Solid Edge Insight Technology Embeds Design Data Management in CAD at No Additional Cost

Implementation in as Little as One Hour and No User Training Removes Traditional PDM Barriers

CYPRESS, CA - September 26, 2001 - UGS (NYSE: UGS) today announces Solid Edge Insight, a new technology that merges powerful design data management capabilities with its Solid Edge 3D mechanical CAD software. Insight technology augments Solid Edge's mechanical design tools with data vaulting, revision management, engineering change orders, and BOM management to help companies capture, share and re-use the collective knowledge of their design engineering organizations.

With Insight technology, Solid Edge is the industry's first mainstream mechanical CAD system to include design data management as a built-in capability. Insight offers manufacturing companies an innovative alternative to separate CAD and product data management (PDM) systems - a fully integrated solution that is transparent to engineers in their everyday CAD work routines. Designed for rapid, simple, and inexpensive implementation, Solid Edge Insight delivers the benefits of design management at a very small fraction of the cost of conventional CAD and PDM solutions.

The Insight-enabled data management functions will be included at no additional cost as integral components in Solid Edge Version 11, scheduled for delivery in the fourth quarter, 2001.

Extending CAD benefits to the engineering organization

Insight technology extends Solid Edge CAD productivity benefits beyond individual designers to the entire engineering organization virtually cost free. Industry return-on-investment studies show that manufacturing companies can save millions of dollars by implementing data management in the engineering process.

"We have changed the scope of Solid Edge to help harness the explosion of product data that CAD makes possible," says Bill McClure, vice president of MCAD at UGS. "Design management is a prerequisite for manufacturers seeking time-to-market reductions, and Solid Edge Insight technology delivers knowledge sharing benefits while dramatically reducing costs and implementation timelines."

Fast, easy, inexpensive implementation

Solid Edge Insight offers manufacturers an alternative to conventional data management solutions that dramatically reduces planning, setup and deployment time and costs. Transparent integration of knowledge

sharing functions in the Solid Edge user interface requires no new commands or procedures, eliminating user training time and costs. Software installation and data import can be accomplished in as little as one hour.

"Solid Edge Insight provides our customers the benefits of traditional product data management systems, without the typical problems in implementation, integration, cost and risk," says McClure. "Solid Edge designers won't even be aware they are using data management tools and will be able to focus on design. Their organizations can manage data as quickly as they create it to reduce errors and shorten time to market."

Insight extends Microsoft SharePoint(tm) Portal Server, the flexible intranet solution that allows companies to easily find, share and publish information. Each server offers enterprise-level search functionality and integrated document management tools.

"Solid Edge Insight Technology provides a natural extension to SharePoint Portal Server, benefiting our mutual customers in the technically demanding mechanical engineering discipline," said Gytis Barzdukas, group product manager of the Portal Business Group at Microsoft.

Integrating design management with the engineering process

Insight vaulting combines design documents and CAD files with attribute data in a common, secure index storage system that supports file locking (check-in, check-out), search, and role-based access. Insight delivers many features and capabilities of conventional data management systems, integrated directly and transparently within Solid Edge CAD design tools. Key features and benefits include:

• Distributed data management
• Fast search and reporting with full-text queries and where-used reports
• Engineering Change Order (ECO) management
• Assembly link management
• Revision management
• Dynamic bill of materials (BOM) management
• Smart Sync automatically synchronizes file servers and improves CAD system performance
• CAD property synchronization

Industry and User Reaction

CIMdata, an independent global consulting and research company, asserts that successful PDM implementations can save manufacturing companies millions of dollars. CIMdata also cites the support of both users and managers as the biggest challenge to successful PDM implementation.

"This new technology is a big differentiator for Solid Edge and its users," says Ed Miller, president of CIMdata, "Solid Edge has focused on eliminating one of the most common barriers to successful and profitable PDM implementations by taking the burden off the individual mechanical CAD users who just want to do their design work. With the buy-in from the CAD users, CAD and IT managers and executives have a much clearer path to the enormous business benefits proven in PDM implementations."

Two Solid Edge customers, MacDon Industries (Winnipeg, Canada) and Pella Corp. (Pella, IA), have evaluated and tested the new technology.

"The benefits of Solid Edge's solution is simplicity," says Ken Grundey at Pella Corp. "Because it's part of the existing Solid Edge CAD structure, our users won't have to think about PDM because it's automatic and immediate. And while it's invisible to the designers, Solid Edge Insight technology performs all of the critical functions our engineering organization needs to ensure the integrity and efficient access of our Solid Edge data."

Jon Cook, engineering information manager at MacDon Industries identified multiple benefits: "This removes the burden on the engineer to learn and implement what historically has been a complex, separate software system." Cook also proved the rapid implementation: "After only one hour, I had installed and implemented the tools and easily made it home for dinner."

Machinery Design Productivity: The Solid Edge Advantage

Solid Edge is the proven design engineering solution that can reduce time to market by an achievable 50 percent using exclusive knowledge sharing technology that accelerates the engineering process. The choice of leading machinery designers worldwide, Solid Edge has been selected by companies such as Alcoa, NEC Engineering and Volvo as a strategic tool to help them realize the benefits of better quality, lower costs, and shorter delivery cycles.

Solid Edge is uniquely positioned to deliver exceptional value to machinery designers. Solid Edge directly addresses the practical aspects of design engineering with powerful CAD functions that are extremely easy to learn and use. With an unmatched ability to capture design intelligence, Solid Edge ensures more accurate and rapid design change turnaround and increased productivity for machinery development.

The Solid Edge Voyager Program includes more than 150 downstream engineering software applications in such disciplines as finite element analysis, manufacturing, kinematics and dynamics, electro-mechanical, rapid prototyping, standard parts, product data management, translation, view/redline/animation and hardware solutions.

Written for Microsoft Windows NT, Windows 98, Windows 2000 and Windows ME operating systems, Solid Edge is distributed in eight languages to customers around the world, including Boeing, Kaiser Optical, Alcoa, Volvo, L-3 Communications, Ohio State University, Yale University, University of Edinburgh, Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, NASA, Pella Windows, Royal Air Force, S&C Electric, Lincoln Electric, WMF, ULMA Group, Groupe Moulinex-Brandt , Groupe SEB , Groupe BENETEAU, Electromagnetic Sciences, Liebert Corp., Kaeser Kompressoren, Prodrive, USSC Group, Seiko, Hyundai, Daikin and NEC Engineering.

About UGS

UGS (NYSE: UGS) is one of the world's fastest growing and most successful software and services companies, dedicated to helping manufacturers optimize their product lifecycle process. UGS' rich heritage and financial strength have been established by consistently providing the industry's best product development applications for over 25 years. Today, UGS is distinguished as the leading supplier of Internet-based product life cycle collaboration solutions as well as the company that is creating the de facto industry standards for the digital product. With offices in over 30 countries around the globe, UGS is the vendor of choice for open solutions that seamlessly weave into any environment and create unprecedented value for the world's most demanding customers. In addition, UGS is the first company in its industry to earn the ISO 9001/TickIT certification.

 

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