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frontlinea digest of manufacturing technology newsDassault Systèmes bringsItalian bridge plan to lifeThe Italian province of Piacenza has kickedoff a major manufacturing project bydeveloping a ‘virtual bridge’ with help fromDassault Systèmes.The Piacenza province covers an areaof 2,589 square kilometres, is located inthe North West of Emilia Romagna and istwo-thirds mountainous. For around 30years, the inhabitants of Piacenza have beenwaiting for the construction of a bridgeacross the Trebbia river.The Dassault Systèmes project is expectedto help the Piacenza authorities anticipatework procedures, as well as to feed localcuriosity. Once the three-year constructionphase begins, citizens will be able to takevirtual tours of the bridge through thePiacenza Government’s Web site.The Piacenza authorities provided DassaultSystèmes with the chorography curves from itsgeographic information system, as well as thearchitects’ drawings of the bridge. In addition,the composite model used satellite mapimagery taken from Microsoft Virtual Earth, aswell some onsite photographs.The 3D terrain reconstruction was achievedusing Catia Imagine & Shape, while the bridgemodel was created using standard Catia solidmodelling. Finally, 3DVIA Virtools was used tocombine the various sources of input to createthe final virtual bridge. The entire project tookaround ten days from start to finish.The resulting solution is highly interactive,enabling Web-users to virtually walk on thebridge, travel the bike lane and change the timeof day to their liking.IN FRONTLINE THIS issueManufacturing companiesA & A Contract Customers Brokers. 12Aberdeen Group. 12China Railways. 8Efore. 13Gartner.10, 12Lockheed Martin Aeronautics. 9Nalco Chemicals . . 10Opinion Research Corporation. 12Piacenza Government. 9SAAB. 10Warwick Manufacturing Group. 10Solution providersAccenture. 15Anglia Business Solutions. 13Arrow Electronics. 14Atrion International. 12Dassault Systèmes.9, 14, 15www.3ds.comThe Chinese railway system is to be transformed over a ten year projectFujitsu Technology Solutions. 10Iconics.10, 12iStore. 16Wonderware takes on Huge SCADAproject for China railwaysChina’s Ministry of Railways is toimplement the Wonderware SystemPlatform as the SCADA system to operatethe country’s national railway.The project will extend to 2020 andinvolves the automation of all powermonitoring points for a majority of theChinese railway system and will featurethree million I/O points. The system will bethe largest-scale industrial project to dateinvolving the Microsoft SQL Server platform.The project integrates a large part ofthe country’s railway lines running fromBeijing in the north to Guangzhou in thesouth. The project’s estimated budget isapproximately 3.5 trillion yuan (US 512billion). The organisation expects a six yearreturn on investment.“When the China Railway system iscompleted it will carry both passengersand goods, reaching a distance of 4,000kilometres in just a few hours,” saidChen Qizhi, vice general manager ofChengdu Jiaoda Guangmang Industry, theWonderware system integrator managingthe project. “This is a big leap fromthe normal multi-day trip it takes rightnow and is a huge improvement in our8onwindows.comcountry’s transportation system.”The initial rollout of WonderwareSystem Platform software involvesapproximately 100,000 I/O points. Bythe end of 2009, the SCADA solution willexpand to 300,000 I/O points as morestations are added, and will increase to 1.5million I/O points by 2010. It is expectedthat by the time the project is completedin 2020, the Wonderware SCADA solutionwill manage more than three millionI/O points and will include the BeijingShanghai high-speed railway currentlyunder construction.“ This is a big leap from thenormal multi-day trip ittakes right now and is ahuge improvement in ourcountry’s transportationsystem”“Wonderware System Platform waschosen by the China Ministry of Railwaysbecause it is able to accept large I/Osystems into a single, integrated solution,”said Mark Davidson, the company’s vicepresident. “The scalability of the softwaremakes it possible to execute the project instages, enabling China Railways to operateonly the system that is required at a certaintime. This allows railway managers tobudget resources properly.”Wonderware has standardised itsautomation and control systems onMicrosoft’s industry-standard platforms,such as Microsoft SQL Server. “TheChina Ministry of Railways selectedthe Wonderware System Platform onSQL Server to meet its unprecedentedscalability challenge without sacrificingreliability and security,” said ChrisColyer, Microsoft’s global director ofmanufacturing operations strategies.