UGS Expands PLM Value with Launch of Tecnomatix Production Management, Industry’s First Solution Integrating the Shop-Floor with PLM

FOR RELEASE Wednesday, September 13, 2006

DEARBORN, Michigan and PLANO, Texas – UGS Corp., a leading global provider of product lifecycle management (PLM) software and services, today announced Tecnomatix™ Production Management portfolio, a family of leading manufacturing shop-floor applications and the industry’s first software solution to integrate production management with a company’s overall PLM process. Tecnomatix Production Management effectively expands the value of PLM by bridging the gaps between product design and production processes, enabling manufacturers to accelerate product launches, streamline regulatory compliance, facilitate lean manufacturing and implement continuous process improvement.

The announcement was made in conjunction with UGS’ Digital Manufacturing Symposium being held in Dearborn, Mich.

“Production Management significantly expands the footprint of PLM by creating a tight link to the factory floor,” said Ziyon Amram, vice president, Manufacturing Solutions, UGS.  “Our manufacturing customers worldwide have expressed the need for this type of integration between PLM and production management and UGS is proud to be the first to deliver it.”

“True end-to-end PLM” solution through Teamcenter manufacturing backbone

Production Management is part of UGS’ Tecnomatix suite of digital manufacturing solutions and includes the following products:

• Tecnomatix FactoryLink™ for shop-floor connectivity (SCADA/HMI)
• Tecnomatix MES (formerly Xfactory) for production monitoring and control
• Tecnomatix Production Management Portal for manufacturing event reporting and shop-floor intelligence.

With today’s announcement, these solutions are now tightly integrated with UGS’ Teamcenter® software, the world’s most widely used PLM portfolio.  The manufacturing backbone provided by Teamcenter serves as an open and globally-scalable technology environment designed to facilitate interoperability with a wide variety of digital manufacturing applications.  Through this unique integration, the product and process definitions in Teamcenter are tightly linked with the execution systems in Tecnomatix, ensuring consistency between planning and production.  The solution provides event capture and analysis as well as a closed loop process that enables continuous process improvement from product and process design through maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO).

“By incorporating Production Management within a PLM environment, companies can ensure that product designs are properly manufactured according to design specifications and customer requirements, and that all important production knowledge is captured in the process,” said Greg Gorbach, vice president of Collaborative Manufacturing, ARC Advisory Group.  “And because this Production Management solution resides on the Teamcenter manufacturing backbone, UGS firmly establishes its position as being a provider of true end-to-end PLM.”

Expanding PLM value; ensuring innovation success

MES, or manufacturing execution systems, have long been able to accept process definitions to establish manufacturing parameters that are monitored and reported back to management.  However, the lack of a way to automatically link this production information back to the product and process definition through a common database can lead to a mismatch between “as planned” and “as built” configurations that can negatively impact launch dates and product quality and make it more difficult to track information for regulatory compliance or identify areas for process improvement.

Tecnomatix Production Management is the first solution to address this need by establishing a shared database between the MES and PLM systems. The integrated solution enables a smooth transition from planning to production and creates a closed loop feedback mechanism so that changes that occur in planning can be instantly synchronized with production, and feedback from production can suggest changes to product or process design. As a result, UGS is expanding the value of PLM through a solution that helps reduce bottom line costs by streamlining and automating manual processes and contributing to lean manufacturing initiatives. In addition, the solution improves top-line benefits by creating an environment that helps ensure innovation success through the effective commercialization of product ideas.

Tecnomatix Production Management also includes new usability features such as the ability for end-users to create unique reporting templates as well as analytical services based on OLAP (on-line analytical processing.) Database support is available for both SQL 2005 and Oracle 10 users.

About UGS

UGS is a leading global provider of product lifecycle management (PLM) software and services with nearly 4 million licensed seats and 46,000 customers worldwide.  Headquartered in Plano, Texas, UGS’ vision is to enable a world where organizations and their partners collaborate through global innovation networks to deliver world-class products and services while leveraging UGS’ open enterprise solutions, fulfilling the mission of enabling them to transform their process of innovation. 

Note:  UGS, Factory Link, Transforming the process of innovation, Tecnomatix and Teamcenter are trademarks or registered trademark of UGS Corp. or its subsidiaries in the United States and in other countries.  All other trademarks, registered trademarks or service marks belong to their respective holders.

The statements in this news release that are not historical statements, including statements regarding expected benefits of the product, adoption by customers, continued innovation and other statements identified by forward looking terms such as "may," "will," "expect," "plan," "anticipate" or "project," are forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties which could cause actual results to differ materially from such statements, including, among others, risks relating to developments in the PLM industry, competition, failure to innovate, partnering strategy, major design errors or security flaws and intellectual property. UGS has included a discussion of these and other pertinent risk factors in its quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the period ended June 30, 2006 filed with the SEC.  UGS disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.