Chapter 1: What is EKM?

Engineering Knowledge Manager

User's Guide |

Using This Guide |  | 1.1. Data Management and the EKM Repository
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## Chapter 1: What is EKM?

When a company is spread across multiple sites, engineering tools that enable knowledge and processes to be easily captured, analyzed, shared, reused, and archived can bring a significant advantage. As enterprise requirements become more complex and the amount of product, process, and resource information generated for a CAE project grows, enterprises that are positioned to capture, manage, and reuse their intellectual property will have a distinct advantage.

ANSYS EKM is a software system that enables you to manage the data and processes created through design, simulation, and analysis activities. It facilitates the reuse of information and the capture of engineering knowledge and best practices, which can help reduce your organization's development and training costs and make better use of resources. These savings can ultimately reduce a product's time-to-market.

EKM is tightly integrated with ANSYS simulation products, including ANSYS Workbench, Mechanical APDL, Fluent, CFX, Polyflow, Maxwell, HFSS, Simplorer, and Ansoft Designer, and can also be integrated with some third-party simulation products.

## What You Can Do with EKM

EKM features can be grouped into three categories: Data Management, Process Management, and Access Management. A basic overview of features is provided in Figure 1.1: ANSYS EKM Features. Together these features facilitate collaboration and productivity in a distributed, multi-user environment.

You can use EKM to:

- Store files in a central location. Create a custom repository that users can access from anywhere.

- Manage access to files. Set up secure access to the repository and control permissions on individual files and folders.

- Search and retrieve files. Search by keyword or by specific object properties to retrieve files of interest. Save search queries for quick relaunch at any time.

- Analyze and compare data. Automatically extract key data from files upon upload, and view an auto-generated Simulation Details Report. Create Comparison Reports that compare the properties of two or more objects. Assemble project-related files such as plots, files, images, and reports into a Report Book that can be downloaded in XML, HTML, Excel, Word, and PDF formats and used for presentation purposes.

- Track work. Define object lifecycles and control stage advancement through signoff processes. Set up version control and use processes to document the actions performed and decisions made during a simulation process to fulfill audit/regulatory requirements.

- Perform remote simulations. Run jobs in batch or interactive mode. Create job submission templates for quick job setup.

- Manage jobs. View a job’s status, inputs and outputs, and job submission details. View detailed transcripts and reports.

Figure 1.1: ANSYS EKM Features

## How EKM Works

The EKM server application can be installed and set up in a variety of ways, depending on your business needs. An EKM server can be partitioned into any number of workspaces. Each workspace can be assigned to a different set of users. When you sign into EKM, you sign into a specific workspace on the EKM server, and can switch to another workspace in the same session if needed.

You can access an EKM server with the EKM web client (which opens by connecting via a supported web browser) and ANSYS Workbench.

EKM has an advanced web-based repository that enables sharing of simulation documents and data based on user credentials. It serves as a collaboration platform to enable distributed workgroups to work on the same project. Extraction and report generation capabilities enable team members to display, interpret, and analyze data efficiently.

EKM enables you to significantly enhance its standard features through simple, yet powerful, configuration changes. Configuration features enable you to create custom applications and process templates that describe your business process; these can be then managed and monitored from within EKM.

From EKM you can:

- Create new custom data types or extend existing built-in types.

- Define lifecycles and apply them to objects in an EKM repository.

- Define external applications that can be launched by EKM either on the EKM server or on a job submission system.

Figure 1.1: ANSYS EKM Features shows some of the main features of EKM. The full features of the product are introduced in the following sections:

- Data Management and the EKM Repository
- Process Management
- EKM Architecture
- EKM Customization
- Contacting Technical Support

Contains proprietary and confidential information of ANSYS, Inc. and its subsidiaries and affiliates.

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