“Microsoft and Wonderware offer asolid and secure SCADA system builton an open, highly scalable and fullyintegrated architecture. Together, weremain dedicated to providing robust,easy-to-use automation software basedon Microsoft cnLockheed Martin Aeronauticsexpands its horizons with TeamcenterJet Reports. 15Lockheed Martin Aeronautics, the builderof the advanced multi-role fighter the F-35Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), isexpanding its use of Teamcenter software,Siemens PLM Software’s digital lifecyclemanagement solution. This will enable a fullydigital product lifecycle management (PLM)backbone for design, manufacturing andmaintenance support for the JSF programme.“Lockheed Martin’s decision to useTeamcenter to manage and protect itsintellectual property is a testament to ourcommitment to provide a robust, openPLM platform,” said Helmuth Ludwig,president, Siemens PLM Software.“Teamcenter will provide a solution thatenhances collaboration and innovationwhile delivering design anywhere; buildanywhere capabilities that are required forthe global market of the JSF.”Lockheed Martin’s extended use ofTeamcenter, which runs on Microsofttechnology, will allow for increasedcollaboration between the company’sengineering and manufacturingenvironments, which will reduce the timerequired to incorporate changes and enablecritical production rates. The technology, forexample, will be a key tool in enabling thecompany to reach a projected production ratePreactor. 12Kepware Technologies. 12MatrikonOPC. 12NetApp. 12OSIsoft.10, 15Predisys. 13PTC. 13Rockwell Automation.10, 12Siemens PLM Software.9, 10, 12Siemens. 15Solugenix. 13speakTECH. 10Supply Chain Systems. 13Telligent Systems. 10Transcore Link Logistics. 14Wonderware.8, 12of one F-35 aircraft per day. It will also allowLockheed Martin to much more effectivelyperform reconciliations to help improvequality and reduce cost while delivering ontime, by tightly coupling engineering effortswith manufacturing.The integration of processes and toolsthat enable data flow will be instrumentalin driving future standards, maximisingglobal partnerships, and providing worldclass products and services. The F-35 JSFprogramme exemplifies efforts to enhance theproduct value stream and realise the benefitsof product process lifecycle managementsystem integration to be gained in theaerospace and defence environment.Worldtech Security Technologies. 12Microsoft technologies.NET. 14Communicator . 10Dynamics AX. 13Dynamics. 15FAST . 14Hyper-V.10, 12Office Communications Server. 10SharePoint.8, 10, 13SQL Server. 10System Center. 12Virtual Earth. 9Windows CE. 12Windows Server.10, 12www.siemens.com/plmwww.lockheedmartin.com9

frontlinea digest of manufacturing technology newsNews in briefRockwell Automation has releasedPerspectives on sustainableproduction: delivering economicvalue and serving the greater good,the latest title in its ‘ManufacturingPerspectives’ white paper series. Thepaper features insight from RockwellAutomation customers The BoeingCompany, Coca-Cola, and GeneralMills, as well as Rockwell executives. Itcan be accessed athttp://literature.rockwellautomation.comWarwick Manufacturing Group(WMG) at the UK’s University ofWarwick has been working withSiemens PLM Software to provide itsresearchers, students and businesseswith access to more than 22mThriving in uncertain timesMicrosoft’s Empowering Excellence 2009series of manufacturing and resourcesworkshops has been hailed a great success,with well-attended events taking placebetween January and April.With a theme of ‘thriving in uncertaintimes,’ the events were dedicated to anaudience of IT and business decision makers.They provided participants with informationand support on how they could use leadingedge technologies to help realise cost savings,increase efficiency, enable change and fosterinnovation. The success of the workshops isevident in the fact that Microsoft now plansto extend in regions such as the USA, LatinAmerica and Asia Pacific during FY10.Feedback from both customersand partners was excellent, with thedemonstrations and case studies provingpopular with customers. “It was interestingto evaluate how Microsoft could helpwith cost savings and better use of existinginvestments,” said a representative fromSAAB, which attended the event in Sweden.