Manufacturing

Siemens partners with Bentley Systems

20 November 2012

Siemens and Bentley Systems have entered into a strategic collaboration to advance the integration of digital product design and manufacturing processes design with information modelling for facilities lifecycle design.

According to the Memorandum of Understanding, the collaboration will enable the two companies to deliver intelligent and sustainable digital factory infrastructure. Initially the companies will focus on the digital factory for automotive and discrete manufacturing.

The Siemens Division Industry Automation and Bentley Systems will initially, based on their long standing commitment to openness in IT, collaborate on common file formats and content, integrated workflows for factory layout, and the convergence of process and layout. This work is an extension of earlier collaborations between the two organisations that resulted in each deploying technology offerings developed by the other. In the longer term, the companies will explore opportunities for jointly developed technology to expand industry-centric solutions and further collaboration interoperability between Siemens’ Teamcenter and Bentley’s ProjectWise software.

Speaking about the new partnership, Siemens Industry Automation Division CEO Anton S. Huber said: “Together we will drive the paradigm shift that will establish unified and fully collaborative product and production lifecycles for our customers. This will facilitate workflow efficiencies moving our users to the next level of productivity. Today, it is more important than ever to make full use of all optimisation opportunities over the entire lifecycle of a machine or plant. This starts with planning and engineering, continues into operation and maintenance right through to expansion and modernisation. Now, as we seek to extend this to include facilities lifecycles, we have determined that Bentley Systems is the right partner to help us bring this new value proposition to realisation.”

Bentley Systems CEO Greg Bentley added: “We at Bentley have redefined asset performance management to span OPEX and CAPEX and are bringing our information mobility technologies to bear on the unification of the project and asset lifecycles. With Siemens converging product and manufacturing process lifecycles, the digital factory seems the ideal inaugural target application for a combined and expanded unification effort. Working smarter, together, Bentley and Siemens will empower our shared users to speed the delivery and outfitting of manufacturing facilities, accelerate the start of production, reduce design, construction, and operating expenses, and improve the operational and energy performance of their factories.”

“ARC Advisory Group has long advocated a common, interoperable environment for sharing and exchanging equipment design information and facility design information,” said Dick Slansky, senior analyst, PLM research director, ARC Advisory Group. “We believe this announcement of a strategic collaboration between Siemens and Bentley Systems should go a long way towards enabling the integration of digital equipment design and manufacturing process information with the AEC and infrastructure design/build information solution.”

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