Altium Concord Pro

2019: Submission of the cloud applicaion for management of electronic components

On November 12, 2019 the Altium company submitted the cloud applicaion for management of electronic components which play a major role during the developing and production of the printed circuit boards which are a basis of modern smart devices. Timely to meet market demand for such devices, it is necessary to create and reuse data on components in design process of printed circuit boards, such as conditional graphic symbols, seats and 3D models. Most of developers of printed circuit boards created and stored data on components in local file systems, than in the general, the managed and administered library. Some tried to use the general spreadsheets or own databases. These outdated approaches led to repeated cycles of repeated works of design because of redundant, inexact or outdated data about components which often are found out when projects are already sent to producers, noted in Altium.

According to the developer, Altium Concord Pro helps to provide designers, purchasers and technologists of the organization with access to the same data set about the applied components. At the same time installation process, settings, uses and administrations of managed libraries of components is extremely simple and clear. Concord Pro also provides reliability of storage and relevance of information on components. It is possible thanks to the integrated connection to information on the supply chain provided by the Octopart system.

"Data on electronic components are in the center of different interactions where design and development, supply chains and production intertwine. Concord Pro is the application which is used by power of cloud computing to simplify data exchange about components, and allows developers to be sure that the printed circuit board will be made, collected and delivered just in time", 'Leigh Gawne, the main software architect of Altium noted'

According to the statement of the developer, users can quickly try and use Concord Pro in a cloud included in Altium 365 — a cloud platform for joint design and sale of electronics. For November, 2019 Concord Pro is also available in local corporate environment, through Altium Designer 19 and through the forthcoming Altium Designer 20.

Possibilities of Altium Concord Pro mentioned by the developer:

• The uniform general library of managed data about components — one platform in which it is possible to look for, use and support data on components including to create requests for the new / updated models of components and also to distribute data access on the basis of roles of users.
• The description of components on the basis of templates — the unified method of determination and creation of data on components.
• Data on a supply chain in real time or initial data are a direct transmission of data on suppliers from Octopart, including information on existence, delivery dates, sources, the prices, alternatives and replacements.
• Control of applicability of components — maintaining history or "the control magazine" to have information on where (and in what projects) a certain version of a component was used.
• Instant connection — installation and setup of the server at connection to cloud infrastructure of Altium 365 is not required.
• Bidirectional interaction with Solidworks, Inventor and PTC Creo. Project teams of MCAD and ECAD can interact for determination of a form of a payment, component placement and mounting holes by means of intellectual communication of ECAD-and MCAD systems at the level of 3D models.