Accenture to buy Umlaut, DI Square’s PLM/ALM capabilities to bolster Industry X

Global IT (information technology) consultancy major Accenture has announced its intent to acquire German engineering firm Umlaut and the consulting wing of Tokyo based product lifecycle management company DI Square to strengthen its Industry X services globally.

The terms of the acquisitions were not disclosed.

Aachen, Germany based Umlaut is expected to strengthen Accenture’s deep engineering capabilities in the areas of cloud, artificial intelligence and 5G while the consulting wing of Japanese firm DI Square will add expertise in PLM and application lifecycle management systems integration solutions to Accenture’s digital transformation wing -- industry X.

As part of the deal, 4,200 of Umlaut’s engineers across 17 countries will join Industry X. Some of the key verticals the team will be looking at include telecommunications, energy and utilities, automotive and aerospace and defence among others, according to a statement.

Umlaut’s offerings include smart connected products validation and testing, digital engineering services, strategy, process and organizational consulting and hardware/software development.

On the other hand, the DI Square deal will expand Accenture's engineering expertise in Japan and other regions. About 70 of the company’s PLM and ALM related employees will join Industry X.  

Some of DI Square’s solutions offerings that will now be available to Accenture includes 3D computer-aided design (CAD), computer-aided manufacturing (CAM), modular design and model-based systems engineering (MBSE). DI Square is also an implementation partner for PLM for Accenture’s existing Partner Dassault Systemes.

Accenture also said that it will establish an alliance with DI Square to streamline clients’ acquisition of hardware and software licenses related to PLM and ALM.

With Umlaut’s acquisition, Accenture has brought a total of 23 companies since 2017 to add capabilities to Industry X. Some of the recent Industry X related buys include Australian operations technology provider Electro 80, industrial robotics provider from Brazil Pollux, German technology consultancy SALT Solutions and US based operations consultancy Myrtle.

Read: Accenture is on an acquisition spree around the globe. Here’s why

According to a recent report by Accenture based on data gathered from 1,500 executives, only 38% of companies had deployed at least one project to digitize engineering in manufacturing.

Industry X is being expanded to meet the growing need of embedded intelligence for such companies with low to no digital manufacturing deployments.

“We are excited to bring our unique engineering and consulting culture, deep industry know-how and subject matter expertise to Accenture Industry X,” Peter Althoff, chief technology officer, Umlaut, said.