The PLM Proposition

Product lifecycle management (PLM) is a business strategy that helps companies share product data, apply common processes, and leverage corporate knowledge for the development of products across the extended enterprise. As such, PLM software has gained the stature of being “the next big thing” in manufacturing enterprise information systems, assuming the mantle that ERP (enterprise resource planning) software carried in the 1990s.

PLM has attracted the interest of major software vendors eager to participate in its expanding functional footprints, and analysts who spin fetching scenarios for how PLM will transform manufacturing as we know it. The truth is, although few are fully there yet, significant steps are being made by system integrators and pioneering manufacturers. The focus – and progress – today seems to be where engineering and manufacturing meet: in the distinct but related bills-of-materials that each group creates.

Like ERP, PLM is not entirely new: it’s built upon the legacy of its numerous component parts, including computer-aided design (CAD), computeraided manufacturing (CAM) and product data management (PDM). PLM as a tool for manufacturers gained sizeable momentum and credibility in 2007 with Siemens’ US$3.5 billion acquisition of PLM software vendor UGS.

“Design for manufacturability” – the banner for the evolving promise of tying design more integrally with manufacturing – became recast as “digital manufacturing”. The vision is that technology will virtualize every aspect of product design and manufacturing, from concept to customer.

“Siemens’ vision for connecting all the pieces is clearly where the industry needs to go,” says Joe Barkai, analyst and lifecycle strategies practice director for IDC Manufacturing Insights. Nick Ballard, senior consultant for Cambashi, a UKbased industry analyst firm that closely tracks PLM, concurs: “Siemens’ acquisition of UGS was a serious sign of intent in the marketplace.”

Digital develops

Dassault Systemes is another major PLM vendor with an emphasis on 3D online environments dubbed “PLM 2.0”. Dassault has pushed aggressively to keep pace with Siemens to reach down into the automation layer, largely through partnerships with companies like Rockwell Automation, Mitsubishi, and others.

Both Siemens and Dassault fly the digital manufacturing flag, promoting comprehensive simulation of the entire process flow, from design to production and including “virtual commissioning” – the programming and testing of PLCs, robots, etc, based on CAD parameters.

PTC, a smaller, but very capable PLM vendor, puts greater emphasis on “process definition” built around its manufacturing product management (MPM) module. Autodesk, the world’s largest CAD vendor, approaches the market differently, gaining entry under the moniker of “digital prototyping”. Not as comprehensive, but equally committed to the market, are large ERP vendors like SAP, Oracle, Infor and others, who are driving toward PLM from their enterprise system roots.

The potential impact on the functions of control and manufacturing process engineers is implicit in the vision of digital manufacturing. But outside the aerospace, automotive and a few isolated instances in other industries, “PLM ambition is still ahead of reality, like it was with ERP,” says Tony Christian, principle consultant for Cambashi.

According to Barkai of IDC: “I’m somewhat disappointed that the pace is not faster, pushing down toward the automation layer.” But as yet, “it’s been harder to clearly demonstrate and quantify the value.” Which is not to say that the value is non-existent, experts say. Comprehensive simulation of production processes and virtual commissioning of automation lines are still more vision than reality, but there are growing examples already in play.

In virtual time

Advanced Manufacturing Technology (AMT) is a manufacturing system engineering firm based in Michigan, USA. “We provide engineering solutions to everybody in the production food chain. We do hands-on programming and commissioning of robots, control programs, line start up, commissioning support, and system documentation,” says Andy Jones, account manager for AMT. “With the economic challenges today, people want to get things done – from concept to production – faster and cheaper than anyone else.”

To help its customers, AMT uses a variety of tools it’s developed, as well as commercial PLM tools from various vendors, including Siemens. AMT is engaged currently with a large automotive OEM to do pioneering work in virtual commissioning of automation lines. That customer uses Siemens PLM Teamcenter, a central repository for all product and process data, as its engineering backbone.

“Working in the virtual world gives you the ability to evaluate product changes and how they impact production before they hit the plant,” says Jones. “From a control engineering perspective, it enables you to take PLC or HMI systems and program and debug them virtually, verifying all faults before moving to the floor.”

Commissioning a system on the floor is costly and time consuming, Jones says, and even if PLM software “doesn’t save you time, it changes where you spend it. Time is a lot cheaper in the virtual world, and there’s a lot less risk. When a new machine hits the floor, everything is in steel, and process changes are tremendously more expensive.”