“The seminar was a great success,” saidRoberto Penso, sales manager at Iconics, whoattended the workshop in Istanbul, Turkey. “Ihad to extend my stay in Istanbul to managethe follow-up requests from customers.”“This is a great way to inform ourcustomers on what Microsoft can offer, andspecifically what we can offer together withour industry partners,” commented FreekArmbrust, partner industry manager formanufacturing at Microsoft, following asuccessful event in the Netherlands.www.microsoft.com(commercial value) of technology inits new digital laboratory. SiemensPLM Software’s NX, Teamcenter andTecnomatix products will be used in40 seat bundles, which have beenintegrated into WMG’s Microsoft ITdid you know?Wireless connectivity will be the main focus for vehiclemanufacturers by 2012.infrastructure.Source: GartnerThe Social Enterprise Alliance, astrategic collaboration betweenMicrosoft Gold Certified PartnersTelligent Systems and speakTECH,has been established to deliver anintegrated social networking solutionfor customers in the manufacturingand consumer goods sectors. Throughthis ‘Social Enterprise Solution’,companies will be able to connectwith key customer communitiesthrough social networking andanalytics technologies.Fujitsu Technology Solutions hasreleased its third-generation x10suresolution, designed to provide SMBswith a cost-effective, high-availabilityalternative to clustered hot-spareservers. Benefits of the solutioninclude hypervisor-level support forvirtual machines, integration withMicrosoft Hyper-V and higher levels ofsystem protection against unplanneddowntime.10onwindows.comNalco chooses OSIsoft PINalco Chemicals is to use the OSIsoft PIInfrastructure and Microsoft SharePointplatform, deployed via a Software-plusServices (S S) model, to improve customerasset protection, operations efficiency andthroughput.Nalco’s global distribution of this systemwill provide automated data collection fromcustomer oil and gas and chemicals productionsites along with data streaming to a centralisedmission-critical repository and analytics enginebased on the PI System.The implementation will include thePI System infrastructure, which is built onMicrosoft Windows Server 2008 and integratedwith Microsoft SQL Server 2008. The PI Systemalso uses Microsoft SharePoint Server 2007,Excel Services and PerformancePoint Servicesto transform a site’s operational data intointelligent information for use in real time byNalco’s process chemistry experts. It will furtherleverage Microsoft Office CommunicationsServer 2007 and Communicator 2007 as wellas SQL Server 2008 Analysis Services andReporting Services. The S S deploymentmakes real-time information and analytic toolsavailable so Nalco technicians and customerscan more easily collaborate across an enterpriseto monitor and analyse data, while solvingcomplex process problems in real time.“In today’s business environment, peopleneed to be empowered with insight to makequick, informed decisions,” said ChrisColyer, global director of manufacturingoperations strategies, at Microsoft’smanufacturing and resources sector.“OSIsoft’s Managed PI S S solution deliversthis capability, allowing companies to makemore relevant decisions based on advanceddata collection automation and analytics.”“This solution allows us to offer ourcustomers high-quality performance data,and allows them and our service engineersto optimise treatment programmesfor maximum cost, performanceand sustainability credits, as well asbenchmark their operations,” said SteveTaylor, president of Nalco’s EnergyServices division.www.osisoft.comwww.nalco.com

