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Time of India
12-07-2025
- Automotive
- Time of India
How PLM is powering the auto industry's circularity push
Imagine this: A brand-new vehicle design is nearing completion. The team is holding its breath, brimming with anticipation to unveil the creation to leadership. Suddenly, a prompt from the Product Lifecycle Management ( PLM ) system pops up - a circularity compliance check has flagged gaps. The celebration halts, and the design is pushed back into revision. This might not have been a typical scenario in the past, but not anymore. PLM has evolved. It's no longer a siloed, engineering-centric tool, nor are teams confined to working in isolated digital environments. Today, PLM systems are collaborative, intelligent, and deeply integrated across functions - from design and sourcing to sustainability and compliance. And in the automotive sector, which is among the largest consumers of raw materials and also a significant contributor to waste, the role of PLM has never been more critical. The industry is now expected to not just respond to sustainability goals but to lead them. Circularity has become a foundational principle, shaping decisions right from the concept stage, embedded within every process, and ensured at every lifecycle checkpoint. 'Our aim should be zero waste to landfill,' asserts Rajendra Petkar , President and CTO, Tata Motors , speaking at the ETAutoTech Summit 2025 held recently in Bengaluru. He emphasized that 'circular economy is no longer a distinct goal but an urgent necessity,' underlining automotive industry's growing responsibility in leading the shift towards sustainable practices. India's circular opportunity India is emerging as a global automotive giant with over 30 crore vehicles running on India roads, estimated 28 million vehicles coming every year. 'The industry has attracted foreign direct investment (FDI) of over $36 billion between 2000 and 2024 with major global players either expanding their footprint in India or have a significant plan,' shares Petkar , adding that it is the time to take a strong call of execution of the circularity ambition into action. Petkar sees this as an inflection point, 'It is time to execute the circularity ambition. India is already the largest producer of two- and three-wheelers and a major player in tractors and commercial vehicles. Engineering and innovation must now translate national mandates on scrappage and waste management into action.' Indicating that the regime for scrappage of vehicles is still evolving and at a nascent stage in India, Petkar emphasises that engineering circularity must begin with design and material selection. At the end of a vehicle's life (ELV), the recyclability of its components depends on whether original material properties and part relationships have been preserved. 'Leveraging modular product design, reuse-friendly components, easy dismantling, and sorting at ELV stations, choosing renewable over the natural materials, and avoiding use of toxic materials, and harmful materials like lead and asbestos are key enablers,' he explains. 'We need to build a holistic approach that is broad-based across areas of technologies for waste management, upstream material selection and product development processes. These should be engagement equations of stakeholders for profitable business growth. Organisations need to have a design manual or a PLM kind of IT system that will actually prompt the designers to check whether principles of circularity have been deployed as part of a new design.' Building intelligent circular systems Prof. Deepu Philip , Professor at Department of Management Sciences (DoMS), IIT Kanpur , reinforces the importance of intelligent PLM systems. 'By embedding circularity into PLM systems, the automotive sector can significantly reduce material waste, improve supply chain resilience, build intelligent products, minimize concept-to-market time, and meet increasingly stringent environmental regulations. This leadership will also encourage other industries like semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, industrial goods, etc., to follow, making PLM a key enabler of global sustainability goals.' Traditionally, PLM managed a product from concept through design, manufacturing, and end-of-life. However, in a circular economy, PLM must also support material traceability, responsible sourcing, and the reuse, recycling, and recovery of materials across multiple product lifecycles. 'Today, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) are increasingly approaching product development with recyclability and reusability in mind from the early concept phase no longer as an afterthought. This shift is driven by sustainability goals, regulatory requirements, and growing consumer awareness,' says Vivek Salvi , Senior Sales Director, Customer Process Experience, Dassault Systèmes India. Adds, Kunal Kulkarni , Vertical Practice Director – Digital, Tata Technologies, 'PLM has developed from serving as a 'single source of truth' to supporting the creation of circular and environmentally conscious products. As customer preferences shift towards products with reduced environmental impact, automotive OEMs are investing in technologies that facilitate recycling and reuse of components, which can lessen the demand for entirely new parts within the supply chain.' Salvi highlights the value of virtual twins - real-time digital representations of products that enhances cross-functional collaboration, allows teams to simulate and analyse the product's performance, material flow, and environmental impact before physical production begins. 'This not only reduces waste and cost but also supports smarter decisions related to design for durability, repairability, and end-of-life recovery.' The regulatory pulse Around the world, regulatory and policy frameworks are evolving to drive circularity practices. From the EU's ELV Directive to state-level mandates and the strengthening of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) rules, governments are sending strong signals. India has responded with the National Vehicle Scrappage Policy, EPR mandates across six material categories, and Automotive Industry Standard (AIS) 129, which provides guidance for the safe dismantling and recycling of ELVs with a focus on environmental protection. However, execution remains uneven. The ecosystem for ELV recycling is still nascent in India. There is limited awareness, a lack of well-distributed scrapping infrastructure, and inconsistent enforcement. The result is unregulated scrapping, low recycling efficiency, and massive untapped potential in recovering valuable materials. 