AMT is piloting the virtual commissioning work with the automotive OEM, but looks to leverage that expertise across a variety of customers in other industries. “Though everyone wants to go faster, you can’t speed up things without first ensuring that the process is reliable,” Jones says.

Machine code from 3D

A T Ferrell Company has been making equipment for cereal and grain processors for more than 140 years. It does its machinery design in Autodesk Inventor, a 3D CAD tool. “It gives us the opportunity to test different ideas while creating designs, to test functionality of the designs before we make prototypes or put them into production,” says Allen Gager, design engineer and CAD manager.

Once the design is final, the company uses Edgecam, a thirdparty CAM tool, to open the design stored in the Autodesk Vault repository to create all production machining code directly from the 3D drawing. Edgecam “programs all the machine code necessary to produce that part. You can apply various functions to select types of tools you’ll need, the feed rates and RPMs,” Gager says. “Before, you’d have had to do it all manually. It’s a huge time saving, and you eliminate all translation errors previously caused by part geometry complexity.”

Increasingly, product design is becoming less an isolated, siloed process. “If you look at where innovation is coming from, it’s no longer simply a technical invention process done in the lab,” says Roy Wildeman, senior analyst for Forrester Research. “It’s more the result of the intersection with other cross-functional areas like marketing and sales who more clearly understand customer requirements and the need for quality.”

Similarly, leading manufacturers are wanting downstream areas responsible for translating design into production processes – including manufacturing and process engineering – to become more seamlessly integrated into the process. “Desire to streamline the process has necessitated a link between product design itself and planning the manufacturing process needed to produce it,” says Marc Halpern, research director at Gartner.

“When you design a product and create an engineering bills-ofmaterial (eBOM), you want to give manufacturing sufficient lead time to create the production infrastructure to ramp to capacity as quickly as possible. Manufacturing process management (MPM) is the umbrella for this linkage,” explains Halpern.

The MPM link

As the digital pivot point between design engineering and manufacturing process engineering, MPM is a key component of PLM. (The “P” in the acronym alternately designates both manufacturing “product” and “process” management.)

“Manufacturing engineering is always interested in how things are going to be done,” says Francois Lamy, vice president of manufacturing product management for PTC. “Its function is to take engineering design data and create manufacturing information in terms of part structures for subassemblies, and for the design of workstations and lines required to produce them.”

The mBOM (manufacturing bill of materials) is where manufacturing process management comes alive. “The eBOM (engineering bill of materials) might clearly show that one part needs to be glued to another, but it might not specify the glue or the applicator,” says Halpern. Getting into the details of how and when in the process is at the heart of the mBOM.

MPM tools facilitate the ease and speed with which manufacturing engineers can take the eBOM and convert it into an mBOM, often using cut-and-paste functions that aid translation of product design into manufacturing processes. eBOMs and mBOMs basically have the same component elements and materials, but they’re organized differently toward achieving different ends.

With a tight, bidirectional link, manufacturing engineering might readily determine, for example, that screws would be a better fastening medium than glue. It then can digitally transmit this engineering change request back to design quickly, prompting a tweaking of the originating eBOM. A tight linkage also enables timely updating and notification of engineering change orders back into manufacturing, so production is always working to the latest version of design, improving efficiency and eliminating scrap.

Workflow synchronization

Workflow is an elemental technology in this bidirectional communication. “Workflows have expanded over time to reach outside of engineering design into manufacturing, so manufacturing can see what changes are occurring. Once you have the product definition and interdependencies with actual production processes captured and understood, workflow manages the change process in terms of automating the routing and approval process,” says Wildeman.

“Manufacturers have always struggled with keeping the manufacturing BOM in synch with the engineering BOM,” says Dave Shuey, director of marketing for Siemens PLM Tecnomatix product. “This is a non-trivial issue. People don’t always appreciate the delays that changes in the engineering bills-of-material can cause in the production process.”

The non-trivial nature of synchronization includes not only the eBOM/mBOM issue, but also the full scope of the PLM vision for digital manufacturing. Challenges are many when it comes to the accurate translation of data from 3D geometry to parts lists, physical production processes, work instructions, and, ultimately, automation equipment control code.

