Search and Discover Solutions (“SDS”) can save product development teams endless hours by finding existing parts. That saves them from redesigning and the proliferation of sku’s that follow.
However, without structured product data, an SDS falls short of its promised results. Noetic-Data is a newly formed company that is solely focused on structuring product data to meet the needs of product development.
Noetic-Data offers both 1) a tool for designing a standard data structure and 2) services for populating the data structure, thus allowing individual companies to select the unique combination most suitable for its data cleansing needs.
The tool uses semantic processing to analyze existing unstructured product definitions and turn those into structured data that can surface search results quickly. It enables organizations to design a classification, or taxonomy, which is the basis of structured data. The tool is cloud-based (Amazon Web Services) and claims a high level of security in a collaborative environment. It is designed to eliminate Excel spreadsheets and other flat file formats.
As a service, Noetic-Data offers three main activities:
1) Classification workshops – to develop the “rules” for the classification structure and common terminology so that clients have a standard convention for detailed data development
2) Data development and maintenance – extracting from internal documentation, specifications, requirements, drawings, CAD models, supplier websites, etc.
3) Data delivery and publishing – makes the results available in the format needed for PLM, ERP or enterprise search systems
Pricing is based on a tiered scheme that takes into account the condition of the current classification/attribute definitions. The first tier recognizes using a company’s current product data while Tier II accounts for attributes from unstructured files, such as specification or a drawing images. The top tier includes attributes values that are not readily available and must be researched, interpreted, and entered. These attribute values are usually retrieved from suppliers or other websites.
My Take on Where Neotic-Data fits in the Search and Discover Marketplace
Although the company has personnel who are experienced in data cleansing, it is still a new entrant in the SDS market. Accordingly, Neotic-Data confronts the challenge of establishing credibility. The company needs prospects to recognize its capabilities and viability – and quickly, as without short-term success, there’s no long term.
Neotic-Data will need to build a full range of proof points for prospective customers to help them understand the value of their tool. These will include product demos at the initial generic level and more thorough tailored demos for specific applications. They will need trials and Proofs of Concept. After all, committing to an SDS solution is about so much more than the cost of the solution. There is extensive commitment of internal resources and time. The entire notion of an SDS has to be sold before a company can commit to a data-cleansing initiative to improve the results from their current CAE/PLM systems.
For more information, see Noetic-Data.