CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
October 25, 2004
Implementation Investments
The Babcock & Wilcox Company Continues Innovation Leadership with Integration of RuleStream and MatrixOne; RPM and PLM Technologies Work Together to Drive Efficiencies, Shorten Engineering Times
MatrixOne, Inc., a provider of collaborative product lifecycle management (PLM) solutions for the value chainT, and RuleStream Corporation, provider of rules-driven product management (RPM) solutions to the discrete manufacturing industries, announced the successful integration of the two companies' flagship products as part of an ongoing implementation at The Babcock & Wilcox Company (B&W), a leading provider of products and services to the power generation industry.
With the latest project milestone reached, B&W has brought together its RPM, PLM and MCAD systems in an intuitive and effective application that B&W engineers use to capture and reuse best practices and engineering resources. The integration allows B&W to use existing company knowledge to create and manage raw material items. With thousands of possible part/spec combinations, the integration between RPM and PLM results in the creation of better quality parts.
"Leading manufacturers are already shortening engineering time through process improvement supported by new rules-driven software," said Marc Halpern, research director at industry analyst firm Gartner. "In the future, the integration between PDM and the rules engine will allow innovative new products to be designed with CAD models using PDM-controlled parts and items that are based on specifications and the context of use. This will streamline the generation of project proposals, make estimates of project costs more accurate and maximize part reuse."
B&W engineers will be able to review their custom engineering designs, quickly incorporate engineering changes--even those with complicated design dependencies--and ensure access to up-to-date product information from their MatrixOne PLM system and SolidWorks MCAD models.
Mike Segal, senior vice president of global sales and services for MatrixOne, said, "Through our strong partnership with RuleStream, we were able to provide B&W with a comprehensive solution to meet its productivity and performance goals while maintaining its ability to adapt quickly to changing circumstances. MatrixOne is committed to solving companies' most challenging product development and deployment problems. RuleStream's ability to capture knowledge and ensure its reuse is a powerful capability that MatrixOne users can take advantage of to great success, as B&W is showing."
"Implementing rules-driven product management at all stages of the engineering lifecycle is helping The Babcock & Wilcox Company streamline a number of complex engineering processes," said Robert Nierman, chief executive officer, RuleStream. "B&W is already realizing a reduction in engineering times by being able to quantify and replicate business and engineering rules using RuleStream. Combining a shorter sales cycle with full MCAD visibility and instant access to critical PLM information should provide B&W with a significant market advantage."
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