“The key take away in talking about digital manufacturing is the vision for an end-to-end process. When you start to design a product, you have to look at a number of things, including how it will be manufactured,” says Dick Slansky, senior analyst/research director for PLM at ARC Advisory Group. “Digital manufacturing takes it all the way from design to production simulation, on down to automated execution on the line. This is the vision for PLM today.”

PLM’s integrated software modules, bidirectional data communications, and three-dimensional virtual environments are moving that vision closer to reality for manufacturers and system integrators in all industries.

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Factors Favor the PLM Market

Demand for increased efficiency and productivity, a continuing need for collaboration across a global manufacturing lifecycle, the rapidly growing need for product re-invention and innovation, the continued growth of manufacturing in emerging economies, and expanding adoption of a more holistic end-to-end product lifecycle management (PLM) solution set will contribute to growth in the worldwide PLM market.

The major caveat to this projection is the current global economic downturn which has held down market growth for PLM in 2009, according to the latest ARC Advisory Group study.

The PLM market grew substantially in 2008, with the first two quarters of that year representing some of the best quarters historically for some PLM companies. Unfortunately, the last two quarters of that year signaled the beginning of a global economic downturn, with the third quarter slowing considerably, and the fourth quarter making precipitous drops in revenues for most PLM suppliers.

According to Dick Slansky, the principal author of ARC’s Product Lifecycle Management Worldwide Outlook study, “The manufacturing sector is re-focusing the strategic direction of companies toward innovation and new product development to gain critical market share and grow top line revenues.

“However, this does not mean that they are ignoring cost containment and productivity, especially in the current economic climate. While innovation, new product concepts, and design are necessary to a company in order to maintain its competitive edge, getting the right product, at the right time, to the right market sectors will often determine a company’s profitability.”

Driving growth

The changing demographics of both industrialized nations and the emerging economic regions will drive significant portions of the market for technology and the consumer demands for certain sectors of national, regional, and global populations. This is creating a critical demand for knowledge capture across all domains of the product lifecycle including design, manufacturing processes, and general domain expertise.

Moreover, knowledge reuse will be essential as companies seek to maintain and improve their products and services, as well as establish ideation and innovation as a component of their end-toend product development process.

Global energy requirements, more specifically, alternative energy generation and non-green house gas generating energy sources are poised to experience very significant growth in the next decade and beyond. In the alternative energy sector, wind generated power and the equipment and infrastructure required for power generation appears to be positioned well for strong growth.

Services beat software

PLM services are projected to grow faster than software, with software sales set to grow at a rate of 5.5 percent CAGR over the forecast period, and services at around 7.5 percent, with much of that growth coming from consulting, maintenance, and implementation services.

Forecasted services growth is for the software companies themselves and not for third party service providers. Nearly all PLM software companies are continuing to build their own service organizations, acknowledging that, on average, 60 percent of the PLM revenue is derived from services.

Services will continue to grow over the forecast period, with most PLM software providers implementing a business strategy to continue to grow this sector, according to ARC.

Frank Smith is a contributing editor to Control Engineering.

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Increasing Returns on Innovation Investment

Using application lifecycle management technology (ALM) in conjunction with PLM can bring benefits for highly R&D-intensive industries. By Daniel Staresinic, Thomas Maurer & Rami Azulay.

Medical device and diagnostic companies are under constant pressure to incorporate latest technologies into the products they bring to market while minimizing their development costs. And software development is becoming more critical for medical device manufacturers, who spend more on R&D than manufacturers in most other industries. Maximizing the success of this investment is more important than ever in the current economic environment

Analysts and consultants agree that continuous innovation is the key to creating sustainable growth for medical device companies. The question is: how can these companies best leverage their investment in innovation and increase their rate of successful new product introduction?

The Booz & Co. report, The Customer Connection: The Global Innovation 1000, gives one reason for the urgency of this question. According to the findings, the amount of money spent on innovation (by the world’s largest corporate R&D spenders across a variety of industry categories), did not translate directly into increased revenue.

“In the end,” write authors Barry Jaruzelski and Kevin Dehoff, “the key to innovation success has nothing to do with how much money you spend. It is directly related to the effort expended to align innovation with strategy and your customers, and to manage the entire process with discipline and transparency.”

