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The growing trend in the use of PLM as an evironmental tool has increased with the announcement that IBM is launching an Environmental Product Lifecycle Management consulting service.  The offering will help clients make their products more eco-friendly from development and manufacturing through delivery and use to end-of-life reclamation and recycling.

With the ability to analyze every phase of a product’s existence, IBM will ensure the design be environmentally friendly from the beginning. This includes considering the materials used to make and package it, the energy needed to produce it, transport and use it, and designing it to be refurbished or recycled when it’s no longer useable.

“The days of using inordinate amounts of energy, toxic chemicals and wasteful packaging to create throwaway products that just get tossed in the landfill are coming to an end,” said Mark Wilterding, IBM’s global leader for product lifecycle management consulting.

“Governments, environmental advocacy groups, and most of all consumers are demanding that companies do better, and designing a product from the start to be eco-friendly throughout its lifetime is the most effective way to do that.”

Full press release at CSRwire.

Arena Solutions, a leading provider of on-demand product lifecycle management (PLM) software, today announced a 38 percent quarter-over-quarter gain and 103% year-over-year gain in revenues for its second quarter.

The company has taken advantage of the economic downturn that has seen manufacturers turn to PLM to accelerate product development, reduce time to market and increase profitability.

“As a contract manufacturer we get bills of materials (BOMs) in every conceivable form. Arena PLM gives us a central repository, a common format, and revision control that is nearly impossible to maintain otherwise,” said Rod Mullins, process engineering manager at Idaho-based Western Electronics. “The ability to lock all data once a product is released to production is key, and the automated routing of BOM changes reduces the time to implement a change and minimizes the potential of a misbuild. This enhanced control and improved communication are especially important during periods of economic slowdown when our customers are even more concerned with avoiding waste, redundancy, and costly errors.”

Full story available on the Arena Solutions website.

The PLM sector has seen plenty of significant aquistions in the last couple of years.  Firstly there was the takeover of the heavyweight PLM provider UGS by Siemens, which subsequently became Siemens PLM, then came the takeover of Agile by Oracle and Co-Create by PTC.   These purchases illustrate the strength and perceived potential of the PLM industry as a whole, but also the need by providers to offer a complete end-to-end solution and to diversify into the market for smaller companies – an area that is seeing significant growth.

Not for the first time, PTC has now become subject to takeover speculation.  Earlier this year there were rumours that PTC could be an aquisition target, the most likely suitor being touted as SAP – this, and positive sales figures, saw their share price leap from $13.68 in mid-March to more than $21 by mid-August.   This month, the Financial Times announced that PTC has engaged the services of Goldman Sachs to look for potential buyers with a price tag of around $2billion.   PTC are yet to comment on this speculation, and at the Deutsche Bank Securities Technology Conference on September 9th, Kristian Talvitie, PTC’s vice-president of investor relations said “With respect to the article, things get printed on rumors all the time. I can’t comment on that. But as a public company, our shares are always for sale on the Exchange.”

Whether the rumour is true or not, it seems reasonable to assume that a takeover approach might well win board approval in light of the Boston Business Journal reporting a bonus increase for senior management should an acquistion be successful.

CIMdata, the leading global PLM consulting and information firm, has published its latest insight into the PLM market – “Actuals through 2007, Forecasts through 2012”

This report presents an analysis of the 2007 Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) market. It includes analyses of the overall PLM market and its various sectors. These include cPDm, Tools and Tools sub-sectors, and Digital Manufacturing. This analysis provides CIMdata’s perspective on PLM across a variety of industry and geographic sectors, identifies market trends, reviews investments in PLM-related software and services during 2007, and forecasts PLM investments for 2008 through 2012. The forecasts are based on data available through the first quarter of 2008. It is important to note that the data and revenue information presented in this report are CIMdata’s estimates of the PLM revenue performance of the various suppliers.

For more information and to purchase the report, visit the publications page of their website.

Arena PLM, a World leader in on-demand Product Lifecycle Management solutions, has announced that it is working with a variety of clean energy companies to help them accelerate porduct development and meet the growth in demand for greener energy supplies.

Customers include Nordic Windpower Ltd., Sunlink Corporation, and Free Source Energies LLC.  Nordic Windpower implemented Arena PLM to accelerate the domestic and international rollout of its advanced wind turbines. The company says that the software has helped it achieve product launch goals, ensure product data integrity and collaborate with worldwide contract manufacturing partners.

“We’re trying to make clean, sustainable wind power a more viable alternative by reducing its cost,” says Greg Mead, vice president of manufacturing and operations at Nordic Windpower. “Using Arena PLM, we can do it faster. Arena PLM streamlines processes and eliminates costly mistakes before they occur. We pass these lower costs on to our customers and ultimately will be able to expand production, distribution and global use of this renewable energy source.”

Majenta PLM, the UK reseller of Siemens PLM Software, has confirmed that it has reached an agreement with Napier Turbochargers Ltd to supply and support the implementation of a Product Lifecycle Management solution based on Siemens PLM Software’s NX™ and Teamcenter® software suites.

Napier Turbochargers began manufacturing turbochargers in 1947. However, the Napier name goes back to the early 1800s and in its history it has been behind such achievements as a series of land, air and water speed world records and the famous Napier Railton racing car of 1933. Today, Napier is one of the largest independent manufacturers in the world of large axial turbochargers for use in the marine, power generation and rail traction industries.

“The PLM solution that Majenta PLM is supplying and is helping us to implement will help to ensure that the right product information is at the right place at the right time”, said Andy Thacker, managing director, Napier Turbochargers Limited. “It is therefore crucial to the continued development of our range of products and to the success of the ambitious growth plans we have in each of our markets, where we are already recognized as a leading supplier.”

“Napier is renowned as an innovative company with an excellent suite of products delivering high technical performance,” he added. “I am pleased that the business has been acquired by a shareholder that is committed to investing further in R&D to maintain its technology and in the expansion of the business to meet customer demand”.

Trevor Stapleton, sales director, Majenta PLM, stated, “The Napier heritage includes such world-famous achievements as a series of land speed, air speed and water speed world records in the late 1920s and early 1930’s that culminated in the land speed record of 394.196 mph set in 1947. We are therefore delighted to be selected by the modern-day descendent, Napier Turbochargers Ltd, to provide and support the technology that will help the company build on its heritage and on its much more recent successes”.