Author Archives: raykurland

SolidWorks founders start new company

November 1, 2012 By in 3D Design, CAD, New Technologies, Uncategorized Tags: , , , 11 Comments

11/01/12: You heard it first here! Earlier today I received a call from John McEleney, the former CEO of SolidWorks. John explained that he and five of the original founders of SolidWorks started a new company that will explore and develop solutions for the product development space. He shared with me that this includes: Jon Hirschtick, Dave Corcoran, Scott Harris, and Tommy Li.

Hirschtick, Harris, and Li were among the original founders of SoldWorks. McEleney joined a few years later. Corcoran led product development, while Harris was a key architect. In the early years, I was most impressed with the way the entire team was focused on a single perspective and all pulled together to accomplish their common goal. Since then I have seen many a company flounder, not because their product was flawed, but because the team was unable to work cohesively together.

McEleney further explained that the company has just been initiated today. They are obviously, in the super early stages of development. John would not discuss their products. He said they are still exploring many alternatives.

He went on to say that he was contacting many of the people in the CAD and product development space who will be able to promote the fact that their company was beginning its development. People like myself.

With a team like this, I don’t doubt that they can be successful. Hmmm, but what will they turn out? Keep tuned for further information.

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iPhone 5, not yet for me

September 19, 2012 By in Computer Industry, Personal interests Tags: , , 1 Comment

An avid fan of Apple products, I am holding off on upgrading my 4S.

While many of the features seem nice, especially the faster network downloads, there are only minor feature upgrades for the most part.

I am about halfway through the Steve Jobs biography written by Walter Isaacson. [By the way, it’s an excellent read.] I wonder whether Jobs would have continued to allow the introduction of each with so few real advances, Where is the innovation?

Nevertheless, Apple announced that they sold 2 million phones on the first day! Using an average selling price of $600 each, that’s $1.2 billion USD! Perhaps not a bad business decision. No wonder the computer manufacturers are hurting. Each smartphone drains the need for traditional laptops and their siblings.
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Steve Bodnar leaves Autodesk for Kenesto

September 18, 2012 By in Executive Migration, Manufacturing industry, PLM Industry Tags: , , 1 Comment

Stephen Bodnar joins Kenesto as Vice President, Products and Marketing

—See ‘My Take’ below—

WALTHAM, MA–(Marketwire – Sep 18, 2012) – Kenesto Corp., provider of cloud-based Social Process Management solutions today announced that Stephen Bodnar has joined the company as Vice President of Products and Marketing.

“We are very pleased to have Stephen join our team. As the demand for cloud-based business solutions continues to grow, Kenesto’s Social Process Management solution is gaining increased market traction,” said Kenesto’s CEO Michael Payne. “We are excited to begin a significant growth phase under Stephen’s marketing and products leadership.”

“I am extremely excited by the opportunity to join the Kenesto team,” said Mr. Bodnar. “Companies in industries such as manufacturing, architecture, engineering, and others are increasingly looking to leverage cloud, social, and mobile technologies to improve productivity. By automating day-to-day business processes such as managing Change Orders, managing Engineering Change Requests (ECR), and communicating bid proposals, Kenesto enables our customers to increase agility, responsiveness, and productivity across the value chain.”

Mr. Bodnar comes to Kenesto with a 24-year career in B2B technology development and marketing. Prior to joining Kenesto, he served as the Vice President of Product Data Management (PDM) and Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) at Autodesk, Inc., where he led the growth of Autodesk’s Vault PDM business by 15x over four years. Most recently, Mr. Bodnar oversaw the launch of Autodesk into the discrete PLM market with the introduction of the cloud-native PLM 360 solution.

Mr. Bodnar began his career serving Chrysler Corporation in its Engineering and CAD/CAM/CAE groups. After eight years with Chrysler, Mr. Bodnar joined Control Data System’s Manufacturing/PDM division where he served as a sales engineer, product architect, and product manager for Control Data’s PDM solutions: EDL and Metaphase.

Mr. Bodnar later helped create Auxilium, Inc., a software company that pioneered the creation of composite web applications which connected to a variety of back-end systems, including most established ERP and mainframe solutions. After Auxilium’s acquisition by Parametric Technology Corporation (PTC), Mr. Bodnar joined PTC as Director of Product Marketing for the Windchill solutions group. Mr. Bodnar later re-joined the Metaphase team after it had been acquired by Structural Dynamics Research Corporation (SDRC) as the Vice President of SDRC’s Collaborative Solutions Group. After SDRC’s acquisition by Electronic Data Systems, Mr. Bodnar joined MSC Software Corporation, a leading provider of structural, thermal and multi-body dynamics engineering analysis solutions, where he served as Vice President of Marketing and Product Management.

To learn more about Kenesto, download An Introduction to Kenesto at http://www.kenesto.com/intro.

