The Aras Innovator software is used for product lifecycle management (PLM), advanced product quality planning (APQP), lean product development, and new product introduction (NPI). Aras switched to an open source model in 2007, where clients obtain the software for free, and Aras Corp provides technical support, software updates, and other consulting as a subscription service.
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Enovia
Score 6.8 out of 10
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Dassault Systèmes S.A. is a French company and a world leader in the production of 3D design software, 3D digital mock-up and product lifecycle management (PLM) solutions.
Aras PLM works for our company, yet I don't have experience with any other software system. The system does not refresh and update quickly. Often times users need to force a refresh or logout and logon to verify changes and updates. The Lock and Unlock feature needs getting used to.
Very well suited for direct integration with CAD packages (Solidworks/ Auto desk Inventor or AutoCAD) and version control of CAD Model/Assemblies and Drawing files) and creating parts and document objects directly into Enovia and controlling their lifecycle from CAD Interface. Similarly, Enovia's Engineering central is already equipped with Industry standard ECR/ECO process which needs little customization for implementing Engineering Change management process. The hardest part in Enovia is controlling the disposition of released material for the downstream process in other ERP systems. For example, if a released material has gone for production or purchasing in ERP system/MRP system then dispositioning that material with Major revision (which may need manufacturing to stop the production due to faulty design) have no direct control to stop the downstream activities. Most cases its manual process to communicate with ERP team to for taking action. Similarly, revision of Documents (material Spec for example) linked to thousands of parts required special process (some time needs to schedule in the weekend).
Every revision of a part or document is a separate object, hence unlike SAP status control of an object is easy. The lifecycle of each object can be controlled by its own policy.
It is easy to create new types of objects rather than pre-defined object types and control them by their own customized policy.
Efficient Security and access control model for design and supporting documents file checkout and check-in and easy reporting mechanisms for tracking business activity, like how many parts being created/revised/obsoleted and who has checked out how many times etc.
Aras PLM uses terms and labels that can be confusing like Subsystem / Subsystem Version, Project Record Number (PRN). Companies need to understand these terms and develop business processes to set user standards.
I personally use Aras PLM to manage information technology project documents. In my opinion, Aras PLM is more geared to product and engineering. I would like to see a general project management Aras PLM version with terms and labels that I am familiar with.
The description field should be made required. Many of our engineers have created records and left that blank because it was not required. This would help with the context or background of each record.
When a part/assembly has been released in Enovia and gone for production or downstream processing, Enovia doesn't have much control, hence, Enovia should come up with an easy controlling mechanism for various disposition of parts and seamless communication with an ERP or downstream process.
If a document is linked to thousands of materials then revising this document takes long time gets floated to the BOMs where the previous document versions are used. So, Enovia should have an efficient way to replace the floating process or another efficient mechanism for document revision processing.
Our company is moving from repositories like IBM Notes, MS Sharepoint, and plain network file share directories to a more controlled system of recordd like Aras PLM.
Our company developed numerous IBM Lotus Notes databases to perform document control. Aras PLM is the better choice to IBM Notes databases and home grown databases.
When evaluating Enovia as a PLM product the following Enovia stacks came out as a positive feature compared to other PLMs available on the market. 1. User-friendly interface 2. Easy to Integrate with CAD systems for the manufacturing Industry 3. It is quite easy to implement the Interface with ERP/MRP system (like SAP, Oracle manufacturing) 4. Availability of 3rd party ENOVIA -SAP interface and easy to plug in between two systems
Easy learning curve for the users- Very user-friendly Interface for Engineering central make the users happy and easy to learn the BOM creation and Engineering change management process.
Time-saving - Seamless Creation and revision process of objects saves a huge amount of time compared to other systems.
Easy to copy existing business data and modify them as required.
