EMA Design Automation Connecting the Data with Arena PLM Software
During IPC APEX EXPO 2015, Chris Banton, marketing manager for EMA Design Automation sat down with me to discuss EMA’s recent partnership with PLM software provider Arena Solutions. In this interview, Chris explains how the alliance benefits companies that use both platforms, and why more and more CAD tool users are also taking advantage of PLM.
Kelly Dack: Chris, tell us how the partnership between EMA and Arena Solutions is going to benefit your customers.
Chris Banton: Sure, Kelly. It actually came about because of customer engagements. We were visiting a couple of our customers, discussing their engineering processes, and it came up that they use both Arena and OrCAD Capture, and there were some issues with being able to communicate between the two. Management wanted their engineers to be able to find company approved parts and make sure they only spec those in. No one wants to go do a redesign because they didn't use approved parts or accidentally used obsolete parts, especially if they find the problem at the end of the design phase, right?
Dack: Right.
Banton: We started talking to these customers and a common trend was that they had Arena, they had OrCAD, and there was this missing link between these two systems.
Dack: Can I ask what the missing link was?
Banton: Really, it was being able to connect that data.
Dack: The connection?
Banton: There is a database, which is the backend to that PLM system and then there is a database that manages your component data at the PCB level. Customers needed a way to connect these two systems so they could share the right data efficiently and automatically.
Dack: Did you work together?
Banton: Yes, we did. The key thing there is to understand how the PLM system works so that we're pulling data down from the PLM system in a controlled and automated way. The PLM system has a lot of data that the engineer probably doesn't need every single time they access it, so we want to make sure that we're taking relevant information down to the engineer and not overloading them. We needed to work closely with Arena to get that intimate PLM knowledge while leveraging our experience with what data PCB teams need access to.
The traditional solution has been, "Oh, just let the engineer log into PLM," which might work, but now you're overloading them with all these things that they don't care about and forcing them to learn a new tool. Not to mention this typically happens at the end of the design so the engineering team is learning about potential part sourcing issues very late in the game.
We worked closely with Arena to make sure that we were doing this in a way that works for both our systems, but focused on the information that we needed to pass back and forth.
Dack: What does this mean for the customer?
Banton: Having access to relevant data is key. Knowing what you need to know when you need to know it allows you to do your job better, and that's really what we're doing—getting people access to the data they need when they need it in a format that they're comfortable with and that they can work with.
Dack: As a Cadence reseller, is this one of the ways that you add value to that customer relationship?
Banton: EMA is pretty unique in how we approach this, and to some extent, how Cadence lets us approach it. We have a great relationship with the Cadence R&D team. We work with them to create products that we either develop or Cadence releases within our market. We are a value-added reseller with a heavy emphasis on value-added.
Dack: You mentioned the customers that are tapping into this PLM. How many customers do you have tapping into PLM?
Banton: That’s difficult to say, but it’s a significant percentage. We see a number of different PLM systems in use out there, but when we're talking to new start-up companies, Arena comes up again and again. It's appealing to these companies because it’s a full featured cloud-based solution with quick start-up time.
Dack: Is it a worldwide presence of customers?
Banton: Arena does have a worldwide presence with customers in seventy-nine countries. They certainly have a strong customer base in the U.S., which fits with us because our customer base is North America as well. There is nice synergy there.
Dack: Anything else you want to share?
Banton: Mostly we’ve talked about managing component data in PLM and ECAD, but there is the general concern about how engineering manages all of their data in the ECAD space. To be a bit critical to my industry, the electrical space has gotten a little behind everyone in this respect.
MCAD has had revision control and other data management for a long time and we're seeing customers wonder what's going on. "Why can't I do this for my electrical design? ECAD has the same problems they have on the mechanical side—I'm constantly making changes, I have files everywhere, simulation profiles, models, they're all interrelated and I need to manage them."
We're really seeing customers understanding, "I need to get control of my data," because there are some serious problems that you can have that aren't related to how well the board is designed electrically. We're going to be very active in the PCB data management space going forward this year.
Dack: Chris, it all sounds clear. Thank you for speaking with me today.
Banton: You’re welcome. Thank you, Kelly.
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