About Kenesto
Kenesto (www.kenesto.com) is a cloud-based Social Process Management tool which empowers people and teams to automate business processes across the value chain. By automating day-to-day business processes such as issuing Requests for Quotes (RFQ), managing Engineering Change Requests (ECR), and generating quotes & bid proposals, Kenesto enables manufacturing, architectural, engineering, and construction companies to expedite responsiveness to customers, increase productivity of internal resources, and better manage supply chain partners.

Contact:
Stephen Bodnar
steve@kenesto.com

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My take:

I know that Kenesto has been looking to fill this slot for some time. While I have not yet spoken to Bodnar, it seems that the turmoil at Autodesk and the attraction of a startup run by Mike Payne were enough to convince him.

Bodnar’s role at Kenesto should enable Kenesto to reach the next level of success.

Readers might also want to read our previous blog on Kenesto.
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BUFFALO MiniStation Leads Thunderbolt Storage Sales

September 18, 2012 By in Computer Industry, New Technologies, Workstations Tags: , , Leave a comment

NPD Reporting Recognizes BUFFALO MiniStation Thunderbolt as Most Purchased Thunderbolt Storage Product
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My take: Thunderbolt provides a super fast external connection – a speedy 10GBS. Similar to how USB devices connect, Thunderbolt has the added capability for daisy chaining devices and is ideal for graphics displays and external drives. Gone are the clunky fat cables needed for displays and no more waiting for external drives to spew their data through skinny pipes. Originally offered on the latest Apple computers, it’s now becoming more available. For a long time devices supporting this were not common and very pricey. Buffalo’s drives now offer this capability at modest prices. Hmm, I wonder about device reliability.
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AUSTIN, Texas, Sept. 18, 2012 /PRNewswire/ — Buffalo Technology, a global leader in the design, development and manufacturing of wired and wireless networking and network and direct attached storage solutions, today announced impressive sales results for its new portable Thunderbolt™ storage solution in the first full month of sales. In August 2012, the MiniStation™ Thunderbolt Portable Hard Drive outsold all other Thunderbolt technology enabled desktop and portable storage devices in the U.S. retail channel, according to the monthly hard drive tracking service from the NPD Group.

The MiniStation Thunderbolt, announced in mid-June 2012, is the world’s first portable Thunderbolt and USB 3.0 dual-interface external hard drive. Featuring the revolutionary Thunderbolt technology for unparalleled transfer speeds and a USB 3.0 port for universal connectivity, the MiniStation Thunderbolt offers easy plug-and-play storage, ideal for Mac® and PC users seeking the fastest interface speeds available while preserving compatibility with existing USB devices, including USB 2.0. Since its launch, the MiniStation Thunderbolt has received high praise from industry publications and end-users alike, citing great performance, high quality materials and ultimate device compatibility with its appealing dual-interface design.

“In its second month, after only one full month of sales, the MiniStation Thunderbolt has superseded the competition, placing Buffalo at the pinnacle of the fast-growing Thunderbolt storage market,” said Matthew Dargis, vice president of North American sales at Buffalo Technology. “The successful launch of MiniStation Thunderbolt demonstrates Buffalo’s continued ability and desire to innovate world-first technology, and the market has ardently responded to this innovation.”

The MiniStation Thunderbolt is a complete portable Thunderbolt storage solution, uniquely supplied with all cables and components, including a Thunderbolt cable, most often sold separately from other Thunderbolt storage solutions. Simply plug the device in to any available Thunderbolt or USB port on your Mac or PC and securely store files to take on the road.

Delivering maximum interface speeds and universal connectivity, the MiniStation Thunderbolt Portable Hard Drive is the first to couple the ubiquitous 5 Gbps SuperSpeed USB technology for legacy support with the lightning fast 10 Gbps Thunderbolt technology. This dynamic combination and ample storage capacities make it perfect for those who manage large files such as creative professionals and multimedia enthusiasts.

Pricing and Availability
Buffalo’s MiniStation Thunderbolt, available now for $179.99 for the 500 GB (HD-PA500TU3) and $229.99 for the 1 TB (HD-PA1.0TU3), is backed by a limited three-year warranty that includes toll-free 24/7 technical support. Buffalo products can be purchased through distributors, online resellers and Buffalo’s website. For more information about Buffalo Technology and its products, please visit the company’s website at http://www.buffalotech.com.

About Buffalo Technology
Buffalo Technology (USA), Inc., based in Austin, Texas, is a leading provider of award-winning networking, storage, and multimedia solutions for the home and small business environments as well as for system builders and integrators. With almost three decades of networking and computer peripheral experience, Buffalo has proven its commitment to delivering innovative, best-of-breed solutions that have put the company at the forefront of infrastructure technology. For more information about Buffalo Technology and its products, please visit http://www.buffalotech.com.

Buffalo, Inc. trademark statements. Buffalo is a trademark of Buffalo, Inc. All other trademarks mentioned herein are the property of their respective owners.

