The two companies are developing a new engineering and asset management system in a combined software solution to support the traceability and sustainable development of products – including mechanical, electronic and electrical.
Siemens Digital Industries Software and IBM announced that they are expanding their long-term partnership to develop a combined software solution that integrates their respective offerings for systems engineering, service lifecycle management and assets.
The goal is to help organizations streamline product lifecycles and make it easier to improve traceability in processes, make prototypes, test concepts earlier and adopt more sustainable product designs. With this solution, companies will be able to accelerate innovation and time to market, which can lead to better quality and reduced costs.
The new combined set of integrated engineering software based on SysML v1 standards is expected to support traceability and sustainable product development using a digital thread that connects mechanical, electronic, electrical engineering, software design and implementation. It is intended to span the product lifecycle from initial design and manufacturing to operations, maintenance, upgrades and end-of-life management.
Initially, companies are working to connect IBM Engineering System Design Rhapsody for systems engineering with solutions from the Siemens Xcelerator software portfolio, including Siemens' Teamcenter software for product lifecycle management (PLM) and Capital software for development of electrical/electronic (E/E) systems and software implementation. The IBM Maximo Application Suite has also been connected for asset driving with Siemens' Teamcenter software to support an integrated digital thread between services, assets and execution.
These integrations will focus on effective reuse of processes and materials to enable traceability for sustainable product development. This can help companies make decisions early in the design and engineering process to help drive improvements in cost, performance and sustainability. For example, they can more quickly identify underperforming components or design elements that consume excessive amounts of energy or require early maintenance or replacement, and product innovation can be driven through an integrated digital thread that connects physical assets and from software back to product development.
“A significant part of product innovation and differentiation contains electrical, electronic and software components. However, manufacturing companies are struggling to bring new products to market on time as the current tools, processes and information to manage these components are isolated and disconnected,” said Kareem Yusuf, Senior Vice President of Product Management and Growth. from IBM. “To address this gap, IBM and Siemens are collaborating in a digital environment to integrate sustainability practices throughout a product's lifecycle, from design, production, operation, maintenance and beyond. This connectivity will help accelerate time to readiness for innovation and compliance and improve overall product quality.”
Siemens Digital Industries Software and IBM are also collaborating to create a SysML v2-based solution with a migration path to help customers transition to next-generation systems. SysML supports the specification, analysis, design, verification and validation of a wide range of systems. Service lifecycle management can help maximize product business value by connecting engineering and maintenance to facilitate new collaborative processes between OEMs and operators.
“Together, Siemens Digital Industries Software and IBM will provide a simulation-based systems and software engineering solution designed to cover the entire operational lifecycle. This can empower our customers to innovate, helping to reduce product development costs, drive continuous improvement and create operational efficiencies across the entire enterprise extended throughout the product's operational lifespan," said Tony Hemmelgarn, President and CEO. from Siemens Digital Industries Software. “We're developing this to help companies truly change by improving the extensibility and reuse of systems and data models associated with standards-based solutions in an open ecosystem and to enable our customers to build better products,” he notes.
Kamil Mrva, Chief Information Officer of the ŠKODA Group and an early adopter of the service lifecycle and asset management solution, commented: “We are working closely with Siemens and IBM to help us achieve our goals. sustainability, lower the total cost of ownership (TCO) of products for our customers, and support our business transformation.”
Siemens will be supported by the benefits of IBM's recently launched Partner Plus program and will offer the solution as part of the Siemens Xcelerator ecosystem.
