For a recent MCADCafé feature article, Razorleaf CEO Eric Doubell spoke with Sanjay Gangal, President of IBSystems, about Razorleaf’s role in the manufacturing world, the company’s new strategic partnerships, and the new survey that will guide Razorleaf and other manufacturing technology and services companies into the future.
Supporting the Digital Manufacturing Enterprise
The article describes Razorleaf as a pivotal player in the digital manufacturing arena, “driving the seamless integration of complex systems across the product lifecycle” to ensure businesses generate maximum value from their innovation processes. In the video, Eric explains that Razorleaf noticed that systems are significantly more powerful when the information in them is tied together and used to build out a digital thread—which ultimately helps enterprises make better decisions.
Razorleaf’s drive to fill gaps in the technology/services domain led the company to a discovery and a major project. Eric explains that many of the integration products the Razorleaf team worked with over the years “weren’t prepared for the kind of data that PLM manages. So we built our own platform to integrate PLM to other enterprise systems.” To further support businesses—especially small- and mid-sized companies—that may not be served well by more complex approaches to integration, Razorleaf’s new version of the CLOVER platform will be released later this year with a unique approach: requiring little to no services to integrate PLM with as many as 80 different major platforms.
Eric goes on to explain that this focus on making PLM integration more accessible is a key differentiator for Razorleaf. Two other factors are understanding the specific needs of PLM and MES data, because the company is purpose built for that space, and providing the means for customers themselves, with only a couple hours of training, to build integrations themselves. He says, “At the high end, we have the domain-specific knowledge, and at the smaller end of the market space, we have the ability to integrate to custom solutions.”
New Partnerships Expand Capabilities
As the MCADCafé article notes, two of Razorleaf’s recent partnerships, “notably with Tech Soft 3D and Fuuz, underscore its commitment to enhancing the digital transformation journeys of its clients.” Razorleaf’s new agreement with Tech Soft 3D, a leader in software SDKs (software development toolkits), makes Razorleaf a preferred integration service provider for Tech Soft 3D’s HOOPS suite and “exemplifies how Razorleaf continues to drive innovation by bridging the gap between disparate systems, ensuring that the digital thread remains unbroken throughout the manufacturing process.” The partnership, Eric says, will allow Razorleaf to use Tech Soft’s viewing technology “so people can view native documents in a technical data package that we deliver to them, without having to have the underlying tools.”
The article notes that the partnership with Fuuz, known for its next-generation MES platform, “allows Razorleaf to deliver implementation services that enable manufacturers to adopt advanced MES capabilities, ensuring that their production data is fully integrated into broader digital transformation efforts.” What some vendors call the golden triangle, Eric says, “it’s PLM, ERP, and MES solutions, and MES is the least evolved. We think this allows us to go in and work with the customer we’ve got to complete that triangle so they have all of the information they need for their digital thread, to complete virtual twins.”
A Survey for the Future
When asked about the results of a forthcoming industry survey, Eric explains that Razorleaf has undertaken another periodic survey of industry analysts on the current state of digital integrations. “What we’ve tried to do with this survey and one a few years ago,” he says, “was assess where the problems are, where customers are having problems with integration, so as we continue to build out our solution, we can build it out where there’s a need.” When Razorleaf teams go out and talk about what the CLOVER solution can do, these results will help them highlight the gaps that customers have trouble filling.
Eric also mentions his belief that as the digital manufacturing space continues to evolve, we’ll start to see more specialized integration solutions that are designed more around the specific kind of data that’s being worked with. “As companies like us continue to do what we’re doing, you’re going to see more out-of-the-box integrations, less services, things that are easy to maintain,” he explains. “I think we’re going to see a big push in that direction, and people who don’t support that are not going to survive in the space.”
Find Out More
The article and accompanying video interview offer more details about Razorleaf’s future plans, new partnerships, and ideas about the role of AI in integrations. Read and watch them on the MCADCafé site, and contact Razorleaf for more details about the upcoming release of the CLOVER platform.
