Complex PLM Structure Multi-Views in Aras

MarcL: Multiple views of structure are the holy grail of PLM. Companies want alternate views to PLM data (e.g. functional view in the early concept and feasibility phase, engineering/design view, production views, purchasing view, service view, and others). Everyone thinks PLM systems should be able to provide multiple integrated views of the structure, but few if any have achieved this capability effectively. People want to be able to compare, display, and/or report the differences between various views of a single or multiple structures and between versions of a structure or structures.

Peter Schroer:

In my experience when you get to the detail level of what people actually want to see in structure multi-view requirements it is unique for each company.  That’s why it’s difficult to predefine the “right” set of views and why so many PLM companies have struggled trying to do this.

At Aras we recognized this and therefore have approached structure multi-views from a modeling perspective. The Aras modeling engine supports the creation of multiple views of structure including BOMs, requirements, manufacturing process, suppliers, quality, etc.

For example, there’s a multi-view of Manufacturing process structures (routing view, quality inspection & test view, risk analysis view) in the Aras solution for Quality Planning.  The views are integrated at the data model level, but different users view the structure via different tabs on the forms.  Any process steps changed in one view, are automatically synchronized with all other views because they are all pulling data from the same source.

Any structure in Aras can be modeled as multiple different views. These views can be displayed, compared and reported as well. When structure views are modeled they flow thru the security model so they are restricted by the data access controls.

If a new material or part is confidential IP and a specific user is not allowed to see it, then the view will automatically restrict this item from that user’s view, but allow them to see a placeholder block so they know there’s something there.    Views are not separate copies of the structure, they are filters of the existing data which prevents synchronization and reconciliation issues.

As with all solution customizations in the Aras modeling environment, we assure that your customizations will work in all future releases of Aras Innovator, and we back this up by doing the upgrades for you when you’re on subscription (upgrade services included no matter how much you customize).

We provide training on how to use, administer and customize Aras Innovator’s structure management capabilities, items and views, as well as, security permissions, classification capabilities and more to achieve self-sufficiency.

For additional information see ‘Structure Management for Complex Products in Aras’ or check out the Posts Tagged ‘Product Structure’ and ‘Customize’.

Structure Management for Complex Products in Aras

MarcL: PLM solutions should capture and manage the Product Structure from sources across the product development process including the different CAD & EDA systems, suppliers (and contract manufacturers where appropriate) and other sources and then make that structure available for manufacturing, quality, supply chain, service, etc. Product Structure configurations should include bills of material, parts, CAD files, specs, documents, equipment, tooling, packaging, etc. Please describe how Aras supports this.

Peter Schroer:

Aras Innovator is a PLM platform that’s built differently than any other PLM system.   The underlying Aras framework has a series of PLM services like relationship, classification, lifecycle, workflow, vaulting, authentication, access rights control, etc. which make up the core.

But in the Aras core there is no BOM object,    no Document object,   no ECO object…      we don’t even have a Part object in the core…   the core Aras platform is simply that set of Web services… that’s it.

On top of this set of core services in the platform we “model” solutions.  All the necessary business objects are just described (“modeled”)  in XML.  Parts, BOMs, Documents, Suppliers, etc… they’re all XML models.

That’s what we mean when we call it a “model-based SOA” or a “metadata architecture with a set of loosely-coupled federated services”.

The solution models include all the typical PLM business objects and more.   This clean separation between the core platform services and the typical PLM objects (i.e. what we call “Items”) gives Aras much greater in-the-field flexibility, greater scalability, better run-time performance, and lower overall support costs than PLM systems that have hard-coded the objects for Part, BOM, etc…

Structure management is one of the services in the Aras Innovator core platform, and the ability to manage complex product structure that includes BOMs, parts, components, materials, etc that come from a range of CAD & EDA systems which we integrate to, as well as, any other source is a key function that our platform is optimized for.

Configuration management of deep structure that is generated across different functional disciplines is what we do. The complete set of structure from the Part/BOM to related docs, tooling, machines, packaging, projects, etc. is all tied together through a series of relationships represented in our solution models.

Our OOTB solutions use the CMII principles for configuration management, and are completely customizable. Remember that in our world “customize” means graphical drag & drop configuration of XML solution models (not writing Java or C#).

If your company doesn’t want to use CMII, no problem. You can change or extend our solutions to manage your product structure however you need without a complex programming exercise like you have with other PLMs. You can even model new ways to manage your structure.

It’s because of the Modeling capabilities in Aras that you’re able to do this… it has nothing to do with open source.   Those Modeling capabilities are Aras’s real innovation.    The fact that the solutions are open source just means that you don’t have to get licensing permission to do whatever you want.  (try that with other PLMs… good luck).

