Posted by Enterprise Service Outlook - AMC Bridge has been providing software development services to the engineering software market for over 20 years. More than 350 companies trust AMC Bridge with developing custom software solutions. Companies such as Autodesk, PTC, SolidWorks, Siemens, and ARAS see the quality and reliability of AMC Bridge software as a vital part of their solution development. More recently, Enterprise organizations, such as Katerra, PackSize, P&G, and Stratasys, have utilized the development services of AMC Bridge to help them accelerate their transformation to a digital enterprise.
Clients view their collaboration with AMC Bridge as a strategic benefit due to the decades of software knowledge and development experience that AMC Bridge brings to their software initiatives. The result is a successful and timely launch of new products and solutions to be deployed to internal users, or externally to their customers. AMC Bridge's expertise ranges across every aspect of engineering software, from CAD/CAM/CAE to data management solutions, such as PDM and PLM platforms, and even to newer technologies such as AR/VR, additive manufacturing, scanning, generative design, and cloud computing technologies. AMC Bridge helps their customers save time and money by eliminating the need to acquire or develop the required technical expertise in-house. AMC Bridge's customers are delighted with the results they receive, with over 96% of them returning to AMC Bridge for additional projects and over 90% of them willing to refer AMC Bridge to their customers, colleagues, and partners.
With well over 500 technical specialists and software developers, AMC Bridge brings decades of industry experience to apply to their clients' projects and help them unlock the benefits of a digital enterprise.
The Digital Enterprise
Not long ago, the engineering industry faced a major transformation, moving from two-dimensional drawings to three-dimensional solid models. Motivated by the ease of access to the huge amount of information that 3D models could contain, companies sought to replace old, legacy 2D documentation with this newer and more advanced technology. Today, 3D models are so rich in design, manufacturing, and construction data that complex systems are required to manage and provide appropriate enterprise-wide access to that information. This data must be available to many different parts of the enterprise organization, from engineering to manufacturing and inspection, to planning and procurement, inventory, and even service and facility management. With the availability of sensors and networks providing real-time feedback from physical assets, enterprises can close the loop on engineering data and create Digital Twins of their products and structures to deliver better customer outcomes and accelerate product improvement. This explosion in new technologies and data means that virtually every enterprise is now in the software business.
Many organizations try to find a silver bullet single-source solution that will do everything they need with respect to data management and availability, including development of custom tools to achieve "last mile" optimization. However, they quickly learn that there is no such silver bullet; ironically, the more developed each department's digital toolset, the greater the challenge to integrate data platforms. But without bridging these platforms and enabling access to all relevant data, individual users will only see a partial view of the digital model, and the digital enterprise cannot succeed. Compounding the data challenges faced by the digital enterprise are the need to capture, preserve, and share local domain expertise and the continuous introduction of new technologies like AR/VR, 3D Scanning, generative design, and cloud computing.
AMC Bridge's development teams help their customers break down the barriers caused by data silos, capture and automate essential domain expertise before it is lost, and finally, realize the benefits of integrating advanced technology solutions into their digital enterprises. These are the three critical issues that AMC Bridge helps companies solve in their transformation to a digital enterprise:
- Data availability and management
- Domain expertise automation
- Application of advanced technology solutions
Data Availability and Management
Data silos often cause serious inefficiencies and productivity roadblocks for the digital enterprise. These troublesome silos can be found throughout an organization and can be centered around:
- Departmental data, such as design engineering, manufacturing engineering, simulation, analysis, or procurement
- Functional data, for example, data from applications like CAD, CAM, CAE, or ECAD
- Divisional data that is segregated from the corporate hierarchy
- Individual data authored and managed by a single individual on their own computer
With these additional barriers, it can be very challenging for the digital enterprise to make the necessary data available to the people that need it. AMC Bridge helps their customers break through data silos and provide availability and management capability for their essential engineering data.
With so many different types of data, management systems, and protocols, it can be challenging to find files or successfully migrate them to a new data management system. To help their customers address these challenges, AMC Bridge has developed customized dashboards and data connectors that facilitate the availability of information. They have also built software "bridges" and developed methodologies that allow different data management systems to work together.
Automation of Domain Expertise
One could argue that the most valuable of all the data types in an organization is the domain expertise of that enterprise. Such knowledge often resides with long-term employees who possess a depth and wealth of company-specific unique know-how, knowledge about design and manufacturing processes, materials, systems, and so much more. These companies risk losing that data upon the departure of these Most Valuable Employees.
Often, the company-specific domain expertise is designed into their product and must be unlocked in order for their customers to access and utilize it as intended. Complex configurations of products, application methods, and use cases are all examples of how product-based domain expertise can be locked inside a design and become challenging for the customers to access.
AMC Bridge has helped their clients develop customized applications that allow them to capture and automate the use of this critical domain expertise. Some of the benefits of such software are shortened training cycles for new employees and customers, rapid application of new products resulting in increased adoption, and, perhaps most important, the preservation of that expertise for future users.
Application of Advanced Technology Solutions
Over the past several years, enterprises have experienced an explosion in the amount and types of new technology that are available for their use. New technologies include 3D Scanning and Inspection, Additive Manufacturing, Augmented and Virtual Reality (AR/VR), Cloud Computing, and Generative Design, to name a few. Some technologies, like 3D scanning or AR/VR, enable companies to record and digitize products, environments, and processes in a way that helps them bring product to market faster and with greater reliability. Other technologies, such as generative design and additive manufacturing, allow enterprises to design and develop products with reduced cost and material consumption. The benefits of such technologies can be seen in both manufacturing and building construction, but so can the challenges.
In every case, integrating these new technologies into the digital enterprise can be a daunting task. To enhance the efficacy of the digital enterprise, these technologies must be integrated appropriately into workflows and existing processes so that the tangible benefits of adopting these new methods can be achieved swiftly. AMC Bridge helps companies evaluate, adopt, and apply these new and advanced technologies by connecting the resulting digital assets to the processes and systems of the enterprise.
With 20+ years of experience and unmatched industry expertise, AMC Bridge enables their engineering, manufacturing, building design and construction clients to accelerate their digital transformation. AMC Bridge creates custom software solutions that penetrate data silos, connect complex applications, unlock and promote internal innovation, and make cutting-edge technologies both accessible and affordable.