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Workgroup Technology Announces Jam-Packed New ProductCenter 8.1 Release
New ProductCenter Release Adds New Usability Features, Updates Major Components, Satisfies FDA Requirements, and Adds New ProductCenter™ Inventor IntegratorBURLINGTON, Mass., May 1, 2002 — Workgroup Technology Corporation (WTC) (NASDAQ: WKGP), a leading provider of collaborative product data management (PDM), today announced the availability of a new release of its collaborative PDM solution, ProductCenter 8.1. ProductCenter 8.1 continues to deliver customer-driven ProductCenter 8 enhancements to further increase user satisfaction, improve data security, and enhance collaboration capabilities among extended enterprise users and systems. This new release adds additional usability innovations and enhancements, broadens WTC's computer-aided design (CAD) integration suite, and completes technical requirements to meet the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulation, FDA 21 CFR, Part 11.
"We see ProductCenter 8.1 as a breakout release for WTC and our customers," states Mike Turcotte, WTC vice president of product planning. "Where ProductCenter 8.0 established a new standard for quality, performance, and usability, ProductCenter 8.1 exploits that foundation by delivering an impressive number of customer-requested enhancements, as well as a new product offering for Autodesk Inventor users. Much of the credit of this release goes to our six customer advisory boards, which contributed substantially to the direction of the product in their application domain. Their collaboration with WTC has resulted in a product release that has received very positive reviews in prerelease demonstrations."
The following are just a few of the over 50 time-saving features and enhancements made in ProductCenter 8.1, touching upon almost all areas of the product, while adding value and furthering user productivity:
Design Integrations:
- WTC's new advanced ProductCenter™ Integrator Framework sets the architectural foundation for major usability enhancements to existing ProductCenter integrators, which in this release include enhancements to the ProductCenter™ Pro/Engineer, ProductCenter™ SolidWorks, and ProductCenter™ AutoCAD Integrators. The Integrator Framework also serves as the basis for the development of new, even more tightly-knit and efficient integrations, including a new product introduced with this release, the ProductCenter™ Inventor Integrator, for users of the Autodesk® Inventor™ 3D mechanical design system.
- A new and unique Hierarchy Explorer will be the primary interface from which CAD designers will interact with ProductCenter. This simplified, yet more capable interface adheres strictly to Windows® usability standards, while providing advanced new features such as baseline selection and rules-based operations.
- The SolidWorks Integrator, in addition to incorporating the Hierarchy Explorer, includes other key enhancements, including the capability to manage in-context relationships and batch load part configurations.
- In support of Pro/Engineer best practices, the 8.1 release of the ProductCenter Pro/Engineer Integrator now enables automated validation by integrating to the Pro/ModelCHECK. Should a design not pass administrator-defined validation checks in Pro/ModelCHECK, the user will be promptly notified to correct the problem before the design can be checked into ProductCenter.
- The ProductCenter Pro/Engineer Integrator provides improved handling of simplified representations, letting users work with only the parts of the assembly needed at that time. By eliminating the necessity to always work with the full model, memory consumption and Pro/Engineer performance improves, while the full product hierarchy remains intact in ProductCenter.
ProductCenter BOM Editor:
- A new ProductCenter BOM Editor release streamlines BOM creation, modification, and communications with downstream applications. Enhancements include a new publish/export capability for smooth transitioning of BOM information to other enterprise applications.
- Support for Reference Links make it easier to link and access other reference data not normally shipped with a product, such as Acceptance Test Procedures, for example.
Support for alternate and substitute parts and a mass change feature eliminate steps in updating multiple BOMs. - BOM information can now be easily disseminated to enterprise users and/or applications with the introduction of XML-based export and report tools.
Administration:
- Enhanced administration tools include a new Forms Editor that significantly streamlines the creation, usability, and uniformity of attribute forms.
- Improvements in the definition and management of ProductCenter's Named Links adds capabilities for both head and tail links, giving the user finer control in determining how various products are interrelated.
Security:
- Another major element of this new release is ProductCenter 8.1 meeting the technical requirements of FDA 21 CFR Part 11. Although specific to FDA regulated environments for medical device and equipment suppliers, all security conscious ProductCenter customers will benefit from these new features, which include support for electronic signatures, adding the notion of user accounts with unique user login names and encrypted passwords; a transaction log to maintain a full audit trail of user events; an extended date and time stamp; and other administrative security options, such as password aging, and user disablement after a predetermined number of log-in attempts.
About Workgroup Technology Corporation
Workgroup Technology Corporation (WTC) develops, markets and supports ProductCenter™, a web-enabled, extended enterprise Collaborative Product Data Management (PDM) solution that provides Document Management, Design Integration, Configuration Control, Change Management, and Enterprise Integration for optimizing product development. Based in Burlington, Massachusetts, the company differentiates itself on the basis of its controlled and secure accessibility, enterprise integration, and quick adaptability of its software. Thousands of users at mid-sized and global companies are in production and benefit from WTC products, including ABB, Inc.; Baker Oil Tools; Eaton Corporation; FlightSafety International; General Electric Company; Goodrich Turbine Fuel Technologies; Honeywell; Millipore Corporation; Siemens Energy & Automation, Inc.; U.S. Army; and Whirlpool Corporation. The company's Web site is located at www.workgroup.com.
WTC, the WTC logo, ProductCenter, myPDM, GenView and WebLink are trademarks or registered trademarks of Workgroup Technology Corporation in the U.S. and/or other countries. All other brands, logos, products or company names are the copyrights and/or trademarks of their respective holders.
