Product Graphics Management at a Glance

Product Graphics Management (PGM) is a new category of enterprise software that enables manufacturers to globally source, sell, and service products more effectively by delivering the right 2D & 3D product graphics, in the right format, right now to customers, partners, and employees; all from accurate, up-to-date engineering data readily available in your CAD and PDM systems.

What business problem does Product Graphics Management solve?

PGM bridges the massive disconnect between engineering who must develop products and the rest of the extended enterprise who must source, sell and service these products.

PGM synchronizes product development and product communications through best-in-class graphics integration, automation, and management software that extends product development centric PLM implementations while integrating existing product communications tools and expertise. Further, PGM leverages existing graphics assets, applications, and infrastructure so you can achieve rapid returns through phased implementation.

Leading manufacturers are adopting PGM dramatically accelerate time to market, increase product and services revenues, and lower product communications costs.

How does PGM accelerate time to market?

Time to market includes both the time to develop the product itself, as well as the time to develop product communications such as RFQs, catalogs, collateral, manuals, courseware, IETMs, and more. Rather than waiting for the completion of prototypes, Right Hemisphere lets you start building your product communications during product design. Furthermore, by automating your 2D and 3D graphics processes, you can compress product communications development time.

How does PGM increase product and services revenues?

Rich 2D and 3D product graphics can differentiate both your products and services. When choosing between "similar" products, other factors such as the impact of marketing materials and the breadth of service offerings drive the ultimate purchase decision. In addition, Right Hemisphere lets you reduce your sales cycle through better sales training courseware, better marketing collateral and better product catalogs.

How does PGM lower product communications costs?

Effectively communicating product information is a key challenge for marketing, sales, service, training, technical publications, procurement, and others across your extended enterprise. Rather than recreating product graphics from scratch, Right Hemisphere lets these groups leverage your CAD assets to automatically produce the thousands of technical illustrations, photoreal images, 3D animations, and 3D virtual environments required to source, sell, and service your products. Further, as your products and configurations evolve, Right Hemisphere automates changes to impacted product graphics, saving you money across your entire product lifecycle.

What is so different about Product Graphics Management?

PGM is different in five ways that no other category of enterprise software can address.

First, PGM provides the product graphics for sourcing, sales, and service, not engineering. Unlike CAD, PDM, and ERP applications which supply CAD models for product development, Right Hemisphere's PGM software supplies the range of 2D and 3D product graphics (illustrations, photoreal images, animations and virtual environments) required to effectively communicate your products. Examples include:

• Sourcing communications such as product designs, product mockups, engineering change orders, requests for quote, manufacturing process sheets and more
• Sales communications such as catalogs, brochures, collateral, presentations, multimedia,
  and more
• Services communications such as operation and maintenance manuals, service bulletins,
  self-service guides, embedded diagnostics, CBTs, ILTs, IETMs, and more

Second, PGM provides multimedia graphics the way you want to use them. Unlike engineering visualization formats (JT, 3DXML, and e-drawings) that force your subject matter experts, graphic artists, courseware developers, technical writers, and others to use repurposed engineering tools, Right Hemisphere's PGM provides product graphics in over 120 CAD and graphics formats to support of all the leading multimedia authoring and publishing tools.

Third, PGM lets you use automation to replace manual processes. Unlike today's time and labor intensive manual processes that rely on people and point authoring tools alone, Right Hemisphere's PGM automates 2D and 3D product graphics processes to deliver a range of intermediate graphics, finished graphics, and even finished PDF documents all from accurate, up-to-date engineering data.

Fourth, PGM provides derivative product graphics on demand. Instead of involving the engineering department every time you need a new set of product graphics, Right Hemisphere’s PGM automatically generates and securely stores the 2D and 3D illustrations, photoreal images, 3D animations and virtual environments you need to communicate your products, whenever you need them across your extended enterprise.

Fifth, PGM lets you associatively update product graphics as products change. Eliminating the need to track down and manually change every downstream product graphic whenever your products or configurations evolve, Right Hemisphere PGM software automatically updates impacted product graphics across sourcing, sales and service.

