D-Cubed 2D DCM and 3D DCM to be Used along with Parasolid in New Offering from Major Supplier of CAE Software for Architectural and Civil Engineering

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It’s a busy time of year but I wanted to take a few minutes to talk about some recent news and events. Here is a podcast Dora and I just recorded. In it, I discuss some recent news, customer insights, academic engagement and the outlook for 2012.

Chat With Chuck Podcast

Some highlights:

One of the things I emphasize in the podcast about the Vistagy acquisition is their domain expertise in carbon fiber. They have really set a standard for composite design. I am particularly intrigued at how the software takes very complex engineering processes and embeds the rules and techniques so engineers can stay focused on topics at hand – not the details behind the scenes in the technology.

Hopefully you’ve heard about our partnership with Local Motors and the subscription approach with Solid Edge Design1 for their community. Local Motors’ approach to crowd source engineering designs is very innovative. We’re excited to see the response to cloud-based technology.

As I note in the podcast, we’ve made some recent investments in our academic program. We recently had an event in Russia with 150 professors from more than 80 universities. All around the world, our customers need more engineers and need them to come out of academia with practical software skills. We’ve put a priority on engaging with universities to help graduate more engineers with the best practical skill set for our customers. Stay tuned for more on this in 2012.

As we head into a new year, I’m pleased to see the value of PLM is still a high priority with our customers even in the current economy. I look forward to the year ahead and wish all of you a very Happy New Year.

Chuck

See how you can use the model clipping plane in Femap to aid model visualization and comprehension.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Alastair

News about Siemens PLM Software.

News about Siemens PLM Software.

Even with the advancement of automation technology, manual operations will always play a significant role in bringing product to market.  In fact, ergonomics will likely play an even greater role as the level of human to machine interaction becomes more pervasive in the manufacturing environment. 

The latest release of our human simulation product, Jack 7.1, promotes smarter decisions, faster and for a wider variety of scenarios than ever before.

From new anthropometric databases to enhancements for seated postures and disembodied hands, Jack 7.1 increases the speed and accuracy of your ergonomic analysis.

Take a look at how Jack delivers enhanced posture prediction for seated activities, how disembodied hands increase the speed and accuracy of analyzing reach into tight spaces and how we’ve streamlined measurement and object placement with enhancements to our measurement tool in this short video:

Click here to view the embedded video.

With this release of Jack, we’re bringing some critical enhancements to our user community that increases the speed and accuracy of completing ergonomics studies while supporting a greater number of workplace scenarios.

Learn more by visiting our Jack and Process Simulate Human website.

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This is a guest post from my colleague Zvika Weissman, Marketing Manager for Tecnomatix based in Israel.

With the support of the Volvo PLM project team, and the Siemens PLM Sweden team, I have recently written a case study about how Volvo is using our digital manufacturing tools.  In order to write this case study, I took the opportunity to visit Volvo in Gothenburg Sweden, and found an impressive digital manufacturing deployment, and a company seeking to maximize their investment in digital manufacturing.

It is a cold city Gothenburg, with a main street that leads to a famous Poseidon statue.   Cold as it is, it seems that the people live in this country, have a very high drive of innovation, which brought to the world brands like Volvo, Saab, IKEA, SKF, H&M and other brands.

Volvo is currently busy with establishing a new production operation in China, and is going to launch its first car to be manufactured in China by 2013.  So, Volvo engineers from Sweden are investing a lot of effort in transferring manufacturing engineering knowledge and best practices manufacturing and process planning methodologies to their colleagues in China.  Indeed, when I was onsite, some of the engineers were visiting China.  An interesting aspect of this effort is the big focus that Volvo puts on establishing the environment of our digital manufacturing tools in China, so that the manufacturing engineers in China will work in similar methodologies to their colleagues in Europe.

Volvo has a clear vision of removing the typical barriers between its product design & manufacturing engineering groups, by using Teamcenter.  The deployment level of Teamcenter in the manufacturing planning area evolves across time.  It is currently deployed in the Final Assembly area, such that the production lines are planned with Teamcenter Manufacturing Process Planner, where in each assembly station, the assembly operations are defined in detail, sequenced, and linked to the specific parts that are assembled in this station, and to the required tools.  The Volvo Process Simulate users state that due to the strength and user friendliness of the Tecnomatix tools, the company’s BiW & FA Robotics Simulation department cur­rently delivers more output, and simulates more produc­tion concepts, yet compared to its prior method, requires fewer people to do so.

