Siemens Digital Industries has announced the formation of Designcenter, its new software suite that brings together its portfolio of design and engineering software including Solid Edge and NX software.
Utilising ‘value-based licensing’, Siemens says that Designcenter will give access to extended functionality as needed, and reduce overhead costs with a reusable token system in NX and Solid Edge. With one subscription cost, unused tokens are added back to a team’s total pool once a user stops using token-enabled products.
Siemens gives the following example of a four-person team creating a coffee machine with 120 tokens in the pool. Engineer one and two log on at 9:00am. The first engineer needs 17 tokens for Draw Shape to add a coffee bean logo to the exterior, and needs two hours to complete the task.
Engineer two needs to use Algorithmic modeling to create visual interest for the coffee bean hopper. Algorithmic modeling requires 25 tokens, and will take roughly two hours, leaving 78 tokens left in the token pool.
Engineer three needs to access Performance Predictor to analyse the performance of the coffee press mechanism. Although this will require 89 tokens from the pool, engineer one and two have completed their tasks, resulting in the tokens being added back into the pool.
And finally, engineer four needs Animation Designer to create marketing collateral for the internal mechanism. This requires 24 tokens, but needs to be done after the Performance Predictor analysis is complete, meaning they can wait and access a fully stocked token pool.
“A lot of companies make their design software available to small businesses or to the very largest enterprises. Designcenter is unique in that it is truly open and accessible for everyone – companies of every size can scale with the same solution set, their data in the same format – without interruption,” said Tony Hemmelgarn, president and CEO, Siemens Digital Industries Software.
As an example, 50 tokens to use add-ons for NX X currently costs £8,665.79 per user / per year, or £722.15 per month, while a core seat license for NX X Design Standard, Advanced or Premium is required, while all named users in company can use tokens from the same token pool.
Siemens adds that with each new NX X release, users can access new add-on modules that become available on day one.
