Technology Insights

I’ll never forget the first time I went to go see a real engineer work. During the summer between my sophomore and junior years in college, I worked for a technology transfer program at school. Our job was to visit various local manufacturers and assist them with their designs by applying the latest technology, which …

The Forlorn Engineering Notebook Read More »

For quite some time, I’ve been mildly horrified at little time engineers actually get to engineer products. There are a billion and one distractions, all very real distractions, but ones that could be avoided. The folks at Cadalyst reached out to be to see if I’d be willing to write an article that talked to …

Let Your Engineers Engineer Read More »

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).