'Increasing vehicle recycling rate, investment in organised scrapping facilities and execution of various policy initiatives is paramount,' says Petkar. A Circular Renaissance 'Over the next decade, linear models will give way to circular innovations,' says Gilroy Mathew , Senior Vice President & Global Head – Engineering Services, UST. 'Vehicles will re-enter the value chain—tracked, optimised, and reborn. This isn't just evolution. It's a renaissance in how we design, produce, and recirculate mobility.' Today, modern vehicles are a combination of composites, polymers, metals and fluids that are chosen as per their performance and functionality based on strength, weight, cost and safety. 'While many materials are recyclable, others pose challenges that requires industry-academia and innovation labs collaboration to improve recoverability and recyclability across various material types,' says Petkar. Petkar outlines four levels of circularity – L1, L2, L3, and L4. While L1 is about extending the useful life of products through reuse, repair, and maintenance, and it encourages designing products for durability, modularity and easy repair; L2 is about repurposing and remanufacturing wherein repurposing means using a product or material for a different function, or application, than originally intended, and remanufacturing is a process of restoring used products or components to give them a new life kind of a condition. L3 is of recycle and recover that highlights closing of material loops recycling waste into the raw materials. It aims to transform waste streams into valuable inputs for new production cycle, reducing landfill, and resource depletion. L4 is highest in the framework aimed at minimising resource consumption and waste generation from its outset. 'This is about doing more with less, but it should not change the leaner nature of production and consumption,' he exclaims. The Future of PLM Automotive OEMs are developing technical solutions by integrating multiple systems and refining new product introduction (NPI) quality processes to assess environmental impacts and work towards sustainability objectives. These efforts aim to help automotive companies retain competitiveness and deliver products aligned with future sustainability expectations. 'Key parameters in PLM applications that support sustainability include integration of material standards within product design software, enabling designers to select alternative materials that align with carbon reduction targets while meeting cost requirements, connecting digital manufacturing processes to enable 'what-if' analyses and carry out cradle-to-grave lifecycle assessments, and ongoing improvement in design by integrating data from mechanical, electronics, software, and simulation sources with circularity objectives,' says Kulkarni. 'The future of PLM lies in becoming an enterprise-wide, intelligent data platform that not only accelerates innovation but embeds sustainability into every product decision. The automotive industry, with its scale and global influence, is poised to lead the circularity movement by leveraging PLM to manage materials, processes, and partners with sustainability and reuse at the core' exclaims Salvi.
Yahoo
27-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
PTC Unveils Arena SCI for Resilient Product Development
PTC Inc. PTC recently introduced a transformative advancement for its Arena PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) and QMS (Quality Management System) solutions — the Arena Supply Chain Intelligence (SCI) offering. The state-of-the-art solution embeds AI-driven component risk monitoring directly into the Arena PLM/QMS environment, enabling real-time visibility and smarter sourcing decisions from the earliest stages of product continuously monitoring electronic components across bills of materials, Arena SCI identifies risks stemming from evolving supply conditions. When a risk is detected, the system flags it and suggests technically compatible alternative parts, empowering teams to make adjustments before issues escalate. These capabilities bolster the way product development teams handle component risks across the entire product lifecycle, seamlessly integrating with their existing PLM SCI is powered by Accuris, a leading source of electronic component data. Accuris ensures that users access the most comprehensive and up-to-date risk and parts information available. This level of detail gives engineers and professionals visibility into their component portfolios, enabling them to make decisions that balance performance, cost and like Universal Audio, which specialize in professional audio hardware, are already reaping the benefits of Arena SCI. This reflects a broader industry trend in which development teams are under pressure to innovate quickly, even as parts become harder to source and supply chains grow more unpredictable. SCI is part of PTC's broader commitment to transforming the product development landscape through cloud-native solutions. Arena's integration with Onshape, PTC's cloud-native computer-aided design (CAD) and product data management (PDM) platform, has already laid the foundation for seamless cross-functional collaboration. With Arena SCI, PTC now offers the industry's first cloud-native CAD-PDM-PLM-Supply Chain solution, minimizing the usual challenges, expenses and custom coding required to link design and development the company introduced model-based definition (MBD) capabilities within its Onshape platform—a fully cloud-native CAD and PDM solution. This initiative marks the first MBD offering of its kind in a cloud-native environment, designed to streamline product development by embedding product manufacturing information (PMI) directly into 3D models. Since being acquired by PTC, Arena has accelerated its product roadmap with more than 16 major product releases, expansion into new global markets and collaboration with dozens of new ecosystem partners. It is trusted by nearly 1,500 global manufacturers, including Nutanix, Insulet, and Enphase Energy. With Arena SCI, PTC is solidifying its position as a digital transformation leader empowering customers to navigate complex, multi-tiered