For the past few years, most of the simulation and analysis industry has been abuzz concerning multi-disciplinary (MD) simulations, and rightly so. MD analysis offers a far more realistic view of product performance than one-off simulations. But despite the increasing availability of MD simulation capabilities, it’s not all roses. In fact, there are some serious …
The Pitfalls of Multi-Disciplinary Simulations: Divergent Model Abstractions Read More »
I remember back when I came into the industry, back in 1995, CAD standardizations ruled. OEMs at the top of design chains carried huge power in selecting a CAD application and then requiring their suppliers to deliver 3D models to them in that format. OEMs that switched their standard from one CAD application to another …
CAD Standardization: Approaching An Obsolete Practice? Read More »
This series of four posts looks at the management of items, data and bills of material for mechatronic products. It is split into mechanical aspects, electrical aspect, software aspects and integrated aspects. Time flies, right? I started this series on Mechatronics Management back in April thinking it would be straightforward. But I have to admit …
Mechatronic Management (Part 4): Integrated System Engineering Aspects Read More »
A few weeks ago, I published a software review post titled Actify Centro and Microsoft SharePoint: The 3D Mashup. In it I looked at one of Actify’s new products and offered my perspective. A few days later, Oleg Shilovitsky published a post titled 3D Mashup – Reality Check where he laid out some of his …
Point Solutions, Integrated Solutions and the Granularity Value Proposition Read More »
This series of four posts looks at the management of items, data and bills of material for mechatronic products. It is split into mechanical aspects, electrical aspect, software aspects and integrated aspects. When you think about it, managing the software aspects of a mechatronic product is, at least in relative terms, one of the most …
Mechatronics Management (Part 3): Software Aspects Read More »
This series of four posts looks at the management of items, data and bills of material for mechatronic products. It is split into mechanical aspects, electrical aspects, software aspects and integrated aspects. In the minds of many, managing electrical aspects of products has, well, already be done. Meaning there have been approaches and technologies that …
Mechatronics Management (Part 2): Electrical Aspects Read More »
For the past three years, I’ve headed out to Phoenix AZ for the Congress on the Future of Engineering Software to talk with numerous providers and users of engineering software. The discussions are always pretty forward-looking, almost bleeding edge instead of leading edge. In the analyst briefing on System Modeling and Analysis, which was led by Allan Behren (who goes by the twitter handle @AllanBehrens), one of the engineering IT leader for For, Richard Riff, made a statement that made my ears perk up (the following is a paraphrase).
Seems there’s been a lot of buzz lately about what exactly PLM is. Jim Brown and I went back and forth in the comments of one of my posts. Jim also had a good post in response to one of my earlier posts. There was a good post on why you need PDM and PLM by SPK and associates. …
The last few years in CAD have been invigorating, haven’t they? Most recently, there’s been a scramble to get direct modeling functionality out in front of both CAD Specialists and many other roles to expand the use of 3D. And before that there was an ongoing effort by many to improve the usability of CAD software which mostly came in the form of where icons are at or how small dialog boxes can be.