Bentley Systems and Siemens PLM Software advance manufacturing process productivity through reality modelling of industrial facilities

Bentley Systems and Siemens PLM Software today announced their latest actions to further enhance the integration of the digital product and process lifecycle with the factory's digital design. The companies have integrated Bentley's point-cloud building information modelling (BIM) advancement with the state-of-the art process simulation tools in Siemens' Tecnomatix software for 3D digital factory automation. This will enable users of Siemens' product lifecycle management (PLM) software solutions to work from enhanced 3D digital models of existing factories in their "as-operated" conditions - by leveraging the models created from point clouds captured through scanning.

The announcement was made at The Year in Infrastructure 2014 Conference, a global gathering of leading executives in the world of infrastructure design, construction, and operations.

As a result of the new integrated solution, manufacturers can benefit from:

* an earlier start of production, by avoiding construction or production line interferences;
* better quality designs with increased production throughput, reached through accurate simulations of all potential factory layout configurations;
* the rapid creation of as-built plant models, reducing the time and costs associated with modelling the digital factory; and
* the ability of the point-cloud model to serve as the as-built/as-operating record of the line, enabling improvements to operational performance through the factory and product and process life cycle.

To enable these benefits, information mobility and work process breakthroughs, Bentley and Siemens PLM Software expanded their existing relationship. Bentley's industrial BIM applications already leverage several of Siemens' PLM Component software tools including Parasolid software, D-Cubed software, and the JT data format. As a result of this agreement Siemens PLM Software will now leverage Bentley's Vortex point-cloud technology and incorporate it into other appropriate Siemens applications as the opportunities continue to expand.

Dick Slansky, Senior Analyst, PLM Research Director, ARC Advisory Group, said: "Since the announcement of their strategic collaboration in November 2012, I have been following the collaboration between Siemens and Bentley closely and have been very excited with what I have been seeing from these two companies working together. They are now delivering a solution for integrating product, process and production design with the factory infrastructure that significantly benefits manufacturing OEMs and their suppliers. Through the shared knowledge of product and factory/plant lifecycles, EPCs and line builders have access to higher quality information provided by the OEMs. In turn, OEMs and suppliers can expect a reduction in launch time and costs, improved validation of the digital factory, and predictable asset design and installation."

Faraz Ravi, Bentley Fellow, Bentley Platform Solutions, said: "At Bentley we are gratified to be seeing what we call reality modelling yielding such benefits for product and production life cycles. In industrial plants, occasional surveying can now become almost continuous immersive scanning. Project and asset performance are both improved through information mobility of point clouds by way of Vortex technology. Most significantly, this can now increase industrial agility and quality by enabling shorter product and process design cycles."

Al Hufstetler, Vice-President, Siemens PLM Software, said: "We introduced targeted customers to early integrations of our software, which leveraged the Bentley Vortex tools, and the response was overwhelmingly positive. The value added by bringing the as-built digital factory design into our Tecnomatix process simulation and planning products is clearly a great first step in our adoption of the Bentley tools. Process planning and plant floor designers will benefit from our partnership, which not only enables faster and better iterations, but also provides greater visibility into the path of construction and manufacturing performance."