frontlinea digest of manufacturing technology newsNews in briefVisualisation and manufacturing intelligencesoftware provider Iconics has entered intoa working relationship with KepwareTechnologies, a leader in communicationsfor automation. Through the partnership,the companies will deliver MicrosoftWindows CE communications solutions foruse with Iconics’ embedded SCADA andvisualisation products for machine and paneloriginal equipment builders.The Gartner Enterprise ArchitectureSummit will take place this year on 14-15September at the Royal Lancaster Hotelin London, UK. Attendees will learn howto reduce costs in their business and whyEnterprise Architects should be used asinstruments of change to play a centraland significant role in the future of thebusiness. For more information, visitwww.europe.gartner.com/eaPLM Europe’s annual user group conference,Siemens PLM Connection 2009, takesplace this year on 5-7 October at the NewYork Convention Centre, Marne La Vallee,Paris. This conference targets users of NX,Freight broker reduces storage needsCanadian based customs and freightbroker A & A Contract Customs Brokershas achieved significant IT efficiencygains by using Windows Server 2008 withHyper-V technology and Microsoft SystemCenter with NetApp storage solutions.“Our antiquated direct-attached storagesystem was not meeting our growthand management challenges,” said DanMorris, systems engineer at A & A. “Wewere continually adding more disk drivesas a short-term solution to scale storagecapacity. And we desperately needed toconsolidate our servers as well. While servervirtualisation alleviated part of our problem,we still experienced disk capacity issues thatconstrained our virtualised environment.”A & A turned to Microsoft and NetApp,a storage and data management solutionprovider, to consolidate its server andstorage infrastructure and has achieveda number of benefits in the process. Thesolution has helped the company toadminister both physical and virtual assetsusing the Microsoft System Center suiteof systems management tools; improveoverall system availability using thebuilt-in clustering capabilities of WindowsServer 2008 to automate the failover ofservers; defer the purchase of additionalstorage for up to 24 months by freeingmore than 25 per cent of primary storagefor reuse; and quadruple retention timesfor disk-based backup data from one weekto one month to significantly bolster dataprotection and recovery efforts.“A & A is an excellent example of howour customers are reducing their storagerequirements by 50–70 per cent usingour storage efficiency technologies,” saidPatrick Rogers, vice president of SolutionsMarketing at NetApp. “We understandthe challenges our customers are facingto do more with less and reduce costs andunplanned downtime. Microsoft’s servervirtualisation platform gives customers apowerful solution to consolidate their ITinfrastructure. Together, we’re helpingcustomers maximise the value of theirstorage and servers in their cb.comTeamcenter and Tecnomatix software. Userscan learn about the latest Siemens PLMSoftware developments and participate inthe latest customer showcases from variousdid you know?PLM Software technology.More than half (54 per cent) of Americans strongly believe that highlyautomated and modern factories are important in order to improve orgrow the economy.Product compliance specialist andSource: Rockwell Automation; Opinion Research Corporationleading companies on their successfuladoption and implementation of SiemensMicrosoft independent software vendorAtrion International has recently acquireda whole host of new mid-market andenterprise customers including TeknosGroup Oy, Dubois Chemicals, BG Products,Kuwait Petroleum and ChampionTechnologies. All of these customershave implemented Atrion’s productcompliance suite to address REACH andGHS regulatory compliance demands.Worldtech Security Technologies, aprovider of cyber risk and compliancemanagement solutions for industrialautomation industries, has formed astrategic partnership with MatrikonOPC.The alliance involves the incorporationof Wurldtech’s Achilles Satellite testingplatform and certification programmeinto MatrikonOPC’s range of solutions.12onwindows.comPre

Wonderware, a business unit of Invensys plc, is the market leader in real-time operations management industrial software which includes: Supervisory HMI, GeoSCADA, Production Management, MES, Performance Management, EMI, and integration with asset management, supply and demand chain and ERP applications. www.wonderware.com