Finally, PGM lets you unleash the combined power of 3D and PDF. Far beyond simply saving basic 3D models within PDF documents, Right Hemisphere's PGM, as the primary 3D technology provider to Adobe's Acrobat 3D & 1.25 billion Adobe Readers, uniquely generates a range of enterprise 3D PDF applications, templated forms, and interactive 3D document solutions that transform global sourcing, sales, and service business processes.

What are the primary advantages of Product Graphics Management?

PGM lets you globally source, sell and service products more effectively. With PGM you can:

• Improve product understanding and thereby improve business process execution
• Improve product-related collaboration across internal and external teams
• Eliminate errors as products evolve

PGM turns product communications into a competitive advantage. With PGM you can:

• Deliver more compelling products communications
• Eliminate product graphics as a bottleneck in new product introduction
• Reduce product communications costs

PGM improves return on existing assets. PGM lets you:

• Leverage CAD assets to supply extended enterprise demand for product graphics
• Leverage existing communications applications, content, and skills
• Automate manual processes to maximize staff productivity

How does PGM supply the Right 2D & 3D Product Graphic in the Right Format, Right Now?

PGM supplies global demand for diverse product graphics across sourcing, sales, and services (right graphic). Product graphics are used in a range of product communications including:

• Sourcing communications such as product designs, product mockups, engineering change orders, requests for quote, manufacturing process sheets and more
• Sales communications such as catalogs, brochures, collateral, presentations, multimedia, and more
• Services communications such as operation and maintenance manuals, service bulletins, self-service guides, embedded diagnostics, CBTs, ILTs, IETMs, and more

PGM imports and exports 120+ CAD modeling and graphics formats (right format). Formats include:

• CAD formats including Dassault Systems, Autodesk, PTC, UGS, STEP and more
• DCC formats including 3ds max, Lightwave 3D, Cinema 4D, Illustrator, Maya, Photoshop,
  XSI and more
• Graphics formats including BMP, SVG, CGM, GIF, TIFF and more

PGM delivers derivative graphics on demand or automatically (right now). This includes:

• Pull derivatives on demand via robust search and rapid authoring
• Push derivatives automatically via best practice product communication processes
• Associatively update derivatives as CAD models change

How does PGM synchronize Product Development and Product Communication?

PGM integrates product development and communications applications. PGM lets you:

• Source product data from existing CAD, PDM, and ERP applications
• Supply product graphics to leading ECM, DCC, and DEP applicationse
• Integrate with Adobe PDF, Acrobat 3D and Lifecycle Servers

PGM automates part to publication processes for 2D and 3D product graphics. Automation capabilities let you:

• Transform CAD models into lightweight product graphics automatically
• Author multiple intermediate and finished product graphics automatically
• Update product graphics automatically7/24

PGM manages product graphics throughout the extended enterprise. With PGM you can:

• Store 2D & 3D product graphics in unified repository
• Search repository with easy to use Google™ like interface
• Secure product graphics inside and outside the firewall

How does PGM achieve rapid returns through phased implementation?

PGM leverages existing assets, applications, and infrastructure. With PGM you can:

• Reuse CAD models, PDM attributes, and DCC content
• Integrate or replace existing point tools
• Install on open standards based architecture

PGM implements in weeks, not months. PGM process centric approach lets you:

• Apply best practice PGM processes
• Configure processes rapidly without customization
• Learn processes quickly

PGM expands usage with phased approach. PGM implementations are designed to let you:

• Start with highest return business processes
• Fund next phase with savings
• Compound your return

Who uses Product Graphics Management?

Far beyond engineering's use of product graphics for visualization and view/markup, PGM today addresses extended enterprise demand for product graphics including customers, partner, and employees. In particular, PGM provides the product-based 2D and 3D technical illustrations, photoreal images, and interactive scenes required by engineering, purchasing, technical publications, training, sales and marketing, service and support, and manufacturing departments, as well as outsourced services suppliers.

What is Right Hemisphere's role in Product Graphics Management?

Right Hemisphere is the leading enterprise software company providing PGM applications.

Five of the top six automotive OEMs, nine out the top ten aerospace and defense contractors, and hundreds more rapidly implement Right Hemisphere's PGM software to accelerate time to market, increase product and services revenue, and reduce product communications costs

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