Walking on the shop floor, I closed a personal loop.  A few years ago, working in a business development function and providing back-office support to our local Swedish consulting team, I developed a small customized solution for Volvo, which extracts the data out of our manufacturing database, into a pre-defined PowerPoint format.  Now, while visiting Volvo, during my shop floor tour, I found many self-explanatory and visualized hardcopy work instructions, which were hung on many production station facilities.  I noted to myself that Volvo has reached a very advanced level of work instructions for the shop floor employees.  It was only when I got back home that I realized that I actually provided to Volvo this small customization…

… And yes, I wish I could own a Volvo car one day … really GREAT products they manufacture in the cold city of Gothenburg.

View the Volvo Cars case study here.

See how you can create high resolution screen shot images for reports in Femap using the Preferences Views dialog.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Alastair

This is a guest post from my colleague Abhijit Dastidar, Marketing Manager for Tecnomatix.

I know you all are familiar with Microsoft Kinect and how its full body tracking system allows you to use your gestures and voice commands to play video games. Kinect gives you freedom from clumsy controllers and remotes.

But did you know that in June of this year Microsoft released Kinect for Windows SDK so that developers can build natural user interfaces (NUI) for their Windows applications? This allowed developers, researchers and enthusiasts to use the Kinect’s unique interface in ways we could have only imagined before. You can check some of these example applications here.

At Siemens PLM Software we are looking for innovative ways to bring the NUI capabilities of Microsoft’s Kinect to Jack. Jack is our human simulation solution that allows manufacturers to design safe, efficient and comfortable workplace environments.

Check this video and see how Microsoft Kinect and Jack could make the process of designing and optimizing manual workplace environments fast, easy and a bit more fun.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Dataquest Magazine Names Siemens PLM Software as the #1 PLM Vendor in India for 2010-2011

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Siemens PLM Software to Provide In-Kind Software Grants with a Combined Value of $476.1 Million to the 15 Universities across North America Participating in EcoCAR 2

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In our last post about the SEMA show and Local Motors, Mark Burhop alluded that Local Motors will be providing tools to the community to help the members working in areas of design, engineering and fabrication. It’s here and it’s called Solid Edge Design1. (Read the Press Release)

What is Solid Edge Design1?

According to the new website for Local Motors called the Forge, Solid Edge Design1 is “a professional-grade mechanical CAD program that has been created specifically for the Local Motors’ open design community. This ground breaking software makes use of Siemens PLM Software’s industry-leading synchronous technology for easy modeling of high-precision 3D models and is built upon the same technologies used heavily in the automotive industry. Before Design1, community members would have had to invest thousands of dollars for this type of functionality. Now it’s going to be available in a special version of Solid Edge at an incredible $19.95/month starting 1/1/2012.”

For all the folks that know Solid Edge well, Design 1 was created to address the core needs of the Local Motors design and engineering enthusiast. It works only in synchronous as it is easier to pick up and use.  Synchronous is also very good at working with CAD files from other vendors and we’ve also included key translators for this.  Functionality that Local Motors felt was less needed and would only increase the cost was removed from Design1. For example, there is no drafting, FEA, or advanced Assembly modeling.

For a limited time, members of the community can request one of the limited invites to try Solid Edge Design1 here. Beginning in Jan 2012, all members can obtain a monthly subscription.

We caught up with Isaac Oson, a former community member and now full time employee of Local Motors as their community liason. Isaac had been using ordered CAD for six years and now believes in the power of synchronous technology. Here’s what he had to say about Solid Edge Design1.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Earlier this week at the Local Motors open house, Siemens was on hand to demo Solid Edge Design1. Kurt Pennington, Application Engineer for Siemens PLM arrived about 3 pm, was handed a SolidWorks model of the well-known Rally Fighter. Within minutes he coverted the model to Solid Edge and used Design1 to manipulate the data. This is exactly what members of the community will be able to in the future for their designs. Most major CAD formats will be converted into the standard formats,   the Solid Edge format, and JT. Since all CAD formats will be accepted and downloadable from the Local Motors website in their native format, having this unique ability to convert files will become beneficial for the enthusiast.

