Proficiency, Inc., a developer of product information management products, this week announced a new version of Collaboration Gateway, its flagship product for CAD interoperability.
Collaboration Gateway version 6.0, like earlier versions, lets users of various CAD programs — including UGS's NX and I-deas, PTC's ProEngineer Wildfire, and Dassault Systemes' CATIA — save their CAD designs across any of these other formats. Information, such as geometry, features, and history trees, is transferred intact into the desired format. This allows engineers in the design chain to view and manipulate CAD files in their application of choice, Proficiency officials said.
Proficiency has added interoperability with CATIA V5 to version 6.0 of the Collaboration Gateway software, which also can facilitate migration of a company's CATIA V4 files to V5. The new release also offers functionality that supports the practice of model-based definitions. This growing trend in the design community allows creators of 3D product designs to eschew the process of making separate 2D drawings, which would usually need to be created to guide the manufacturing process.
"Model-based definition is the concept that all manufacturing information can be put into the 3D model," Alex Zavorski, Proficiency's director of technical marketing, told Managing Automation. Currently, he said, "A great deal of manufacturing is performed from the 2D drawings." Zavorski — and Proficiency — expect that to change in the future, as the trend toward embedding that information in the 3D models grows. Future releases of Collaboration Gateway, he said, will include additional capabilities that support the model-based definition concept, but he called the support functions in version 6 "substantial."
Manufacturers and product design companies have long wrestled with the challenges of CAD interoperability, even internally, as various systems fall out of synch with one another and companies lose the ability to effectively exchange CAD files. Outside the four walls, the communications block can be even greater because suppliers and OEMs frequently run different CAD programs, yet still need to fluidly exchange files.
Adobe Systems Inc. made a bold move on the outskirts of this space last year with the debut of its Acrobat 3D products. Zavorski today stressed that Proficiency's flagship product complements Adobe's, since Acrobat 3D is used mainly for viewing files across disparate platforms. Collaboration Gateway, on the other hand, allows users not only to view non-native files, but also modify them and move along the design process.
Adobe users "have the ability to display information, where Proficiency's core competency is in being able to move that product knowledge between the different CAD systems to allow collaboration and product knowledge integration between OEMs and suppliers," he noted.
Additional new features in version 6 include support for CATIA Hybrid Modeling, the ability to translate CATIA designs that use Multi-Model Link features, and support for I-deas Open Body methodologies, among other enhancements.
A company deploying the Collaboration Gateway product may make use of on-site services by either Proficiency or systems integrators to fine-tune the software for its specific integration needs. The software is also deployed "fairly often" as an out-of-the-box application, Zavorski said. Interoperability for all the latest versions of the CAD products covered by the Collaboration Gateway is preformatted in version 6.
The Proficiency product fits into the category of product information management, a narrower vision of the product lifecycle management concept that addresses the use of data produced by manufacturers. In this case, the management required often crosses into the supply chain, where the manufacturer needs to maintain control over its product designs.
Target sectors for Proficiency include manufacturers in the aerospace & defense, automotive, and heavy industry verticals. Marquee customers include Bombardier, EADS, and Ford Motor Co. Zavorski said 20 to 30 customers have already upgraded to the latest version of the Collaboration Gateway, but he would not discuss specific deployments.
The company is also mum about pricing for the product, which, according to a spokesperson, varies greatly depending on the volume of CAD files that a company uses as well as factors such as number of users. Version 6 is currently available.