Symposium draws record attendance

The ninth annual ProSTEP iViP Symposium drew more than 370 participants representing 120 companies from 17 nations - a good dozen more than in 2005.

Numbers don't lie, and the number of participants and exhibitors at the ninth annual ProSTEP iViP Symposium were particularly impressive.

With over 370 participants representing 120 companies from 17 nations - a good dozen more than in 2005 - the symposium sponsored by association members Delphi and UGS was able to top last year's record attendance.

The number of exhibitors was also subject to another increase, growing from 21 to 27.

The motto of this year's symposium was "Enabling innovation - integrating processes".

As member of the board Andre Radon from Delphi stated, the ProSTEP iViP Association today is no longer primarily concerned with data models but rather with shaping the processes involved in cross-enterprise collaboration.

Of course, standardisation remains a central topic since modern networks can only function more efficiently than traditional organisational structures on the basis of sustained harmonisation of industrial processes.

Bette Walker, Vice President and Chief Information Officer at Delphi, praised the Association during her keynote concerned with the successful restructuring of her company.

"The main areas in which the ProSTEP iViP Association is involved provide exactly the right answers to today's challenges".

"Process management, system integration, product data standardisation, collaboration within the various engineering domains and the transfer of knowhow - that accurately describes our own path to the many quality commendations that we have recently received".

"Providing a high level of quality despite tremendous pressure will in the coming years separate the market leaders from the rest of industry".

Mechatronic products are the focus of attention in almost every sector of industry when it comes to pressing forward with innovation.

A number of presentations dealt with questions relating to the management of the data generated in the individual domains, collaboration between engineers who speak different languages, and securing the quality of the overall product at the end of the processes.

Dr Trac Tang, responsible for company-wide process integration at Volkswagen, presented information on the status of integration at VW.

Before the product creation process chain can be lengthened to create a product process, harmonising the heterogeneous processes involved in the various product lines is the order of the day - with focus on a uniform, digital change service that can also function beyond the borders of VW.

As of last year, Mentor Graphics has taken over a leading role in ECAD/MCAD integration.

Hans-Ulrich Heidbrink, Director Collaboration Projects at Mentor, reported on the results achieved so far in numerous workshops attended by more than 60 companies.

The aim of the project is the definition of a STEP-compliant collaboration model and the definition of a data transfer process based on XML.

Mentor has already created a prototype and Heidbrink called on the members of the association to "join in and not be left behind".

The progress made with regard to the practical implementation of the VDA 4965-1 Recommendation drawn up in the Association's Engineering Change Management project and the first version of OMG PLM Services was also the subject of several sessions at the ninth symposium.

Jurgen Scharpf described the status of development at DaimlerChrysler, where new product change management (NCM), which is based on the above-mentioned recommendation, has been used through the enterprise in the car group since the end of 2004.

This has brought about a number of benefits: no change is made without an official change request, whereas it used to be that 80% of changes were made without an official change request.

One single procedure now replaces what used to be three separate procedures.

Instead of the master control centre, a single person can be behind all changes.

Throughput times decreased significantly.

Now what needs to be done is also reap these benefits in distributed development environments involving external partners and suppliers.

ECM clients and server solutions are already available on the market.

Michael Morel, Director Manufacturing Industry at Adobe Systems, presented a special kind of novelty, namely the new 3D functionality offered by PDF.

This functionality allows 3D models generated in any system to be displayed, annotated and used interactively by means of Adobe Reader, which is free of charge and installed on almost every computer.

Another new feature is that the author can assign access rights and rights of use that can be changed at any time to PDF documents.

3D PDF allows product information to reach every partner, both within a company and beyond its borders, thus allowing all those involved in a project to be supplied with the information they need.

In his keynote speech, Professor Hartmut Esslinger, co-CEO of the world-renowned company Frog Design, put his finger on a number of sore spots that pose an obstacle to innovation (not only) in Germany: "Innovation means developing something that no one else has thought of".

"This forward-thinking is often missing at executive management level".

"As a result, research and development have been come a hotbed of denial and budget destruction instead of a motor driving innovation".

His statements "innovation is no magic bullet" and "outsourcing is a strategy counterproductive to innovation" struck a chord with the audience.

When asked what drew Frog Design to Silicon Valley, Prof Esslinger replied: "The typical immigrant mindset there is certainly attractive - that you have to work together, that you need each other, in order to achieve something".

The Chairman of the Board, Alfred Katzenbach, saw this as a perfect analogy to the ProSTEP iViP Association: "Discussing things with one another, working towards a common goal, creating something together instead of putting up boundaries - these are all characteristics of our association".

"That is the foundation on which we develop and implement open standards so successfully".

"And this way of working will help the association and its members move forward on the path towards process harmonisation both within a company and across corporate borders".

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