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Product lifecycle management software maker Aras Corp. on Thursday announced the release of Project Innovator, a new module for the Innovator Application Suite.
Project Innovator brings with it new functionality for managing design and development projects across a products lifecycle, using a phases and gates management methodology. That methodology is based on the definition of project stages and the milestones necessary for the completion of one stage and the start of the next, Aras officials said.
What Project Innovator does is enable users to define standard stages and milestones in a template format. Multiple formats can defined. At the same time, because Innovator is part of the overall suite, project milestones can be defined either as independent deliverables or as work objects within any of the other Innovator modules.
Additional features include a Management Dashboard that enables reviews of a projects status through a color-coded interface that measure progress against time, budget and specification requirements. Likewise, any Innovator business item – design specifications, CAD files, bills of material – can be linked to a milestone and deliverable.
Innovator works as a stand-alone application or in conjunction with other project related software like Microsoft Project.
Peter Schroer, CEO and founder of Aras, in Lawrence, Mass., said that in todays cost conscious environment managers want a pragmatic approach to project tracking that does not become a full time job. Innovator does not require constant updating to maintain current information as it rolls up the actual status of deliverables to provide a summary view of milestones, said Schroer in a press release.