Pair embeds key EADS business processes into PTC's Windchill platform as part of PHENIX effort to harmonize enterprise PLM methods, processes and tools.

Beth Stackpole, Contributing Editor -- Design News, July 26, 2010

PTC and EADS have reached another milestone in their partnership around PLM, delivering the technology and business process integration for PHENIXCHANGE, a Windchill-based platform that is a core component of the aerospace & defense giant's vision to harmonize PLM methods, processes and tools between the various EADS business units.

The deal, announced in the summer of 2008, was one of the foundation pieces of EADS' PHENIX (PLM Harmonized Enhanced Innovation Excellence) initiative, a cross-divisional attempt to standardize the PLM landscape, moving away from having multiple software platforms, tools and different workflows across different functional areas and different divisions. By having an enterprise, harmonized vision of PLM, EADS is hoping to streamline increasingly complex product development and manufacturing processes, improving communications between divisions on a global level, making product data more readily accessible to suppliers and fostering deeper integration and common workflows across previously siloed engineering functions.

Much of EADS/PTC partnership centers around embedding key EADS business processes into PTC's PLM technology. The result of this work is PHENIXCHANGE, an approach that delivers a configurable and modular technology platform that can be easily deployed. As the foundation technology for PHENIXCHANGE, Windchill serves as the enterprise PLM backbone, supporting configuration management, data management, and lifecycle management workflows and business processes.

Now in its second release and going into production in additional EADS business units, PHENIXCHANGE embeds standard EADS processes - say for example, configuration management - into the core Windchill PLM platform so the various groups don't have to reinvent the wheel with PLM for every project. The approach is modular allowing EADS business units to pick and choose the capabilities and business processes that are relevant for their needs, yet configurable, meaning the teams can modify the base processes to reflect their specific workflows. "We take the business process, the objects and workflows and roles of players associated with that business process and implement them in the PLM technology as a module," explains Eric Spéciel, PTC's vice president of business development for Aerospace & Defense, Europe. "We're providing an environment where people at a program level within any EADS business unit can get on the platform, go through a series of menus and questions and configure a PLM system that encompasses all of the modules associated to their needs."

PTC also said that EADS has also committed to the maximum amount of Windchill licenses specified by the contract - around 70,000, accounting for nearly two-thirds of the EADS workforce as well as its core suppliers. The PHENIXCHANGE platform has been deployed in various EADS business units, including Airbus, Eurocopter and EADS Astrium.

PTC Windchill is just one of the core platforms specified under PHENIX. Dassault Systèmes' CATIA CAD, ENOVIA PDM platform and DELMIA digital manufacturing software are the key backbone for creating the 3-D Master Reference model for digital mock-up. The DOORS software from IBM's Rational Software division serves as the Requirements Management backbone and there is a simulation and integration backbone as part of the core PHENIX architecture.