Why must medical device companies spend so much on R&D? Of course much of the spend traces to the ever-increasing costs of regulatory compliance. For example, the required diligence surrounding pre-clinical and clinical trials, and the careful management and control of gigabytes of information now required for submissions. But there are market-driven factor as well.

Being first to market with a substantially better therapy, monitoring, imaging or diagnostic approach in many cases involves software capabilities which may translate into market share advantage and superior gross margins. Speed is important because there is a fairly short window in which to turn such a profit. Constant downward pricing pressure from healthcare payers, and the propensity of competitors to rapidly follow place a premium on maintaining a well-stocked innovation pipeline and moving it steadily towards the healthcare market.

Managing complexity

In light of the industry’s huge financial commitment to R&D and its imperative for innovation, it is obvious that companies must find a way to manage the vast and complex innovation process so that the result is something for which healthcare providers and consumers will pay attractively, and yet something that can be manufactured and deployed in a cost-effective manner.

To help address this challenge, medical device and diagnostics manufacturers should explore a product lifecycle management (PLM) solution in conjunction with application lifecycle management (ALM).

ALM is a software application that provides the modules required to manage the development process, such as low-level and highlevel requirements management, tasks, test plan and execution and defect tracking. Working with one central system allows sharing of project data, track and monitor development activities such as approvals, change requests, version changes, defects, etc.

In recent years, the FDA has placed high attention on the software application lifecycle and requires deeper traceability to software artifacts. Vendors such as Siemens PLM merging ALM technology from suppliers like Orcanos provide solutions to address problems ranging from portfolio management, to product design, to CAPA (corrective/preventive Action), to DHR (device history record), risk and hazard and many others.

For maximizing the value of R&D investments, PLM should be explored in the context of an integrated product planning process, which closely involves the ALM aspect in the final product and covers all major elements from the medical device development process as required by FDA regulations.

The integrated product planning process begins with the capture of ideas and market requirements (MRD) for future products with strong traceability to other submitted documents such as SRS, Risk & Hazard, STP, STD and STR. It includes portfolio evaluation and decision making, and extends into the creation and deployment of project plans for development, manufacture, and market launch of the products.

PLM enables the integrated planning process to become faster, with more informed decision-making and reduced errors. It’s also involves impact prediction capabilities to allow faster post marketing analysis (ECO). PLM manufacturers have identified a number of PLM best practices employed by industry leaders to improved product planning performance. These are detailed below.

Digital management of requirements

As Booz & Co said earlier, it is necessary to “align innovation with . . . your customers.” The ability to identify potential product opportunities is important. The ability to relate those opportunities to market requirements is critical and required by the FDA for traceability purposes. This information exists in many forms: discussion or interview notes, surveys, blogs, focus groups, provider specifications, incident data, maintenance reports, and so on.

PLM combined with ALM provides a simple interface for any authorized person to digitally register such information (including images, videos, sound files, links, documents, etc) as a “requirement”. For added convenience and productivity, the interface is integrated with popular desktop tools such as Microsoft Office.

The PLM/ALM system collects and manages these requirements throughout a product’s lifecycle, and presents them back on demand so that they can be evaluated individually or in groupings, linking them to individual ideas or products. PLM/ALM provides digital traceability from a product back to the original requirements that contributed to the evolution of that product.

Digital portfolio optimization

There is an inherent new product failure rate in any industry. Over the past few decades companies could fill up their pipelines and play for a blockbuster that would cover the failure of many other projects. But today companies need to be more efficient with their investments by making regular resource corrections toward the projects with the best opportunity for commercial success aligning their marketing strategy and objective with the executed program.

PLM/ALM provides a “portfolio management” module that is linked to real-time project status and resource loads, as well as the business case data surrounding each project in the portfolio. PLM provides what-if analysis capability for studying competing portfolio scenarios, empowering management to make time-critical decisions to affect resource allocations and project schedules.

Product platform management

A product platform strategy uses validated product configurations as the foundation for incremental extensions. This refreshes existing products with new component technologies or features, while maintaining product uniformity and identity in the marketplace. Successful variations of a platform will result in steady growth and protection of market share.

A PLM/ALM solution facilitates the reuse of common platforms early in the development lifecycle by allowing visibility to all approved component configurations and to accurate schedule information for any new components that may become part of the new product. PLM/ALM solution can provide a view of component availability that includes the capacity of approved and/or pending sources of supply from all three major components, mechanical, electronics and software.