And because Aras is all Web-based and has military-grade security, you can involve suppliers, customers, outsourcing partners, etc on a “need-to-know” basis with only a standard Web browser. They only see what they have authorization to see, and can only perform actions that they have permissions for.

Whether your full structure is a car/vehicle, plane or an aircraft carrier       or chemical substances and their characteristic properties, Aras has product structure capabilities for your most complex configurations.   And if our OOTB data model won’t work for you, you can model what you need pretty quickly    even extremely complicated structures.

You’ve also got Lifecycle state mgt for each Item in the structure as well as the entire structure itself.     And you can (and should) run change management on everything as well to make sure it’s controlled over time.

We provide training on how to use, administer and customize Aras Innovator’s structure management capabilities, lifecycles and workflows, as well as, security permissions for identities, roles and groups.

For additional information see ‘Data Relationships and Fixed / Float Rules in Aras’ or check out the Posts Tagged ‘Configuration Management’.

Product Structure in Aras

Federation with ERP, PDM, Legacy Systems and Cloud-based data using Aras

MarcL: PLM solution must be capable of integrating with the ERP system so that data is available in PLM such as material costing, inventory on-hand, etc. Please describe how this is possible.

Peter Schroer:

Aras Innovator includes a standard service called Federation. This Web service can be used for integrations with legacy applications (called Federations) that expose attributes from the legacy system, such as Cost attributes in SAP, with the materials data stored in PLM.

For the end-users, they will see a single form, with data in the correct context that has all the information they need to perform a task (or workflow or report) without knowing the actual data storage location of those data.

This data does not need to be view-only, but can be editable as well. It is managed by the same need-to-know security permissions in Aras so the users have access to only the data they are authorized to see, add, update, etc.

Secure Federation capabilities in Aras are not limited to on-premise systems, and can include Cloud-based data sets as well like component databases, compliance validation and other data sets of authority in the Cloud.

The flexibility of the Aras Innovator PLM system even allows federation configurations in which all Part, Material and BOM data are authored in ERP, and PLM is just a viewing portal.

However, most companies prefer to develop parts, materials, cost models and other product data within the PLM solution, and after workflow review & approval, drive this cost data to the ERP once it becomes “Released”.

The same type of system Federation can be performed with legacy PDM / PLM systems in use in your company as well. This can be useful if existing PDM systems are in place at various sites for CAD management, although more robust PLM capabilities are needed for complicated processes like NPDI, enterprise change, supply chain, quality or outsourced manufacturing.

The “right” configuration depends on your organization, business practices, and the level of complexity of your products and development process.

Aras architects and certified partners can help you evaluate your company’s requirements during the initial phase of your deployment and recommend a configuration that is optimized for your company’s specific competitive practices.

We provide training on how to do federated integrations with other systems like ERP as well as how to administer these capabilities.

For more info on these capabilities see ‘Integration and Federation in the Enterprise with Aras’ and ‘ERP, Item Masters and Data Attribute Federation Between ERP-PLM in Aras‘ or check out the Posts Tagged ‘Integration’.

Integration and Federation in the Enterprise with Aras

MarcL: How is integration with other business systems in the enterprise supported? What tools are provided to accomplish this? Are any additional software packages / costs associated?

Peter Schroer:

Aras Innovator is a 100% pure Web services architecture.  All data and all processes are accessed at the Web services layer in Aras.

Many systems such as CAD applications and ERP systems have Out-of-the-Box packaged integration connectors available from 3rd parties that implement a direct point-to-point integration between Aras Innovator and the other system. For example, integration (in-session) from CATIA to Aras and Cadence Alegro to Aras.

Use of an integration bus such as Oracle Fusion or Netweaver is supported, as well as, custom point-to-point integrations with legacy applications using Web services.  You can interface to the Aras Innovator server directly using XML / SOAP, or you can create a WSDL (Web Services Description Language) for the specific business objects you want to interface with.

An important capability that should also be highlighted here is Federation.

One of the core services in the Aras Innovator platform is a Federation service.

With Federation, the administrator uses the Aras Innovator Solution Studio (our graphical drag-and-drop interface) to define the business objects and properties that are stored in a legacy application / database.

The Federated items are then linked to a .NET method to exchange data, this is normally Web services, but all .NET integration capabilities are available such as API binding, ODBC, flat file handling, etc.

At that point the remote data is treated like internal PLM data in Aras Innovator, and can be displayed in forms, used in workflows, added to versioned configurations, acted on / edited by any of the Aras functionality and can be controlled by the Aras Innovator security model.

