What is Zel X?

Siemens just released a new product called Zel X on June 20, 2024. This doesn’t fit neatly into an existing category. In a nutshell, Zel X is a cloud-based, small business slice of PLM. You can use it from any web-accessing device. Licenses come with a certain amount of cloud storage space available. I’m not here to talk about price because I got a trial license pricing, which was stupid cheap. Even a real production license is going to be reasonable.

Both sides of all standard cloud arguments apply. The reason I can get excited about Zel X is because it is cloud from the ground up. The cloud apps I’ve poured a lot of derision on in the past were initially created as something else philosophically, and then shoved unceremoniously into the cloud, where very little about the original customer base fit.

Zel X is a collection of tools for product development and manufacturing that help smaller organizations work through the product design/development/manufacturing process from (inbound or outbound) quote to design to analysis to manufacture to order fulfillment. This collection of tools looks and works like a miniaturized PLM platform. As the “X” in the name implies, it exists in the cloud, so you don’t have to install and configure it. It doesn’t require hiring a high priced consultant for implementation and integration into your process.

Zel X takes many of the tools a big company uses such as NX, Teamcenter, CAM, Simulation, ERP, CRM, simulation and manufacturing, and then miniaturizes and integrates the whole bundle. So it delivers a stripped down NX. It delivers scaled down document and project management tools. You get the idea.

Zel X includes tools for the following functions:
CAD (2.5d CAM and sheet metal – built on NX, but it can take in data from any source NX or SE can read)
PDM (simple revisioning, where used, searches…)
CAM (2.5d model based path generator, essentially CAM Pro)
Viewer/Markup/Collaborator (essentially Xcelerator/Teamcenter Share)
Workflow (list projects, assign tasks or jobs with a given status level and due date to individuals)
Admin Console helps you perform necessary set-up and assign users

Although Zel X does have CAD and CAM within it, you should do anything other than simple edit work in a more complete tool. Zel X has the ability to move files from most major CAD systems in and out with relative ease.

You can kind of tell what kind of customers Siemens is hoping for with Zel X just due to the kind of CAD/CAM functions that ship with this first version. Sheet metal and 2.5D design tools as well as 2.5D milling operations are the focus. There is also good provision for purchased parts/hardware.

Cast or molded parts aren’t directly addressed by the provided tools, but the assumption is there that you can handle those and other specialized manufacturing processes using the processes within Zel X and external software such as Solid Edge.

There are a number of assumptions that Siemens really should lay out up front that will make Zel X an easier sell. Selling the concept to management will be one thing, but selling the details of how it works to the engineers doing the actual work is going to require another level of communication with customers altogether. Is this a tool for piece-part job shops, or is it a turnkey design and manufacture house? Or both? Or somewhere in between?

As I worked through a couple of simulated projects, I found a greater depth of function than I had expected. Adding notes, set lifecycle status, set thumbnail images, create and request quotations, were part of a level of detail I had not expected for something priced for this market.

There were also a couple of problems. I tried to change the name of a project a couple of times. Once the whole system crashed, and a couple of times, the old name came back after a few minutes, but I was eventually able to make it stick.

I realize what we’re seeing here is an early version of the tools. There is a “tour”of Zel X that is essentially 11 or 12 tool tips that point out high level functions and you can click through them in about 20 seconds. This is kind of a lazy effort and looks like about 15 minutes worth of work. It seems to me that they need to put a lot more thought into a “tour” of a new product where the concept still needs to be explained. Or maybe they just need another level of detail to get people through all of the little detail bits that make Zel X work. It’s not enough to see the high level functions a couple of times, you have to be able to find the detail functions. That part of it was maybe not as easy as it should be for a set of tools aimed at this demographic.

Another thing I would like to see would be a visual workflow – like a flow chart. If you want to simplify a process, make it visual. Zel X remains challenging to explain without a visual. Siemens is still early enough in the development of this tool that this kind of change can be made easily. The color coded project status comes close to a visual workflow, but doesn’t really do it.

Along with the visual workflow, I’d add some sort of calendar, or possibly even combine the workflow with the calendar. Even with a simplified slice of PLM Platform, the ease-of-use ideas are going to be the ones that make this click with users. Remember some of the users will be inside the design or manufacturing company, but some of the users will be outside the company, and not necessarily be people with a technological bent. So the software all has to be stupid simple. I just think of explaining hardware and software to my parents as a judge for where it has to work.

CAD software evolved over the years from high end enterprise tools to tools for individuals and smaller groups. Zel X is now extending that evolution to integrate the entire process, and put power back into the hands of individuals and small groups. It represents a realization that not just big organizations can use organized and integrated processes.

Alright, off the philosophical high horse, and back to complaining about new software….

Zel X claims to encapsulate the communication all in one place. But it really doesn’t. It uses your device email application quite a bit. I would like to see a totally internal communication system, whether it’s like a chat box, text/SMS messaging system or email or some combination, but totally internal. Searching for “who said what when” across platforms is a huge pain, and this is an opportunity to solve that problem.

Each project can be assigned a status with people responsible and due dates. It seems to me that an entire project may have different parts at a different status at the same time. But then that may depend on the size of the project. Is the entire project just painting a part, or is the project designing, building and assembling 100 parts, each of which might be at a different status by itself?

In a real PDM documentation manager, all of this is configurable, but with Zel X, it’s pretty much straight out of the box. That’s obviously both the beauty and the limitation of the system. How much imagination do you have? It might require some imagination to make Zel X fit your way of working, because Zel X isn’t really meant to conform to you.

In terms of “discoverability” and ease of use, it’s not immediately obvious how to just jump into the CAD or the CAM functions, but I did eventually figure it out. The CAD, CAM and Simulation are all in the same area. You start from the Project view that lists the parts, and then select the icon for “Prepare To Edit” (the black and white icon), and Zel X servers process the part. Then you can edit the part (green and yellow icon) which takes you to the CAD/CAM/Simulation area. Edits appear to be direct edit, which it seems are being called some form of AI driven design.

Not that this is complicated, but it takes more steps than it should just to be able to edit a part.

In the upper left of the CAD window is a toggle to move between Design, Machining or Simulation. The simulation was easy enough to figure out, although with absolutely no hints other than the interface, it took a few tries to get all of the things necessary to move forward with a simple analysis. On a cylindrical part, I had to go back to the CAD tools to draw some lines to use as vector directions.

It seems Zel X assumes we’re not designing turned parts, or turned parts require some additional software. Same with plastics or castings or powder metal or… anything other than 2.5D machining (stuff you can do with a Bridgeport).

For a non-machinist, the toolpaths were easy enough to understand. I was able to create simple setups and toolpaths for simple parts. Again, if you need to do something involved, you will probably want to use a more sophisticated tool, and probably have a more sophisticated user handy. Models can easily be exported, and the results reimported.

Summary

Does your process need some discipline? Do you want a centralized and organized way to communicate between suppliers and customers? Zel X brings the advantages of the huge PLM platform down to the mid-range user. Give it a look.