“New Strategies for PLM Deployments”

Ann Arbor, Michigan, 8 May 2012—CIMdata, the leading global Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) management consulting and research firm announces a new paper about the use of application data migration and integration in PLM environments.

During PLM implementations, all companies find themselves in the position of replacing old solutions with new, more capable solutions. Often, this is driven by a desire to substantially improve business performance throughout the enterprise.

Application migration and application integration are a fact of life for all companies as they move from older to newer applications and as they share data with suppliers and customers who often use different applications. The challenges of migrating data are myriad—data has to be reformatted so that receiving applications can use it, it has to conform to security rules that may be established in multiple applications, data mapping may be required so that it can be placed properly into a new application, and the data has to be cleaned so that it retains its value and integrity as it is moved. This is a complex task that is not generally supported in all applications that use and modify data. The eQube-MI solution from eQ Technologic provides a framework for supporting the complexity of data migrations among a multitude of applications. This paper describes the solution’s capabilities and how industrial companies have been using eQube-MI to facilitate their data migration and application integration needs.

This paper provides a business perspective on the importance of data migration and application integration within product development: the pressures that motivate the use of data migration and application integration; their value and future; and how one company, eQ Technologic, is developing and delivering advanced, data migration solutions for the PLM market.

“Application Migration & Application Integration” is available to be freely downloaded from CIMdata’s website at http://www.cimdata.com/publications/reports_complimentary/white_papers.html

About Application Migration, Application Integration, and PLM

Application migration processes tend to be very complex; that complexity being driven by the amount of data accumulated over the years in legacy applications and further complicated by the various business rules that need to be established to facilitate the movement of that legacy data into PLM and other solutions. Due to these issues and because business processes cut across various applications, businesses have critical needs to have an enterprise-bus backbone that facilitates movement of data across applications to support both application migrations as well as application integrations.

Businesses have come to understand that they will always need many core applications to support their business strategies. Essentially, application integration ensures that the required applications across all information domains become the systems of record for certain data and the rest of the applications are updated with master data based on business events and synchronized by the application integration platform. A comprehensive, flexible, and state of the art platform is essential to meet the goals of complex application migration and application integration for any business.

There are many business reasons for an organized approach to implementing data migration and application integration as a strategic undertaking. Some of these are:

• Single version of truth is critical for business success.
• Managing and maintaining a multitude of application integrations can become cost prohibitive.
• Data used in one business process, such as product design, is not readily available to other processes, such as manufacturing.
• Point-to-point integration interfaces or the use of out of date technology based integration servers require an inordinate amount of effort to develop and maintain.

Data migration and integration tools and techniques can be essential for creating a consistent data service across all applications that are essential for companies to realize the full potential of product development.

About CIMdata

CIMdata, a leading independent worldwide firm, provides strategic management consulting to maximize an enterprise’s ability to design and deliver innovative products and services through the application of Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) solutions. Since its founding in 1983, CIMdata has delivered world-class knowledge, expertise, and best-practice methods on PLM solutions. These solutions incorporate both business processes and a wide-ranging set of PLM enabling technologies.

CIMdata works with both industrial organizations and suppliers of technologies and services seeking competitive advantage in the global economy. In addition to consulting, CIMdata conducts research, provides PLM-focused subscription services, and produces several commercial publications. The company also provides industry education through PLM certificate programs, seminars, and conferences worldwide. CIMdata serves clients around the world from offices in North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific. To learn more about CIMdata’s services, visit our website at www.CIMdata.com or contact CIMdata at: 3909 Research Park Drive, Ann Arbor, MI 48108, USA. Tel: +1 (734) 668-9922. Fax: +1 (734) 668-1957; or at Oogststraat 20, 6004 CV Weert, The Netherlands. Tel: +31 (0) 495 533 666.

Contact:

James Watch

Tel: +1 (734) 668-9922   

John MacKrell, Vice President

Tel: +1 (734) 668-9922