With all these integration approaches you can add data transforms, business rules and other techniques to address complex scenarios.

We provide training on how to integrate and federate as well as administer these capabilities.

We’ve used a transparent data model with open industry standards and modern platform capabilities to make Aras Innovator the easiest enterprise PLM solution to integrate with. This is because PLM is never a stand-alone system in the enterprise.

For more info on these capabilities see ‘ERP, Item Masters and Data Attribute Federation Between ERP-PLM in Aras‘ and ‘BPM Workflow Serial & Parallel Paths and Modeling to Customize and Extend PLM in Aras’ or check out the Posts Tagged ‘Integration’.

Aras Innovator Integrates to Systems Across the Enterprise

Role-based Workflows, Classification and Security Permissions in Aras

MarcL: PLM solutions should allow for the creation of workflows by specific roles (role-based workflow), so that individual users belonging to a specific role or group are guided through a workflow that is tailored for their process requirements.

Peter Schroer:

The entire Aras Innovator platform is a roles-based system including workflow processes.

All Workflow and Lifecycle assignments are made to Identities in the security model.

Identity is an Aras abstraction that resolves to either an individual person, all persons trained to perform a role, or all persons that are members of a group, where groups and roles are also hierarchical.

Classification can be used for different roles / groups by product line, product type, program project, plant, division, doc type or any other designation (or combination of) to guide BPM workflows.

Business rules can of course be based on other attributes for whatever complicated workflow scenario your business requires as well.

We provide training on how to set-up, administer and customize Aras Innovator’s workflows, lifecycles and classification structures as well as security permissions for identities, roles and groups.

For additional information see ‘BPM Workflow Voting, Conditional Process Steps and Dynamic Assignments in Aras’ or check out the Posts Tagged ‘Workflow’.

BPM Workflows, Email Alerts and Custom Email Capabilities in Aras

MarcL: Triggers must be provided to send email messages and distribute defined packets of information at appropriate, defined events within change processes.

Peter Schroer:

At every Activity in a Workflow (and State in a Lifecycle, Deliverable in a Project, Action Item, etc.) the Aras modeling engine supports defined triggers (multiple events are available, for example for a Workflow, a trigger is fired upon Activity Assignment, upon Activity time-out, upon Activity Vote registration, etc).

In Aras Innovator the drag-and-drop Solution Studio user interface allows these events to be easily linked to email notifications (SMTP compliant, which works well with Microsoft Exchange as well as Lotus Notes and other email packages).

The email notifications are constructed of Layout Templates and Recipients.

The layout of the email messages will include content from the items that are being routed by the Workflow / Lifecycle and can include File attachments as well.

The emails can be plain text or rich, formatted HTML, HTML with XML or other options.

Emails can include secure URL links back to specific steps in Workflows, Project activities and other Items in PLM where the user must authenticate to gain access.

They can also include standard template text as well as dynamically generated content.

We provide training on how to customize and manage Aras Innovator’s workflows, emails and alerts as well as other related capabilities.

For additional information see ‘Electronic Signatures, Workflows, Lifecycles and Security in Aras’ or check out the Posts Tagged ‘Workflow’.

BPM Workflow Voting, Conditional Process Steps and Dynamic Assignments in Aras

MarcL: PLM solutions should support conditional process steps, time out, alternate approvers, delegate to, and majority rules voting and other sophisticated scenarios in the workflows.

Peter Schroer:

The Aras Workflow service is a full-featured enterprise class business process management (BPM) engine that is highly scalable and secure.

Alternates, delegates, pooled resources, dynamic assignments, voting schemes (linear, weighted, majority, veto), escalation upon timeout and other capabilities are all standard features in the Aras Innovator platform.

The default Out-of-the-Box processes that come with the downloaded version of Aras Innovator are the ISO, PMI and CMII standard processes.

Your PLM administrator has secure access to customize any of the out-of-the-box workflows or create all new BPM workflows without complex programming using the drag-and-drop Solution Studio.

For more info on these capabilities see ‘BPM Workflow Serial & Parallel Paths and Modeling to Customize and Extend PLM in Aras‘ and ‘Change Process Definition, SOA Workflow Service and Integration in Aras’ or check out the Posts Tagged ‘Workflow’.

BPM Workflow Serial & Parallel Paths and Modeling to Customize and Extend PLM in Aras

MarcL: PLM solutions should support custom workflow processes with the steps in the flow being sequential and / or parallel in the same process. There must be tools provided to support changes and customization of the processes as well.

Peter Schroer:

Simple Out-of-the-Box DCO Workflow Process in Aras Innovator

The Aras Innovator platform a pure Web services architecture, where everything is a service.