supply chains with global supply chains continue to evolve, tools like Arena SCI not only mitigate risk but also seize opportunity in a competitive, fast-moving PTC's frequent acquisitions have heightened its integration risks and negatively impacted its balance sheet. As of March 31, 2025, goodwill and acquired intangible assets totaled about $4.3 billion—roughly 70% of its total assets—highlighting the financial strain from acquisitions. These deals have also increased PTC's debt load, raising its overall risk exposure. At the end of the period, the company held $235 million in cash and cash equivalents, while total debt (net of deferred issuance costs) was $1.39 billion. PTC's debt-to-capital ratio is 0.29, notably higher than the industry average of 0.19, signaling elevated financial risk. This underscores the need for PTC to consistently generate sufficient cash flows to cover its debt obligations. PTC currently carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). Shares of the company have declined 6.6% in the past year against the Zacks Computer-Software industry's growth of 13.8%. Image Source: Zacks Investment Research Some other top-ranked stocks from the broader technology space are Juniper Networks, Inc. JNPR, Arista Networks, Inc. ANET and Ubiquiti Inc. UI. JNPR presently sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), while ANET and UI carry a Zacks Rank #2. You can see the complete list of today's Zacks #1 Rank stocks here. Juniper is leveraging the 400-gig cycle to capture hyperscale switching opportunities inside the data center. The company is set to capitalize on the increasing demand for data center virtualization, cloud computing and mobile traffic packet/optical convergence. Juniper also introduced new features within the AI-driven enterprise portfolio that enable customers to simplify the rollout of their campus wired and wireless networks while bringing greater insight to network operators. In the last reported quarter, it delivered an earnings surprise of 4.88%.Arista delivered a trailing four-quarter average earnings surprise of 11.82% and has a long-term growth expectation of 14.81%. Arista currently serves five verticals, namely cloud titans (customers that deploy more than 1 million servers, cloud specialty providers, service providers, financial services and the rest of the enterprise. It supplies products to a prestigious set of customers, including Fortune 500 global companies in markets such as cloud titans, enterprises, financials and specialty cloud service effective management of its strong global network of more than 100 distributors and master resellers improved its visibility for future demand and inventory management techniques. In the last reported quarter, Ubiquiti delivered an earnings surprise of 33.3%. Its highly flexible global business model remains well-suited to adapt to the changing market dynamics to overcome challenges while maximizing growth. Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Juniper Networks, Inc. (JNPR) : Free Stock Analysis Report Arista Networks, Inc. (ANET) : Free Stock Analysis Report PTC Inc. (PTC) : Free Stock Analysis Report Ubiquiti Inc. (UI) : Free Stock Analysis Report This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research ( Zacks Investment Research
Economic Times
19-06-2025
- Automotive
- Economic Times
Tata Technologies shares rise 2% after Volvo Cars picks firm as strategic engineering supplier
Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Stock performance and technical Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Q4 snapshot Shares of Tata Technologies climbed as much as 2% on Thursday to Rs 746.10 on the BSE after the company announced it had been selected as a strategic supplier by Swedish carmaker Volvo Cars, a move seen as deepening the engineering services firm's presence in the global automotive a press release dated June 19, Tata Technologies said the collaboration will span core areas including product engineering, vehicle system and component engineering, embedded software, and Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) company said the services will be delivered from key hubs in Sweden, India, Romania, and Poland. 'We are delighted by the trust that Volvo Cars has shown in our capabilities by providing newer opportunities to collaborate and scale our relationship,' said Warren Harris, CEO and MD of Tata Technologies. 'It demonstrates our commitment to delivering top-tier solutions in automotive software and digital engineering to customers worldwide.'Volvo Cars, known for its presence in automotive safety and sustainable mobility, is pushing forward on its electrification and software-defined vehicle ambitions. The partnership, Tata Technologies said, 'enhances Volvo Cars' global engineering capacity, tapping into Tata Technologies' deep domain expertise, scalable delivery models, and proven excellence in automotive transformation.' Tata Technologies shares remain down 6.3% over the past week and have lost about 2% in the last month. The stock has declined 28.5% over the past year, though it has risen 13.55% in the last three a technical standpoint, the stock is currently trading below six of its eight key simple moving averages, including the 5-day, 10-day, 20-day, 30-day, 150-day, and 200-day SMAs. It remains above its 50-day and 100-day Relative Strength Index (RSI) stands at 44.2, suggesting the stock is neither overbought nor oversold. Meanwhile, the Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD) is at 7.5, staying above its center line but below the signal Technologies posted a 20% year-on-year increase in consolidated net profit for the March quarter at Rs 189 crore, compared with Rs 157 crore in the same period last year. However, quarterly revenue declined 1.2% to Rs 1,286 crore from Rs 1,301 crore in the year-ago a sequential basis, the company reported a 12% rise in profit from Rs 169 crore in Q3FY25, even as topline dropped 2.4% from Rs 1,317 crore in the preceding quarter. Quarterly expenses were tightly managed, falling to Rs 1,088 crore from Rs 1,119 crore in Q3 and Rs 1,094 crore a year ago, helping support the bottom board also approved a final dividend of Rs 8.35 per share and a one-time special dividend of Rs 3.35, taking the total payout to Rs 11.70 per share for FY25.: Recommendations, suggestions, views and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of the Economic Times)
