PTC and Schaeffler announce new strategic alliance to accelerate digital transformation roadmap

PTC (NASDAQ: PTC) and Schaeffler have announced a new alliance that will see the global automotive and industrial supplier standardise PTC solutions to deploy an integrated, end-to-end IT landscape.

Schaeffler, which has UK bases in Birmingham, Hereford and Sheffield, will also inform the internet of things specialist in its efforts to further develop and evolve market-specific standard solutions to better meet the needs of automotive and industrial companies.

The agreement will build on the successful twenty-year relationship based on the use of CAD and PLM technology. These tools are essential for the introduction and further development of Schaeffler’s initiatives for digital twins and for visualisation of 3D models, potentially used in augmented reality projects.

“The alliance with PTC is yet another milestone in our digitisation strategy within Roadmap 2025,” says Uwe Wagner, Chief Technology Officer at Schaeffler AG.

End-to-end data models, 3D data, and digital twins are already elementary components of our research and development process. The increasing complexity requires consistent IT solutions in all development areas for more innovation, agility, and efficiency. To achieve these, it is crucial for us to work with strong partners like PTC.

Schaeffler plans to leverage PTC’s experience and robust end-to-end solutions to move from a customised engineering IT environment to using standard applications across the enterprise. This will enable prompt responses to rapidly changing requirements in a dynamic, competitive environment.

The partnership will focus on the optimisation of the existing environment, as well as its expansion with projects, such as Schaeffler’s Enterprise Traceability or Model-Based Enterprise and the deeper integration of software development tools.

The goal is company-wide integration of the software and system development solutions (Application Lifecycle Management and Model-Based Systems Engineering), which will also enable improvement in the mapping of critical systems engineering requirements, including the fulfilment of varying country-specific safety regulations.

Jim Heppelmann, President and CEO of PTC, concluded: “Through our work with Schaeffler, we aim to advance and further develop market-specific digital transformation solutions. Both companies will benefit from more robust collaboration.”