Global program execution

Geographically distributed product teams allow companies to leverage diverse competencies. The skills of external and internal resources can be combined (e.g. open innovation networks) to create unique innovations more quickly in such a model. But controlling the information, workflow, and task execution across time zones and company lines demands a new set of information technology capabilities.

PLM/ALM provides a project management system to ensure that: progress toward all milestones and gates is continuously up-to-date and visible anywhere, anytime; market requirements are readily accessible during individual and collaborative design sessions; risk and hazards are collaborated across components; gate criteria are readily accessible to all parties involved in gate reviews.

Discipline & transparency

In today’s environment, best practice execution demands supportive information technology – technology that enables management of the innovation process “with discipline and transparency”, as quoted from the Booz study. PLM solution that includes true ALM technology is an excellent choice because it is literally designed for that purpose.

At Siemens, our experience with PLM together with complete ALM in the medical device and diagnostics industry is highly positive. We have seen manufacturers improve their return on innovation investment in the form of increased R&D productivity, increased innovation speed, and reduced product and process costs.

Daniel Staresinic and Thomas Maurer are Senior Directors, Siemens PLM Software; Rami Azulay is VP Marketing and Sales, Orcanos ALM Software.

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Delcam Asian Technical Summit

CADCAM supplier Delcam headed off to Korea this year for its annual gathering of customers and partners. Dr Guy Littlefair reports.

September saw the annual Delcam Asian Technical Summit held for the first time in Korea. With close to 100 delegates from all over Asia and the Pacific region, the final day of the summit coincided with the 20th Korean User Group meeting.

The summit dealt with the new generation of Delcam products and introduced for the first time in Asia the latest version of PowerMILL – Delcam’s premier product. With the right hardware configuration, PowerMILL 10 is around 2.5 times faster than its predecessor due to its use of multi-core PC processors.

The PowerMILL GUI has also been revamped allowing users to learn the intricacies quicker than before with all items being accessed off one form. It is also quicker to navigate.

Robert Gain from Lee-Ming Institute of Technology in Taiwan presented his research on machining with robots. With six axes readily available in modern industrial robots and coupling this with Delcam’s PowerMILL, previously unthinkable multi-axis machining becomes a relativity simple task.

Whilst the inherent stiffness of robots and their drive systems may not be able to give accuracies in line with those achievable with conventional machine tools, the application of the technology for rapid prototyping is obvious.

Medical makes mark

Medical applications were a major feature of this year’s summit, being promoted under the “Healthcare Solutions” banner.

Following on from the 2008 event Delcam has obviously been developing hard in this area.

Delcam’s increased emphasis on the healthcare industry comes at a time when the sector is expanding rapidly and when it is much more receptive to computer-based technology. The aging population in industrialized countries and the growing affluence of the emerging economies mean that the industry is seeing global growth.

The company now has a dedicated Healthcare Division to provide a greater focus on this increasingly important part of its business. The new division aims to help companies across the medical, dental and associated industries to apply Delcam’s expertise and experience in taking advantage of the latest design and manufacturing techniques.

Maxillofacial reconstruction is perhaps the ultimate application for rapid prototyping techniques and Delcam is leading edge in its developments. Using this technology delivers opportunities to reduce waiting times; remove unnecessary surgery; compress process times; reduce patient trauma; speed up recovery times and reduce material costs.

Another medical application is in the custom orthotic insole market. Once again the application of the modern tools developed for this area has had dramatic effects on the speed up of producing customs orthotics which were previously done almost exclusively by skilled technicians.

In the end, the biggest winner is undoubtedly the patient. Waiting and recovery times are now much shorter if the medical practitioner is using a Delcam digital laboratory.

Two old favourites in the Delcam stable were also presented – FeatureCAM and PowerINSPECT. Both of these products have been revised and improved for 2010 and enable users to gain access to significant post-processing and inspection capabilities at the top of the market.

The feature based elements of FeatureCAM enable fast and easy access to sophisticated and complex CAM, even delivering 5-axis capability. Perhaps the most significant improvement here is in the 30 percent faster simulation times over the previous release.

