>> Issues & Benefits of Multisite Asset Lifecycle Management?

Asset Lifecycle Management (ALM) has evolved into an important strategy for many businesses, providing increased productivity and cost benefits. Many large companies have implemented ALM at multiple locations creating mutlisite issues, new challenges, and opportunities for additional benefits. It is important to address these issues so more businesses can benefit from multisite ALM. ARC is conducting a survey to help identify the issues, opportunities, and best practices needed to better understand the deployment of Multisite ALM. You will receive the results FREE, for taking the survey.

To take the survey, please click here: http://www.arcweb.com/ss2/wsb.dll/ARC/MultisiteALM.htm

>> Energy Utilities Embrace Enterprise Performance Management

Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) was the thread that ran through most of the recent Energy Information Technology Conference. The Edison Electric Institute, American Gas Association, and Platts sponsor this annual meeting of utility IT managers.

This year's meeting featured sessions on Sarbanes-Oxley compliance, outsourcing, CRM, simulation, and IT spending trends, but the key strategic direction for IT in these companies is to improve their business performance through the effective capture and use of real-time and historical performance information.

In a recent ARC Insight, Senior Analyst Harry Forbes says, "Indicative of this trend toward real-time information was the presence of suppliers with a strong real-time focus such as Matrikon, who have applied their alarm management and integration products to the power generation market."

"Other conference exhibitors," Forbes says, "included Enterprise Asset Management suppliers Indus and MRO Software, Siemens New Energy, and Symantec, who introduced a new network security offering targeting SCADA installations."

===== COMPANY NEWS & BRIEFINGS =====

>> Briefing: Moldflow Looks to Grow beyond Plastics

By Craig Resnick

Moldflow provides simulation and software solutions to enhance the automation and optimization of the plastics injection molding design for manufacturing processes and improve the manufacturing productivity and profitability of plastic products.

Its customers are primarily in the automotive, medical, electronics, consumer goods, material supply, equipment supply, consumer products, medical devices, and molding industries. Its revenues of $36.6 million for fiscal 2003 were 4 percent above fiscal 2002, putting it in the position of having $52.1 million in cash and marketable securities on hand and no long-term debt.

This cash position has allowed Moldflow to make recent acquisitions, including Côntrole de Processus Industriels, a provider of production monitoring systems to the French plastics industry; Branden Technologies, developers of the Shotscope and EZ-Track systems for real-time process and production monitoring; and C-MOLD in 2000, which was then Moldflow's next largest competitor in the simulation space.

Additionally, the company owns plasticszone.com, which provides access to business and productivity solutions for plastics professionals, and has the US patent for Dual Domain technology, one of the key technologies responsible for widespread implementation of their simulation products.

>> IBM and Engineous Partner on PLM

Together, they will deliver a Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) solution for engineering process integration and design optimization.

The joint solution can help customers decrease engineering development lead time and cost, improve product quality and performance, and reduce IT operational costs among geographically dispersed design teams and business partners.

Through this agreement, IBM PLM customers can incorporate Engineous' FIPER and iSIGHT technologies as a process integration and design optimization layer within their existing PLM infrastructures.

Engineous' iSIGHT enables the integration and automation of commercial and internally developed computer aided design and engineering tools (CAD and CAE). iSIGHT can help accelerate the execution of these tools, leading to higher quality, optimized products.

Engineous' FIPER software is a Web-based, distributed product development infrastructure that allows organizations to access, execute, and reuse design tools and processes. The software allows resources to be connected within an organization and externally with partners and geographically dispersed design teams.