It includes a Workflow service which is effectively a robust, general-purpose BPM (business process management) capability instead of a hard-coded engineering change workflow module like other PLM systems.

The Aras Workflow service supports multi-step processes, with combinations of serial and parallel activities, branching, looping, dynamically assigned roles based on business rules, and is inherently integrated with all of the other functionality in our PLM solutions.

XEROX’s Custom Global Change Workflow Process in Aras Innovator

The BPM capabilities are very robust and scalable.   A workflow process can be really simple, like start-action-end,         or very complex with multiple parallel paths, conditional business rules, weighted voting and integrations to SAP or other legacy systems.

In fact, Aras Innovator’s workflows can be used as part of the complete PLM suite or in a federated approach to provide only the new functionality needed on top of and integrated with existing systems.  In this way, you can modernize and add secure Web capabilities to older systems like PDMs, ERPs, etc.

Workflows can be customized and extended or you can create entirely new workflow processes from scratch by Modeling them in Aras Innovator’s browser-based graphical Solution Studio (e.g. without complex programming).

Example of Run-Time Workflow Modification using Solution Studio in a Dev Instance of Aras

You can customize the workflow’s process steps, change the schema, add business rules and make modifications    and you are doing it in Real-Time.

When you Save, the changes are instantly propagated and the next time an instance of the process is initiated it will include the changes.

Of course we strongly recommend the best practice of having separate environments for dev, test/staging and production. Moving customizations from instance to instance only takes a couple of minutes.

Aras is unique with the technology to allow real-time process and data model changes, because of our model-based architecture. 

You will be trained to use the integrated Solution Studio for drag-and-drop designing and modifying of workflow processes (similar UI to Visio, except it’s the actual running system).

For more info on these capabilities see ‘Change Process Definition, SOA Workflow Service and Integration in Aras’ or check out the Posts Tagged ‘Workflow’ or ‘Business Process‘.

PLM Solution Tailoring and Customization by End Users in Aras

MarcL: PLM solution should support tailoring, configuring and customizing by approved users for specific forms and workflows. Any changes to standard objects should be capable of being monitored and audit trails maintained with notification of changes to designated personnel.

Peter Schroer:

In Aras Innovator’s Model-based engine, access to modify the model (data dictionary, meta-data, etc) is controlled by the same authentication and access control rights as the end-user permissions.

The Aras Innovator PLM platform uses its own security model, to control its customization and administration.

Your company can choose which components of the “Model” (i.e. your company’s PLM solutions) to allow certain groups/departments of users to edit and maintain.

IT or app dev can maintain the entire PLM system or you can choose to delegate portions out to certain end users while keeping control over other parts of the system.

Delegation of the administration for Form Layouts, Workflow Processes, Project Templates, Lifecycle States and other business items are commonly moved out of IT to the power users that are process owners or functional managers with responsibility for process definition.

While responsibility for integrations and more complex system functions is kept under IT’s control.

This division of labor makes administration of a large deployment scope more manageable and creates local “ownership” by end users which encourages adoption and simplifies IT’s help desk duties as well.

Monitoring or oversight of changes made and audit trails is standard Aras Innovator functionality.

All changes made by end users are supportable and upgradable without impacting the customizations.

We provide training for you and your end users on how to tailor, configure and customize Aras Innovator, and you Do Not need to be a programmer or in IT to learn how to do it.

For additional information see ‘Making PLM Forms Look Exactly Like Existing Paper or Legacy Forms with Aras’ and ‘Lifecycle, Workflow and Other Types of Process Management in Aras’.

Web Services APIs, XML and Adaptive Markup Language Explained for Aras

MarcL: PLM solutions should have an application programming interface (API) for integrations between the PLM platform and other enterprise systems. APIs should allow the user to access and store PLM-managed data from within the originating system. The APIs should be fully XML Web services and should be function-oriented (e.g., to store a new item into the PLM solution should require only a single call to a store function, not many calls for a set-up, then a call for the store function).

Rob McAveney:

The XML syntax of Aras Innovator (the tag set and structure) is very lean compared to most enterprise systems. Aras Innovator is fundamentally a metadata architecture with open published API’s, fully capable at the web services layer.

Aras was an early innovator of XML/SOAP messaging, and we have a very efficient Web services engine that leans-out the overhead of typical Web services deployments.

The Aras Innovator XML tag set is called AML (Adaptive Markup Language).  The same tag set is used for both transactions and data, creating a very simple dictionary to learn.

To get started, there are really only a few tags that you need to know:

     <AML> tag:  serves as the top level of an AML document, and may contain one or more <Item> tags.