Maintaining R&D focus

All in all, the Delcam 2009 Asian Summit was a demonstration of why this organization is dominating the top end of the CAM and associated solutions market. Whilst medical applications are clearly a key direction for the future, it is reassuring to see the continuing development of Delcam’s core product, PowerMILL.

Delcam has notably maintained its levels of research and development expenditure despite feeling the effects of the global economic downturn. The company invested over £4.7 million (US$7.8 million) in R&D during the first half of 2009, an increase from the £4.5 million invested in the same period of 2008. It says this strategy is in marked contrast with some other suppliers in the CAM market, which have cut their investment in development as sales have fallen.

Dr Guy Littlefair is a correspondent for NZ Manufacturer magazine.

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Electric Planning

System integrators share tips on how solid planning and avoiding surprises helps them achieve automation project success. By Vance VanDoren.

EPlan Software & Service was founded 25 years ago in Germany with a vision to provide a comprehensive electrical design system for an emerging market looking for a better and faster way than drawing manually. The result was EPlan, a PC based design automation solution. Aside from EPlan Electric P8 for electrical design, the company’s other products include EPlan Fluid – for hydraulic and pneumatic systems design, and EPlan PPE – for process plant design.

Q: How active is EPlan in the region?

A: We are headquartered in Kuala Lumpur, and have sales operations and channels in Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam. Recently, Australian and New Zealand were added to our sales territory. We have a three-year plan to double revenue every year, and so far we have managed to hit that target.

Q: Is Southeast Asia is receptive to the idea of electrical CAD/CAE?

A: I would say that this is a “virgin region” for this kind of software, compared to the US and Europe. In fact, for 90 percent of the prospects that we meet, their jaws drop: “You mean, you can really do that?!” Most people have been living under a shell and not taken the time to explore the other options to conventional electrical drawing.

To encourage understanding and adoption, we have engaged in a number of initiatives with colleges and universities in the region. And in February, EPlan announced that Festo Didactic would have exclusive worldwide reseller rights to market EPlan Education, which gains an important new distribution channel through Festo Didactic’s global presence in the educational and vocational markets.

Q: So what benefits can the software offer to these companies?

A: Moving up from pen-and-paper manual drafting, many companies are actually using software for electrical systems design, and these do have useful, time-saving features such as libraries, etc. But what EPlan Electric P8 provides is many levels higher, in that what you draw is actually “alive”.

For instance, engineers often have to produce lots of reports, such as bill of materials (BOMs); and a 100-page design can often require a 200-page report. Our software automatically takes care of the reports and, typically, this saves about 70 percent of an engineer’s time. It also integrates to mechanical CAD and ERP systems, which helps to ensure product data synchronization.

Another feature is that rather than drawing it’s more about configuration, i.e. data can be entered and a circuit diagram automatically generated. The symbols that we use are also all based on IEC standards, which is very important when delivering a design for an MNC client. With conventional software, you can more or less draw any symbol you like, which is not really acceptable.

Q: Who would be a typical user of EPlan Electric?

A: It does tend to be the larger companies, and I can give names such as ABB, Siemens, Schneider Electric, Scomi, TetraPak, and Peteris (formerly known as Inter-Roller). ABB has standardized on EPlan Electric for its low and medium voltage switchgear design. The software is also used widely in the airport baggage handling systems sector, and both Siemens and Peteris use it.

Rather than just sending out sales people to take orders, we adopt a consultative approach in order to assess the customer’s business and what he is looking to achieve. The number of licenses required is normally dependent on how many of the company’s engineers will need to use the software, as the license is on a per seat basis.

Q: Is the software easy to use?

A: For new clients, we do heavily encourage that they take up the product training options, in order that they can make full use of the features and maximize the productivity-enhancing potential. We have two certified training consultants and normally offer three-day class training sessions. Customers also have access to unlimited worldwide technical support via phone and email.

Q: Going forward, how do you plan to increase adoption of EPlan products in the region?

A: Over the last couple of years, we have put more efforts in marketing and branding, through exhibitions, seminars, and advertising. This has had an impact in that many more people have at least heard of the company and are receptive to learning more about our products and their benefits. While most of the activities have been on EPlan Electric P8, next year, we will put more marketing efforts behind our process plant solution, EPlan PPE. At the core of all this is a belief that it really is time for companies in this region to look at doing at things more intelligently.