Centric goes virtual with collaborative product development

A new software product for collaborating and sharing knowledge across product development teams has been released by Centric Software.

Centric's Pivotal application lets engineers conceptualize, prototype, simulate and design products from appliances to aircraft, building reusable knowledge assets. Benefits include quicker time-to-market and less money spent on costly physical mock-ups and prototypes.

Pivotal's features include real-time collaboration via audio, video and whiteboarding; publish/subscribe capabilities; and real-time 3D visualization test environments with physical and logical behaviors like kinematics and operating logic. Pivotal works with Microsoft Office as well as CAD/CAM, CAE, PDM and ERP packages from SAP, Pro/E, CATIA, Alias/Wavefront and NASTRAN.

According to Dave Burdick, Gartner Group VP and Research Director, virtual product development management (VPDM) "represents the next generation of engineering applications for improving product development competitiveness."

Companies currently evaluating the Pivotal system include Volvo and Boeing, both of whom serve on Centric's Strategic Advisory Council for the product.

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