     <Item> tags may contain one or more property tags (named after the properties) and a <Relationships> tag, which in turn may contain one or more <Item> tags. 

Got it?  Okay, let’s cover some examples.  Keep in mind that everything in Aras Innovator is an Item and every Item has a type (its ItemType name).

Permissions are also checked on every request and an error will be returned if the requested operation is not valid for the current user.

The following AML will retrieve a Part Item with a known id:

<AML>

 <Item type=”Part” action=”get” id=”F48DB69482994831BC26314A1586B39E”/>

</AML>

Breaking this down, the <Item> tag has three attributes: type, action and id.  In this case, the type is “Part”, but it could just as easily have been “Document” or “Process Plan” or even “ItemType”.

In other words, you can get any Item in Aras Innovator with this form of AML.  The action attribute is set to “get” in this case.

Other actions include “add”, “update” and “delete”.  By specifying an id, we know that this transaction is for a single item with a unique id.

When this AML is submitted, the Aras Innovator server will return AML with more detail (including the properties of the requested item), like this:

<Item type=”Part” typeId=”4F1AC04A2B484F3ABA4E20DB63808A88″

      id=”F48DB69482994831BC26314A1586B39E” page=”1″ pagemax=”1″ itemmax=”1″>

      <state>Preliminary</state>

      <name>Widget Assembly</name>

      <item_number>1000</item_number>

      … (more properties)

</Item>

If you don’t happen to know the id of the item you’re looking for, property values in the request can be used as search criteria, like this:

<AML>

     <Item type=”Part” action=”get”>

          <item_number>1000</item_number>

     </Item>

</AML>

This AML will return the same as above, assuming there is only one Part with an item_number of “1000”.

Let’s say you want to get both the Part item and its BOM (Bill of Materials).  You would use the <Relationships> tag to specify the relationships you’re looking for, like this:

<AML>

     <Item type=”Part” action=”get”>

          <item_number>1000</item_number>

               <Relationships>

               <Item type=”Part BOM” action=”get”/>

          </Relationships>

     </Item>

</AML>

The structure of the response from the server would then look like this (properties removed for clarity):

<Item type=”Part” id=”F48DB69482994831BC26314A1586B39E”>

 <item_number>1000</item_number>

 <Relationships>

  <Item type=”Part BOM” id=”0A2746E857BA4BFCB606FF447919A9E0″>

    <quantity>10</quantity>

    <related_id>

     <Item type=”Part” id=”DF3822B9D0CD4C6991F5800161D9B48D”>

      <item_number>1001</item_number>

     </Item>

    </related_id>

  </Item>

  <Item type=”Part BOM” id=”6F5E747AC2F84108B41E0576F73E9466″>

   <quantity>2</quantity>

   <related_id>

    <Item type=”Part” id=”E2B9A29631074C8F94F25FC93C74AAB6″/>

      <item_number>1002</item_number>

     </Item>

   </related_id>

  </Item>

 </Relationships>

</Item>

Note that the top-level Part item contains a <Relationships> tag, which contains 2 Part BOM items.  Each Part BOM item then has a related_id property, which contains the child Part item. 

So, the response is telling you that Part 1000 has a BOM that includes Part 1001 (quantity 10) and Part 1002 (quantity 2).

This response is showing a single-level BOM, but a multi-level one would simply have relationships under Parts 1001 and 1002. 

The repeated Item / Relationships / Item / related_id pattern is a hallmark of AML.

Other actions, like “add”, work similarly.  Example:

<AML>

     <Item type=”Part” action=”add”>

          <item_number>1003</item_number>

     </Item>

</AML>

Simply creates a new Part and sets its item_number to “1003”.  The response from the server is similar to that of a “get” request, and includes data that is set automatically by the server, like id and state:

<Item type=”Part” typeId=”4F1AC04A2B484F3ABA4E20DB63808A88″

      id=”57D2BD8E6BC34A8C85E54242C88FD205″ page=”1″ pagemax=”1″ itemmax=”1″>

 <state>Preliminary</state>

 <item_number>1003</item_number>

 … (more properties)

</Item>

There are multiple instances where you could use this type of AML like writing your own Aras Innovator client, connecting Aras Innovator to another web service, use XSLT to transform AML to another dialect.

If you have an instance of Aras Innovator running and would like to work with its AML, then there’s a basic tool included (located at /Client/scripts/nash.aspx), as well as, an open source IDE called AML Studio Editor that was developed by GENTEX Corporation.

For additional information on the Aras Innovator architecture see ‘Aras Innovator, High Level Architecture Description’ or check out the Posts Tagged ‘Integration’ and ‘Web services’.