ProSTEP Produktdatentechnologie GmbH, as the company was originally called, grew up with the topic of standards. It was founded as the operational arm of the ProSTEP Association with the aim of proving support to industry in the context of implementing the STEP standard. A major milestone was transformation of the limited liability company (GmbH) into a stock corporation (AG) in 2001. It set further professionalization of PROSTEP's commercial service offerings and expansion of the network of branch offices in motion.
PROSTEP is headquartered in Darmstadt and today has five offices in Germany and a subsidiary in Poland, which strengthens software development.
The founding of the US subsidiary PROSTEP, Inc. in Troy, Michigan, near Detroit, in 2006 marked the first milestone in the company's international expansion.
The group aims to further expand its international footprint in the coming years.
Acquisition of the Böblingen-based company BHC GmbH, which specializes in application lifecycle management (ALM) and product lifecycle management (PLM) consulting for mechatronic and software-driven products, was also a key milestone in PROSTEP's further development. It represents a strategic expansion of the group's comprehensive range of consulting services and solutions. Following the retirement of long-time CEO Bernd Pätzold last year, BHC's managing director, Philipp Hasenäcker, is now responsible for guiding the fortunes of the company together with his colleague on the management board, Karsten Theis.
"Always being at the forefront of new technologies and always ensuring that our customers are our top priority was and is the secret of our success," says Philipp Hasenäcker. "We maintain close contacts with all leading PLM vendors and pursue an intensive exchange of ideas with many research institutes. We also regularly participate in key innovation projects involving topics like the digital twin, digital thread, autonomous driving and sustainability."
The flagship solutions in PROSTEP's product portfolio are the world's leading PLM integration platform OpenPDM and the data exchange solution OpenDXM GlobalX, which has been established on the market for many years. In 2021, the two products were expanded to include the digital thread solution OpenCLM, which enables the cross-domain linking of data in different IT systems.
PROSTEP's OpenDESC.com team also help customers with data logistics from CAD conversion to data migration and quality assurance thorough to the transfer of data to the receiving systems.
An important mainstay alongside the solutions business are the PLM/ALM consulting services and custom software development services that we provide to major OEMs in the automotive and aviation industries and other sectors. We have been helping some of them with the ongoing further development of their PLM and ALM system landscapes for many years.
We also advise larger SMEs in particular in the context of defining their PLM/ALM strategies and help them implement these strategies, i.e. modernize their system landscapes.
The PROSTEP Group has grown steadily in recent years and now has a workforce of over 300 from more than 25 countries. As Karsten Theis points out, "Diversity and integration have always been the main pillars of our corporate culture. PROSTEP is synonymous with tolerance, freedom, equality and solidarity. Extremist ideologies have no place with us."
