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
3 June, 2009

Short and powerful message – 3D is coming! Microsoft announced VR camera availability on xBOX 360. Delivered by 3DVIA Virtools...

29 August, 2014

Platform. This is a sweet word in a lexicon of every developer. The desire of software vendors is to become...

10 December, 2023

The credit for the picture above goes to Martin Eigner book about System Lifecycle Management. I’d like to continue the...

8 February, 2018

I’ve been coming to SOLIDWORKS WORLD 2018 with a hope to try xDesign. Well… it didn’t happen. It looks like...

19 June, 2014

This week is very fruitful for PLM events. PTC Live 2014, Siemens PLM connection, GrabCAD media event. Twitter and other...

1 April, 2012

Note, this is NOT 1st April post :). Multi-CAD and PLM. Endless story… Few weeks ago, I published my post The...

28 December, 2024

In the previous article, Rethinking Change Management: Orchestrating Complexity Across Systems & Disciplines, Part 1: Collaborative Workspace, I explored how the...

13 March, 2014

It has been 25 years of Internet anniversary yesterday. Lots of article covering this event were flown around earlier this...

7 December, 2017

Earlier today my attention was caught by Forrester PLM research for discrete manufacturing industry. Almost simultaneously, two PLM vendors –...

Blogroll

To the top