The company’s DSI ecosystem brings to Siemens two key capabilities. The first is an e-commerce business where design engineers and part procurement specialists can search for parts to see a list of available options from various suppliers to build optimized BOMs and evaluate risk. Research firm, Aberdeen says up to 30% of overall engineering time is spent in just this phase of the development process, so any optimization of the process goes a long way. The Supplyframe DSI ecosystem will soon be tightly integrated with our Xpedition Enterprise and PADS Professional design environments, providing real-time component sourcing data from over 80 suppliers worldwide. This provides links to component supplier datasheets and alerts you in real-time of potential risks to part supply, so you can make any adjustments in your design if necessary and never again add an obsolete part to your design.

The second is a Software as a Service (SaaS) offering that greatly complements Siemens’ emerging presence in offering its PLM and PCB design software through SaaS. Supplyframe has one set of SaaS applications that are focused on the component manufacturers and component distributors helping them determine how to get better reach into their customer base and with configure price quoting (CPQ). Supplyframe also offers a set of SaaS applications focused on buy-side design engineers and component procurement specialists. Supplyframe offers SaaS applications for BOM optimization, so you can optimize what you are buying as well as better understand the sources of the components to minimize risk and boost resilience in your supply chain. This is of course especially important right now given the worldwide component shortage. These applications can help end-users not only understand where to source their components but also assess the risk associated with sourcing from a particular manufacturer or distributor. Supplyframe has applied AI algorithms to their SaaS offerings to try to help you figure out what alternative parts might be and how to optimize the cost of BOM.

The SaaS application fits in well with Siemens Digital Industries Software’s existing SaaS strategy in which we are extending the ecosystem beyond just PCB tools into providing our customers with all the information they need to make intelligent decisions as early in the design process as possible. One of the areas ripe with synergies is taking the supply chain information Supplyframe has and moving that information deeper into the design process itself. Now designers can make informed decisions about what components to use early in the design flow instead of discovering later that they can’t source the part or the part doesn’t meet the specs leading to redesign/rework and incur further expense and delays in schedules.