PTC today announced that Brazil-based Embraer, one of the world's largest aircraft manufacturers, has selected PTC's product lifecycle management (PLM) technology solutions to help bring new innovative aircraft to market faster, more efficiently, and with the highest levels of quality. With the switch to PTC from its legacy PLM provider, Embraer is proactively preparing for an expected increase in demand for new aircraft in the coming years.

"At Embraer, we have a proud tradition of innovation that has allowed us to satisfy the ever changing demands of the global aviation industry," said Mauro Kern, Embraer's executive vice president, Engineering and Technology. "This PLM program with PTC will bring the best technology to improve our ability to design, develop, and deliver innovative, safe, and efficient aircraft."

To capitalize on its market opportunity, Embraer sought to modernize its technology infrastructure and business processes. Doing so will improve management's confidence in meeting accelerated delivery schedules while maintaining Embraer's commitment to quality and safety. Central to its ability to achieve these goals is the choice of a new product lifecycle management backbone system that offers the broadest set of capabilities.

"PTC showed us a strong technical and commercial solution that matched our key ITC enterprise architecture – wide functionality and flexible parameterization to avoid customization, open and easy interfacing allowing integration into a heterogeneous environment, and a flexible licensing and support model with balanced intellectual property protection minimizing our total cost of ownership", said Alexandre Baulé, Embraer´s CIO.

After an exhaustive review of PLM technology providers, Embraer chose PTC as its partner of record for its entire global aircraft development program – commercial, executive and defense.

"The complexity of modern aircraft is increasing at a rapid pace – in terms of customer demand, component structure, and supplier networks," said Jim Heppelmann, president and CEO of PTC. "Addressing this complexity requires a modern, scalable system that can manage collaboration across a global development process. PTC has deep experience helping aircraft makers accelerate innovation and we are honored to have been chosen by an industry leader like Embraer to help them achieve their business objectives."

The selection also validates, and further extends, PTC's position as a leading PLM technology solution provider for the aerospace and defense (A&D) industry.

"According to our PLM market research, PTC is the market leader in providing collaborative Product Definition management (cPDm) software and services to the A&D market with their Windchill portfolio," said Peter Bilello, president of PLM strategic management consulting firm CIMdata. "And over the past several years, PTC has also experienced the fastest growth rate of any major solution provider in this market."

For PTC, which currently has customers, partners and facilities in Brazil and Mexico, this deal marks an important expansion of the company's business across Latin America.