(Source: Business Wire)Siemens PLM Software, a business unit of the Siemens Industry Automation Division and a leading global provider of product lifecycle management (PLM) software and services, today announced the purchase of the Rulestream® software technology and brand assets, a leading engineer-to-order (ETO) software application for streamlining the business processes associated with custom-built products. Siemens PLM Software will offer the solution to its customers under the Rulestream brand name and assume full responsibility for ongoing software development and support.

"For more than eight years, Rulestream software has employed effective knowledge capture and reuse to help companies rapidly engineer products to customer specification. They have achieved greater engineering throughput, higher sales win rates, better margin security, shorter lead times and lower costs," said Chuck Grindstaff, executive vice president of Products and chief technology officer of Siemens PLM Software."The Rulestream technology's ability to assist in simultaneously increasing revenues and lowering operating expenses makes it a compelling solution for the marketplace. As the newest member of our product family, it will serve as an ideal complement to our comprehensive suite of product development and lifecycle offerings."

A comprehensive approach

ETO business processes are employed by a large and growing number of manufacturing industry segments, including power generation, HVAC, fluid flow technologies, heavy equipment, machinery, and the automotive and aerospace supply base. The increasing demand for customized or customer-specific product configurations creates a common set of challenges for these companies. There is constant competitive pressure for ETO manufacturers to increase the number, accuracy and win rate of their bids, while reducing order engineering lead time and optimizing resource utilization in manufacturing.

Rulestream addresses the unique challenges faced by ETO manufacturers with a comprehensive solution spanning sales, engineering and manufacturing. By capturing engineering knowledge and using it to automate key business processes across the enterprise, Rulestream streamlines the "inquiry to quote" and "order to release" processes for even the most complex products, so manufacturers can sell according to their engineering and manufacturing capabilities.

"We need to come close to a final design quickly to develop proposals and capture new business while estimating our costs accurately," said Kip Alexander, senior technology manager, The Babcock and Wilcox Company.