IronCAD to Participate in New PLM Alliance in China

CAXA, IronCAD’s partner in China announces the creation of a new PLM Alliance to meet the specific needs of the Chinese market

ATLANTA, GA., December 8th, 2003 — IronCAD, LLC, the Innovative Design Collaboration Solutions Company, today announced their participation in a new Chinese focused PLM Alliance officially announced by CAXA on December 8th, in Beijing. CAXA is the market leader and the largest domestic CAD/CAM provider in China. The alliance incorporates over 30 years of combined experience and expertise in CAD/CAM/PDM and related areas from its partners, including Cmodes, CAPPFramework from China, AsiaTek from Taiwan and IronCAD from the U.S. The joint announcement signals an important message to the market. It symbolizes another stage of CAXA’s alliance strategy by providing a unified brand name, solution and service to the IT demands of the manufacturing industry.

According to the announcement, the solution is called “CAXA Product Innovation and Collaboration Management Solutions”. In particular, Product Innovation includes a series CAD/CAM software packages. Collaboration Management includes product data management (PDM), CAPP data management, production planning solutions with their associated consulting and deployment services and engineering data management (EDM) and personal data management tools. Companies can select one or an integration of multiple solutions and services depending on its own characteristics, requirements and implementation pace.

PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) can be viewed as an extension of CAD/CAM applications. It is part of the IT infrastructure of a company in conjunction with ERP, CRM, SCM and OA. Product is the source of value to a manufacturing company. PLM’s role is to create and manage product related data through all stages, including customer requirements, order information, product development, production planning, manufacturing, maintenance service, etc. The objective is to efficiently achieve shorter time to market, assure product quality and reduce costs. Due to the rapid pace of globalization Chinese enterprises are being forced to speed up the adoption rate of IT technology. PLM is fast becoming the new focal point of industry after ERP.

Many multi-national enterprises have moved their factories to China. Yet the factories of these Chinese manufacturers are still behind in terms of PLM. Currently the primary focus is mostly on design, CAPP and manufacturing that are directly related to the product itself. Chinese manufacturers have their own unique organizational structure and responsibilities, human resources, culture, expertise and local customs that are quite different from those in the US. Thus, a Chinese PLM strategy has to consider its own situations for matching solutions and services in order to have sustainable and long-term growth. Many Chinese enterprises have formed such “Chinese PLM” requirements, i.e. globally competitive and compatible technology with local customization.

According to Mr. Zhang ZiQiang, General Manager of PLM Consulting Group, “CAXA has grown in the past 10 years to over one hundred and twenty thousand CAD/CAM customers in China. More and more of those customers have requested more efficient ways to address product data management, collaboration working environment and system integration. CAXA’s solutions integrate the latest in CAD/CAM/PDM technology from its alliance partners to address the various levels of PLM. Together with its own consultation, customization and deployment services, CAXA can meet this growing demand for Chinese oriented PLM.”

Dr. Tao-Yang Han, President of IronCAD LLC sums up the announcement by saying, “IronCAD is very excited to be part of this new PLM alliance in China. We feel very honored to have been chosen as the provider of innovative 3D design tools as part of the PLM solution. We are fully confident in CAXA’s ability to lead this PLM alliance to success in China. They have shown over and over again their knowledge of the local market and their expertise in delivering custom solutions to their customers. This is still the early days of the alliance and we anticipate other members adding their best in class solutions to the offering.”

About IronCAD, LLC

Based in Atlanta, GA, IronCAD, LLC is a leading provider of Innovative Design Solutions that deliver the highest levels of customer satisfaction and productivity. Its flagship product IronCAD and the other members of InnovationSuite, provide a fully integrated design and information management environment that encourages creativity, productivity and teamwork with award winning 3D design and collaboration solutions managed through a Web-based Engineering Data Management (EDM) system. Components of InnovationSuite (IronCAD, Inovate and TeamVault), are used by customers throughout the world, including, Cisco Systems, Cummins Engine, Ericsson, John Deere, Eastman Kodak, Eaton Corporation, Fleetwood Enterprises, Greenheck, Hewlett-Packard, Honeywell, Intel, Lucent, Raytheon, Robert Bosch, Skyline Exhibits, Visteon, Volvo, and Xerox. For additional information, please contact IronCAD, LLC at 1-800-339-7304 or www.ironcad.com.

About CAXA

CAXA is the largest Chinese domestic provider for innovative design and collaborative data management solutions. For the past five consecutive years, CAXA has received the “Best-10 Awards” based on market surveys in the domestic software category. CAXA products have more than 120,000 legal installations in China. CAXA has well established sales channels including 7 regional offices and 35 sales, training and service branches in the nation. More than 1,000 domestic colleges and universities have selected CAXA products as their standard education and training software. For additional information, please visit www.caxa.com.