A blog by Oleg Shilovitsky
Information & Comments about Engineering and Manufacturing Software

PLM, Touch UX and Paper Legacy

PLM, Touch UX and Paper Legacy
Oleg
Oleg
14 June, 2012 | 2 min for reading

Talk to somebody about how to implement enterprise software… What is the first thing that comes to your mind? It is a complex and long process very often requires transforming your business processes and everyday habits. Believe it or not, but even these days, engineering and manufacturing company processes are heavy involving paper. It is not unusual to see the situation when after modern 3D CAD software engineers are printing drawings and ECO forms to sign for approval.

Few weeks ago, I stumbled on an interesting blog post by PLM Alpha blog of Aras Corp. The post name was self-explaining – Making PLM forms look exactly like existing paper or legacy forms with Aras. Navigate to the following link and have a read. In a nutshell, it says how Aras allows to create forms with the set of attributes and location, which will be similar to existing paper forms. Here is an example from PLM Alpha blog:

What is especially interesting is technological detail provided in the blog: Since the resulting forms are DHTML  (dynamic HTML),  it is possible to use any HTML features and functions in the forms,       allowing unlimited artistic freedom to re-create existing legacy screens or paper forms exactly the way they look and function today.

PLM, Tablets and Touch UX

Aras blog made me think about modern changes that happen nowadays in user experience. I posted about them yesterday – What CAD and PLM vendors need to learn about touch interface? One of the trends in the design of touch user experience is mimicking existing real-world metaphors. Probably, the best example of such user experience is Book application.

The idea that came to my mind is that PLM application can simplify user adoption by relying on legacy paper forms and use modern tablet computers to make it happen nowadays.

What is my conclusion? To simplify user experience and make application easy to understand is one of the key requirements these days. I don’t know if Aras has in their mind to transform Aras Innovator DHTML forms to iPad or Android Tablet Applications. The idea seems to me cool. However, I’d be interested to speak to engineers and other people in manufacturing company to understand if it “holds the water” and can really improve the adoption and learning curve. Just my thoughts…

Oleg

Recent Posts

Also on BeyondPLM

4 6
28 September, 2009

Interesting post few days ago. What is very annoying is the number of buzzwords growing in the enterprise system world....

22 February, 2010

I’ve been reading white paper by Kalypso – 4 Reasons Why Industry Leaders Aren’t Losing Sleep. Max Cochet explained four...

18 November, 2010

The Facebook announcement about introducing of FB messaging system triggered a flood of posts. I’ve been looking over them for...

13 September, 2010

In my view, “Free” is continuing to pull people. Recently, I’ve seen few articles in PLM Blogosphere that was talking...

22 January, 2010

The world of computing is very unpredictable these days. However, I’d like to bet and put some of my thinking...

22 November, 2018

It hard to make a change when operating in your comfort zone. I decided to push myself out of blogging...

24 December, 2015

Dear Friends, The Holiday season is an opportunity to reflect on both the past and the New Year ahead. It...

2 December, 2021

Sustainability is getting more awareness in the modern world. According to IBM Institute for Business Value.” Sustainability at a turning...

9 January, 2022

The manufacturing industry is going through the process of digital transformation. The central part of digital transformation in every industry...

Blogroll

To the top