Production management system uptake to grow as EU directives bite

It’s a curious twist of fate that it should take this kind of legislation to move minds and loosen purse strings, but welcome at vendors of both system types – and likely to be turned to competitive advantage by early adopters. PLM and latterly also MES software developer UGS looks set for a double whammy. Says marketing director Henry Seddon: “It’s an interesting opportunity for UGS that our customers can’t ignore any more. Also as more companies outsource their manufacturing, MES and PLM become more fundamental to them.” Seddon concedes that UGS’ MES capabilities are “somewhat opportunistic” – resulting from its purchase of Tecnomatix for the manufacturing simulation software, which came with previously acquired MES and SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) firm US Data. “That never hurts,” he adds. And certainly not in this case. “The growth we’re seeing in MES in the last two quarters has surpassed our expectations and we see growth accelerating through Q4 and Q1 next year, with bigger deals and many more of them.” Why? “Because the PLM space is very competitive: in automotive companies, for example, there’s always an incumbent supplier to compete against. But in MES, even if they’ve standardised on a competitor’s PLM products they still now want to talk to us for our MES.” He agrees that UGS isn’t the biggest name in MES, but points to its considerable spend in R&D and the trust that serious engineering organisations already place in its big ticket PLM systems. “There will be one, two or three main players in MES and then the rest. UGS will be one of the gorillas… The cross-sell opportunities mean we have an expectation of huge growth here – and we can attack our competitors through the manufacturers factories as well.”