The past year has been an exciting one at Aras with the addition of many companies large and small to our community. All of that excitement was evident as we came together last month for ACE 2017 in Nashville, TN. Community members from around the globe gathered for the 2 ½ day event to learn, network, and share ideas about the digital transformation in product development, manufacturing, and the supply chain.

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Peter’s Keynote

Peter Schroer (Aras’s Founder & CEO) kicked off the event with his vision of how connected products, Industry 4.0 and new business models are driving the necessity for each product’s Digital Twin and related Digital Thread.

He explained that analyzing and interpreting IoT data streams requires context, the product configuration i.e., it’s Digital Twin, Traceability back to previous versions, i.e., its Digital Thread. Bringing together cross-discipline processes for these takes a Platform approach to PLM. One that has greater flexibility, scalability and can be upgraded continuously; that’s Aras, that’s what only Aras can deliver.

Equally as exciting, Peter introduced our newest Board member, Tony Affuso. Many of you will remember Tony from his days as CEO of Siemens PLM Software business. Tony was fired up and pumped about the energy in the community. He’s looking forward to connecting with folks and getting involved.

 

Huntington Ingalls Shipbuilding Conquers Vessel Complexity

For those that don’t know, Huntington Ingalls is America’s largest military shipbuilding company which designs, builds and maintains nuclear and non-nuclear ships for the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard. Ingalls Shipbuilding showed how they are transforming their processes to enable the Digital Shipyard of the future for more efficient processes to support global readiness.

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Microsoft  Devices Extreme Agile Implementation

The team at Microsoft outlined how they used a SAFe Agile deployment methodology at scale with over 100 people on the project worldwide. They migrated their previous Teamcenter and Enovia systems into Aras and standardize processes in an Azure cloud-based PLM implementation with a data lake that uses Power BI for analytics. The impressive result is what they call OnePDM.

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Valley Fine Foods– One Year Later

Valley Fine Foods, who presented at the beginning of their journey at ACE 2016, returned to share how far they have come in a year. Their initiatives now include expanding the use of Aras Innovator into existing processes across the entire business covering both operational and regulatory aspects to transform the company.

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Additional Aras customer presentations:

  • Akrapovič presented how they are achieving success by replacing SAP processes with Aras Innovator to enable more adaptive workflows
  • Carestream talked about how they are using Aras PLM in an IoT scenario with connected healthcare equipment for data driven business decisions on product improvements, field support, and regulatory compliance
  • Sandia showed us how they implemented a way to perform automated testing on Aras Innovator with Aras Innovator – Self-testing the implementation – really impressive
  • LORD shared how their implementation of end-to-end document management using Aras for quality compliance has achieved better organizational alignment and delivered new levels of performance
  • Pabst Brewing Company explained how today’s speed of innovation is causing them to learn learn from experience in a closed loop manner to enable business transformation
  • IBM showed a functional prototype with Aras as an early digital evaluation of integrated embedded systems representing the Digital Twin for managing IoT-enabled products across the lifecycle
  • Capgemini discussed the future of connected assets and how companies need to prepare for the new IoT connected world

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John Sperling also had exciting news about our latest platform release – Aras Innovator 11 SP9 – and a whole series of application releases like our most recent update to the Aras Quality Management System application.

Related sessions went through new capabilities in Manufacturing Process Planning, Technical Documents, and others. You’ll have to check out the session presentations to get all the info.

Then, Rob McAveney, our Chief Architect, laid out the Aras Vision & Roadmap for everyone with some really compelling insights into enabling the Digital Twin and Digital Thread. In addition, we heard from Joe Barkai, a leading analyst in IoT and PLM, about the interplay between designing products for the IoT and products designed by the IoT. Definitely thought provoking.

I also want to also thank our partners who joined us and exhibited at the event: Accenture, Aessis, IBM, Infor, Infosys, ITI, Kisters, Minerva, No Magic, Prolim, PSC Group, Razorleaf, SofTech Group, The Institute of Configuration Management, vdR, XPLM Solution, Zinnotech, Zionex, Zuken. It’s really great to have such an active ecosystem in the community. Our partners are really breaking new ground on exciting new innovations that expand the value of Aras.

 

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This year we continued with our unique Thursday morning Q&A session of In the Round with Peter Schroer and Rob McAveney. What makes this session so successful is that questions are freeform without moderation, and the audience is free to ask whatever they want.

The result is a totally open and honest session where anyone can ask anything. The session is unlike anything I’ve ever seen at a software conference. The energy in the room is really exciting.

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Amid all of this learning, networking and sharing of ideas and innovations, we found the time to have a little fun and experience the heart and soul of Nashville… music. We headed downtown Tuesday night to local hotspot B.B. King. Attendees dined on local cuisine, listened to live blues music, and some even tested their skills on a mechanical bull!

It was the perfect way to unwind and spend time getting to know others after an energetic day of collaboration.

Overall, ACE 2017 was a huge success and our best yet. I want to thank everyone that was able to make it for participating. We believe that your enthusiastic involvement is what makes our community truly special.

Planning has already begun for ACE 2018 so stay tuned to our website for information about the date and location. I can promise you we will bring the same energy and excitement, along with new enhancements to the program.

To download all presentations from ACE 2017, please visit our website.