I’ve been attending Autodesk Accelerate 2016 event in Boston earlier this week. Originally focused on PLM, the event was expanded to cover broader vision of Fusion Innovation Platform. Check me earlier blog – Autodesk Accelerate 2016 in Boston.
Autodesk announced cloud PDM product. I was following this topic for the last few years. Check my blogs from Accelerate 2014 – Autodesk PLM360 early preview of cloud (PDM) document management and from Accelerate 2015 – Autodesk PLM360 and cloud PDM trajectories.
The Autodesk In the fold blog – Autodesk adds cloud-based Product Data Management to Fusion Lifecycle gives you the story about Fusion Lifecycle cloud PDM. Here is a snippet:
The new cloud-based product data management (Cloud PDM) functionality is built directly into Fusion Lifecycle and is available immediately. Cloud PDM enables engineers to collaborate on designs and manage their work-in-process CAD data and documents. Teams can effectively collaborate on designs, track versions and releases, and connect to manufacturing workflows for more effective sharing of design data across the enterprise. Fusion Lifecycle makes the management of design data as easy and as intuitive as saving your files to folders – but with revision control and versioning happening automatically.
Cloud PDM comes at no cost to Fusion Lifecycle (formerly known as PLM360) users. At the same time, Autodesk is not discontinue on-premise PDM solution – Autodesk Vault and according to Fusion development team will co-exist for companies that might have a concern about cloud solutions. Autodesk is also providing integration between Fusion Lifecycle and Autodesk Vault using Jitterbit cloud middleware.
I captured few pictures that can give you an idea about the cloud PDM solution. On the front end, it is part of Fusion Team (formerly known as Autodesk A360) and it has a desktop integration providing access to Fusion Team folders via Windows explorer. Desktop integration is currently limited to Windows.
This is an official image.
I captured few screenshots that can give you an idea of Fusion Lifecycle cloud PDM tools.
Brian Roepke, Sr. Director of Autodesk PLM and IoT is announcing cloud PDM
Cloud PDM scope outline
The originally supported CAD systems: Autodesk Inventor, Autodesk Fusion360, AutoCAD, Dassault Systems SOLIDWORKS and Office tools. Autodesk is hinting about NX, Creo and maybe other tools coming. No date.
It made me think in retrospective about Autodesk PLM cloud development. The original cloud PLM story was to bring a combination of cloud PLM and desktop PDM technologies. Check out my old blog from 2012 – My first take on Autodesk PLM360 system and technology. Integration was a weak point of this solution. After 4 years, Autodesk is closing the gap of cloud-desktop integration by providing new cloud PDM tool.
What is my conclusion? The original story of PLM360 back in 2011 was to keep CAD data management as on-premise solution. Five years later, it became obvious that cloud is pervasive and cloud CAD data management is an important element in an overall PLM story for Autodesk. It seems to me also obvious that cloud PDM should be seamlessly integrated with the cloud PLM tools. Just my thoughts..
Best, Oleg
Want to learn more about PLM? Check out my new PLM Book website.
Disclaimer: I’m co-founder and CEO of openBoM developing cloud based bill of materials and inventory management tool for manufacturing companies, hardware startups and supply chain. My opinion can be unintentionally biased.
