White Paper: Community-Based Collaboration and Interoperability

Industry leaders know the importance of Multi-Enterprise data accessibility. Collaborative partners and suppliers must have the correct data in the correct format in order to optimize PLM cycles across the value-chain.

Global Multi-Enterprise Collaboration Challenges

As companies globalize operations and seek to integrate value-chain communities, regional differences threaten to undermine data exchange and limit the benefits from investments in PLM.

In North America, industry sectors such as automotive directly connect many suppliers to proprietary PLM solutions based on network solutions. Most managed file transfer (MFT) solutions are not integrated with these PLM environments.

In Europe there are proprietary PLM direct network connections. More integration between PLM and MFT solutions has lessened the need for direct connections. The advent of OFTP2, combined with MFT/PLM integration, is driving more use of the internet.

In Japan we see mostly proprietary versus internet-based connections, but industry groups in Japan are watching European based standards activities very closely. In China we still see a good deal of primitive manual file exchange (email, FTP, flash drives, etc.) with some MFT solutions emerging.

As an OEM, how do you avoid adding cost and complexity to your new product development value-chain? As a supplier, how do you deal with these customer and regional complexities?

Community Integration for Multi-Enterprise Collaboration

Trubiquity efficiently integrates multi-enterprise collaboration by extending 2D and 3D technical workflows across the value-chain community.

TRUcommunity is Trubiquity's SaaS based model built on flexible service oriented architecture that enables easy adoption of solutions used to manage workflows across and beyond the enterprise. Control of security and quality assurance are just two examples of what thousands of current TRUcommunity users utilize to connect, move and share key business information, making their decision making process faster and more efficient. Due to its SaaS nature, integration is simple, eliminating delays associated with large-scale IT projects.

Trubiquity's solutions encompass all communication and transport protocols worldwide, this ensures flexibility and security no matter where you do business.

Process Automation

TRUfusion Enterprise^™ automates the manual importing, exporting, transformation, encryption and transportation of product, process and design and analysis data. It enables global data exchange with all business partners. Trubiquity's TRUfusion Enterprise^™ solution can be deployed along with TRUexchange^™ to extend beyond the enterprise connecting with customers, partners and suppliers.

TRUfusion Enterprise^™ has been deployed successfully in aerospace, automotive, construction, consumer products and defense to deliver significant enterprise and project efficiencies. This success is achieved by replacing manual, multi-step and time consuming tasks that are prone to errors, are insecure and expensive.

Often more than 80% less time is needed with an automated process compared to manual processes for product design data exchange. TRUfusion Enterprise^™ manages all back-end data transformations and transfers while automatically storing details on all data exchange activities.

Managing Design Collaboration and File Exchange

TRUexchange enables anytime, anywhere access to critical business data across the value chain. Together with TRUfusion, TRUexchange helps customers extend the value of existing PLM systems.

Supplier and Joint Venture Team Collaboration

TRUunity^™ is a virtual, federated workspace that enables team collaboration in a secure and interactive setting, regardless of geographic location. Create virtual rooms for specific project teams, business functions and partner communities, all while managing data views and integrity through comprehensive access controls. By enabling continuous collaboration via multiple communication methods, TRUunity^™ boosts team communication and productivity while decreasing project completion time, product development and design cycles and time-to-market.

Managing Source Selection and Bids

TRUsource^™ is an on-demand solution for aggregating and distributing bid content in a secure, auditable and efficient manner. Available across all connectivity methods and communication protocols, TRUsource^™ allows organizations to establish and automate RFx processes throughout the product lifecycle — from engineering and design to manufacturing and maintenance. TRUsource^™ streamlines RFQ data input, questionnaire development, bid compilation and distribution, supplier management and reporting.