulating the use of PLM technology among small to mid-size manufacturing companies and help these companies drive innovation using PLM software running on efficient, optimised hardware and networking platforms.
The UGS Velocity Series portfolio includes the UGS software products, Solid Edge, Femap, NX CAM Express, and Teamcenter Express, for digital product design, analysis, manufacturing process, and data management respectively.
Velocity Series is the world's first comprehensive, pre-configured portfolio of software for the PLM mid-market.
Director of Australia-based plm, Dennis Colusso, said that when the company released Velocity to the Australian and NZ markets recently it had absolutely no doubt that it would offer a permanent change to the fortunes of small to medium-size manufacturers.
"Velocity is having a strong and immediate impact here in Australia and New Zealand because the smarter SMEs know that their business and manufacturing processes need to be a streamlined and economically efficient as possible - particularly as Asian counterparts immerse themselves in their fast-growing new economy," Mr Colusso said.
"We are now part of a trading region and time zone offering SMEs in Australia and New Zealand potentially massive new business markets, provided the right systems are put in place early on.
"The smarter operators here have seen just how Velocity can give a business a powerful and scalable tool similar to those used by the major multinationals,” he said.
"Asia's mid-market companies are the hidden drivers of the region's economic development and growth, and they need to innovate to survive and compete in increasingly globalised markets.
"They recognise this need - and more importantly, their customers are demanding it.
"But with our direct presence here in Australia New Zealand, our SME sector has excellent support for the implementation and ongoing utilisation of the powerful Velocity product which seems almost certain to give the SME its first real global PLM platform."
Mid-market companies have traditionally been slower than large manufacturers in implementing PLM due to limited technology budgets, smaller IT teams, a focus on production rather than innovation, and - of equal importance - highly fragmented legacy IT environments are common barriers.
Responding to these issues, Velocity Series Consortium is launching a number of initiatives aimed at making PLM technology easier for these mid-market companies to acquire, deploy and support.
To demonstrate PLM feasibility, implementation and return on investment, the Velocity Series Consortium has invested in a PLM Centre of Excellence located at the facilities of leading Chinese auto manufacturer Shanghai Automotive Industrial Corp (SAIC).
In addition to the UGS Velocity Series portfolio, the centre will include UGS' Teamcenter, NX, and Tecnomatix solutions running on Intel Xeon DP processor-powered HP xw8200 workstations and DL380 server.
18-Jul-2006