The Rally Fighter shown here was a SolidWorks assembly imported in to Solid Edge Design1 for editing parts using synchronous technology

Browser-based, 3D viewing experience

Having said all that, this is not about Design1.  Its about the collaborative design and engineering experience at Local Motors.  Siemens PLM also worked very hard to create a new web based JT viewer.  For those of you that don’t know, JT is one of those ISO standards for lightweight 3D used heavily in the automative industry.  What this means is that community members can now view 3D designs with PMI and dimensions, take measurements, section, or even control what is displayed in an assembly right from there browser.

Why is this important?  Because Local Motors knows that for each creator, there are 10 more contributors willing to provide comments and help with the design. And for each contributor, there are 10 more people just wanting to see what is going on.  The web based JT viewer may be the coolest thing and it is free to use inside the Local Motors community!

Siemens PLM Software's Solid Edge, New Offering will be Available through Local Motors to Its Global Design Community for $19.95 per Month

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Returning to the subject of safety for structures such as cranes, bridges and buildings (see my previous Designing for Safety blog), one of our partners Femto Engineering has created a program to help verify structures in accordance with required building and safety standards. The program is called SDC Verifier – SDC standing for Structural Design Codes – and it’s been built on top of our own Femap pre- and postprocessor CAE software using the API (Application Programming Interface). This is another great example of one of our partners adding value by enhancing the functionality of our simulation products through the API.

SDC Verifier in Femap

 

SDC Verifier

Working with Femap, SDC Verifier helps to build a complete set of load cases that the structure is likely to have to endure. These loads are used in the calculation of many different structural checks in accordance with design standards, after which SDC Verifier creates a full and detailed calculation report of the findings.

SDC Verifier

With the extensive structural checking that SDC Verifier performs, the likelihood of an accident through design oversight becomes greatly reduced, making the world a safer place. If you wish to find out more about this, go to Femto Engineering’s SDC Verifier web site.

Alastair

Following is Marks last post from the NX CAE Symposium

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After lunch on Day 2, we all returned to our seats for the afternoon presentation line-up.  Randy Huber of Caterpillar gave the attendees a spirited mini-history of Caterpillar’s products, elaborate with its various acquisitions over the years.  He went on to illustrate Caterpillar’s long legacy, and continued heavy dependence on CAE methodologies for swift, robust product development.  My favorite of the numerous examples shared, was the animated result from motion analysis of a wheel loader in action [Pictured below].

 

 The remainder of the afternoon featured numerous insightful presentations from key members of Siemens PLM’s CAE Center of Excellence, and CAE Product Management organizations.  Speakers included including Doug Wenk, Paul Caito, Rick Licursi, and May Taylor.

Late in the afternoon, after all the scheduled presentations had been delivered, and as organizers prepared to wrap up the event, in walked a surprise guest…..Joe Gibbs!

We were all absolutely thrilled to see the pro football hall-of-famer take to the stage to address us and even entertain a few questions.  I found Joe instantly likeable, his charisma and warmth filling the room in milliseconds.  He spoke anecdotally, drawing from both his professional wisdom, and personal life in equal amounts – punctuated frequently with humorous remarks that had the room erupting in laughter.   I came away with the following interpretation of Joe’s philosophy – do what you enjoy, do it with passion, and it’s okay to try something different – just take that passion with you.

See you next year,

Mark

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News about Siemens PLM Software.

News about Siemens PLM Software.

Following is another report from Mark, at the NX CAE Symposium

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After the day’s presentations, attendees of the 2011 NX CAE Symposium were invited to participate in a tour of JGR’s facilities.  Mark Bringle of JGR led the tour, educating and amusing us all with fabulous NASCAR race car build facts.  Being an engine enthusiast, I was intrigued by the 800+ horsepower capable V8 engines that are at the heart of these racing machines.  This remarkable output culminates from 5.8 liters of displaced volume, 12:1 compression, highly restriction-optimized induction and exhaust ducting, and the use of 100% ethanol fuel (E100).

 

It was eye-opening to learn of the highly structured program employed for pit crew member recruitment and training.  These crucial members of the race team are often former professional athletes, and undergo grueling development routines comprised of weight training, video analysis, and repetitive pit stop practice runs.  Mark elaborated that tire changers typically have a limited-time pit career, succumbing eventually to back trouble due to the awkward body maneuvering required by the job.

After the day’s formal agenda, attendees were treated to an evening of food and beverage, and go-kart racing!  The top eleven racers from the various events were then given the opportunity to compete in a final race – with an Apple iPad as the grand prize.

[Eleven finalists pictured below]

Mark