Hosted Apps Seek to Drive Auto Industry Collaboration

Computerworld - AutoWeb Communications Inc. this week plans to announce a hosted service that's designed to let companies in the auto industry more efficiently share product, project management and 3-D engineering data via the Internet.
The real-time collaboration service is based on product life-cycle management (PLM) software from Plano, Texas-based UGS Corp. and is being positioned as a lower-cost and less-complex alternative to implementing similar capabilities in-house.
The UGS software will allow companies to collaborate with one another using their own project management and computer-aided design and engineering tools, said Nino DiCosmo, CEO of Rochester Hills, Mich.-based AutoWeb.
The new service addresses "a definite need," especially for small and midsize companies, said Doug Halliday, director of engineering systems and data management at General Motors Corp.
"The ability to share product design information, fast and effectively, all over the planet as required is becoming key," Halliday said, noting that automakers such as GM and their major suppliers are moving to global development and product sourcing models.
GM is tying together its global development centers, joint-venture partners and large suppliers into a collaborative environment, Halliday said. The Teamcenter technology developed by UGS is playing a key role in that initiative.
Services such as those being offered by AutoWeb will help suppliers integrate systems more tightly with their own business partners, and with those of the manufacturing companies they supply to, Halliday said.
Reaching Out
AZ Automotive Corp. in Center Line, Mich., is one example of a company making such a change. AZ plans to sign up for AutoWeb's service in a bid to enable real-time product collaboration, initially among its nine North American plants and eventually with its 100 or so suppliers worldwide, said Mark Henkelmann, the company's IT director.
"Being in a cost-reduction mode, we don't have a whole lot of capital to spend on software," he said. "AutoWeb gives us the ability to outsource the collaboration piece."
A key feature of Teamcenter is its support for the 3D JT data format, which supports data sharing among different systems, said Chuck Grindstaff, executive vice president of product development at UGS.
AutoWeb is trying to tap into a growing interest in hosted PLM services, said Ken Amann, an analyst at CIMdata Inc. in Ann Arbor, Mich. The trend is prompting other business-to-business hubs, such as Exostar and Eurostep, to roll out similar offerings, he added.