PTC Introduces Pro/ENGINEER Manikin; New Solution Optimizes Human-Product Interactions

PTC® (Nasdaq: PMTC), The Product Development Company®, today announced the launch of Pro/ENGINEER® Manikin™, a 3D digital human modeling solution that enables design teams to add a digital human model to a CAD product model to simulate and communicate human-product interactions. Two new modules, Pro/ENGINEER Manikin Extension and Pro/ENGINEER Manikin Analysis Extension, provide ergonomic and human factors analysis capabilities for customers of Pro/ENGINEER, PTC’s parametric 3D CAD/CAM/CAE software and a key component of the PTC® Product Development System. By accelerating detailed design processes and reducing the need for expensive physical prototypes, Pro/ENGINEER Manikin helps customers create innovative, winning products with faster time-to-market, improved quality and reduced costs.

"PTC’s new manikin software is notable for its tight integration with Pro/ENGINEER. Pro/ENGINEER Manikin brings digital human visualization and simulation to the engineer’s desktop within the CAD user interface and without the need for the engineer to be a human factors expert,” said John MacKrell, senior analyst, CIMdata. "This is a very impressive first step for PTC for supporting a human-centric design approach. Pro/ENGINEER Manikin will enable customers to better optimize their products for the people who will use, manufacture and maintain them.”

Pro/ENGINEER Manikin, the industry’s first ISO standards-based solution, provides comprehensive, easy-to-use, capabilities to simulate and communicate human-product interactions for a global population. Highlights of Pro/ENGINEER Manikin Extension and Pro/ENGINEER Manikin Analysis Extension include:

Pro/ENGINEER Manikin Extension

• Quickly insert, customize, and manipulate accurate, standards-based 3D human models
• Create human reach envelopes and vision cones to understand what limitations may exist in a design
• Gain a first-person perspective of a product and "see” what the manikin can "see”
• Accelerate design by leveraging libraries of global populations and manikin postures

Pro/ENGINEER Manikin Analysis Extension

• Simulate, communicate and optimize manual handling tasks by validating them against published standards and guidelines
• Ensure conformance with health and safety guidelines and ergonomic standards. Includes standard algorithms for analyzing workplace tasks including lifting and lowering (NIOSH 81/91), pulling and pushing (Snook), energy expenditure (GARG), and posture (RULA)
• Analyze designs faster with simplified workflows to posture the manikin and reuse saved postures and analysis settings
• Leverage advanced reporting capabilities of analysis results earlier in the development process to deliver products designed and optimized for humans in less time

Additionally, beginning in December 2008, basic manikin capabilities that enable users to insert a pre-defined manikin into a CAD model and easily manipulate the posture to gain an understanding of how a human would fit or interact with a proposed design will be included in all Pro/ENGINEER packages at no additional charge for those customers on the latest maintenance release of Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire 4.0.

"The new capabilities introduced in Pro/ENGINEER Manikin will dramatically improve our ability to design innovative products for our customers. These same features are also applicable to considerations for improvements in the manufacture, assembly and service of our products. The vision cones, reach envelopes and other human factors analysis capabilities provide valuable insight earlier in the product design and development process,” states Patrick Hodgins, chief engineer, Callaway Cars. "The seamless integration with Pro/ENGINEER and ease of use will also help accelerate adoption of the product. These new modules will enable our company to reduce time-to-market and decrease physical prototyping costs.”

"Having the capability to perform human-product interactions early in the development cycle supports innovation and helps optimize the design process,” said Michael Campbell, senior vice president, product management, PTC. "Allowing design engineers to know how a customer will physically interact with a product during the design process enables them to design products that will be optimized for their target audience. This technology enables customers to create safer, more comfortable and more usable products, while at the same time reduce the typical, costs associated with prototyping. Pro/ENGINEER Manikin underscores PTC’s ongoing commitment to delivering superior technology and value to our customers.”

Pro/ENGINEER Manikin Product Availability

Pro/ENGINEER Manikin Extension, Pro/ENGINEER Manikin Analysis Extension and free, basic manikin capabilities available to all customers on the latest release of Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire 4.0 and later are expected to be available in December 2008 in English, French, German, Korean, Japanese, Spanish, Italian and Simplified and Traditional Chinese. For more information on Pro/ENGINEER Manikin products please visit the Pro/ENGINEER Manikin product launch page on PTC.com at www.ptc.com/products/proengineer/manikin

*The timing of any product release, including any features or functionality, is subject to change at PTC’s discretion.

About PTC

PTC (Nasdaq: PMTC) provides leading product lifecycle management (PLM), content management and dynamic publishing solutions to more than 50,000 companies worldwide. PTC customers include the world's most innovative companies in manufacturing, publishing, services, government and life sciences industries. PTC is included in the S&P Midcap 400 and Russell 2000 indices. For more information on PTC, please visit http://www.ptc.com.

Statements in this news release that are not historical facts, including statements about our confidence, strategies and expectations about the market acceptance of our products, are forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected. Those risks and uncertainties include: the success of efforts to develop and support the functionality at price points that satisfy our customers product development requirements; our initiatives facilitate our customer's understanding of the benefits of our product development system, including interoperability, quality, enhanced productivity, return on investment and value creation; the ability of PTC to develop the technologies necessary to deliver products and services that allow customers to implement a comprehensive product development system across a globally dispersed environment and which meet evolving customer requirements in multiple vertical industries; the success of PTC’s customer satisfaction initiatives in providing the foundation for long-term relationships and repeat business; our ability to effectively utilize our resources to undertake both internal development activities and strategic corporate development initiatives while maintaining recurring operations at satisfactory levels; the success of our partnering and distribution initiatives to cost effectively deliver our solutions; the possibility that our customers may not continue to spend at recent levels or may elect to defer or forego investment in our solutions in the current economic climate and the possibility that we will experience a shortfall in revenue that causes us to decrease or eliminate planned strategic investments in our business; as well as other risks and uncertainties detailed from time to time in reports filed by PTC with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the Company’s most recent reports on Form 10-K and 10-Q.

PTC and its logo, The Product Development Company, Pro/ENGINEER, Pro/ENGINEER MANIKIN and all PTC product names and logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of Parametric Technology Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and in other countries