SOURCE Buffalo Technology

CONTACT: Lori Zielinski, Nereus for Buffalo Technology, +1.503.459.9150, lzielinski@nereus-worldwide.com

Web Site: http://www.buffalotech.com

More confusion from Versata on think3

August 17, 2012 By in 3D Design, CAD, PLM Industry Tags: , , Leave a comment

I was just going through some of my old email, trying to cull out the old ones. I came across one from Austin Scee of Versata from early this year and wanted to see if anything was new. I found out that Scee is out as the former GM and a new GM (Shannon Willems) is managing what’s left of the acquisition, which ain’t much. The links on the think3.versata.com site don’t work and there seems no way to get info on the products.

I had the chance to speak with Willems earlier today, hoping that I could get some additional info on their plans and how the relationship with the Italian think3 organization is being resolved. Alas, I learned little that was new. To Willems’s credit he stated that “he and Versata were excited about the think3 software and that they were investing substantial resources in the product.” I repeatedly pressed Willems for more information about what substantial was, but could not get any details, other than that they had development firms in Boston, Russia and Italy working on the product.

If you go to think3.com it leads you to a page with lots of complex court filings, with no reference to Versata or their website. No real surprise here since Versata did not acquire think3, just the intellectual property (IP)- the think3 software. One look at the Versata website at think3.versata.com leads me to believe that Versata is putting as little resource into the acquisition as possible. Clicking on the products page reveals not one link to another page for more info. What could be more revealing about their intent?

Versata think3 product page has NO links

Willems indicated that there is still revenue being derived from maintenance from existing customers. The US courts seem have decided that Versata owns the worldwide IP for the products. But, the Bologna, Italy courts seem to have made a similar decision for the Italian company. Customers can get the software from either company except where local legal decisions have been made supporting Versata’s claim, notably Japan and Dubai. Even then policing installations seems virtually impossible.

My conclusion is that Versata continues to provide minimal support and virtually no product enhancements for think3. The legal machinations continue to be fought around the world, apparently aimed at Versata preventing the Italian organization from gaining revenue.

On the other hand, the Italian site appears operational and moving ahead.

In addition, there were many LinkedIn contacts showing think3 as their active company, mostly from India and Italy.

My first choice as a customer would be to abandon this mess and go with other well-supported software. Lacking that choice, I would choose to do business with the think3 provider that is most open about the product and its future.

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Dell announces new Precision Mobile workstations

July 24, 2012 By in 3D Design, CAD, New Technologies Tags: , , , , 1 Comment

24 July 2012: I was pre-briefed last Friday about Dell’s new mobile workstations. Today I am in the Shenandoah National Park in Virginia writing this blog, taking time from all this natural beauty to keep you informed about the latest technology.

Today Dell is announcing the newest entries into its Precision line of workstations – the M4700 and the M6700 mobile workstations.

While these are hardly your ordinary laptops, weighing in at about 8 pounds, they offer a high degree of portability and an awesome display of computing power, incredible graphics options, high speed memory up to 16 GB or 32 GB depending on memory speed, disk capacities of up to 3.2 terabytes, and all this with a 10 hour battery life. Nevertheless, it’s better than lugging a desktop workstation and an external display to your next meeting. This is truly a machine that I would be comfortable to use as both my desktop workstation AND and mobile workstation.

They are not cheap. Starting prices range from $1649 for the Dell Precision M4700, to $2199 for the M6700, and $3579 for the M6700 Covet. Fully decked out I could easily imagine them coming in at 100% to 150% above their base price.

Why the covet name I asked? Mano Gialusis, Dell’s Sr. Product Manager, replied that after seeing the Gorilla Glass and edge to edge display, all users will covet it!

Last year TechniCom had the opportunity to benchmark software using the M6600 and that delivered excellent performance on Autodesk Inventor and SolidWorks. While Dell was not able provide any specifics on the performance of the latest workstations, I estimate that the M6700 with the extreme I7 processor and the higher performance graphics cards should deliver from 2X to 5X the overall performance on compute intensive operations. The overall performance that users will see, naturally will depend on the specific applications being run.

A bit about the graphics options. The AMD card is new and these workstations are the first to have it. The specs are available on the Dell website. This card offers HD3D stereoscopic viewing. NVIDIA offers three cards, offering their Quadro GPU technology, 3D vision and power conservation techniques. See more details at http://www.dell.com/precision .

Dell was not able to use Intel Xeon processors because they are too big and power hungry for mobile workstations. Instead the Intel Core i7-Extreme Edition Processor provides outstanding features, such as: four 3.33 GHz cores for better multitasking and multithreaded performance, 8 MB of smart cache, an Integrated memory controller delivering high memory bandwidth, and a new Quick Path Interconnect for fast data transfer between the processor and chipset.

Conclusions:
I am very impressed with Dell’s attention to the high end engineering and graphics markets. The previous announcement a few months ago of their desk-side systems show that they understand these market needs by offering well balanced compute speeds, amazing graphics, monstrous expandability, serviceability, and reliability. These mobile workstations expand on those offerings.

These babies are hot! If you need high end, portable workstations that are truly super-computers, there is no better way to go.

http://www.dell.com/precision

Disclosure: I received no compensation for this review. All opinions are mine.
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Stereoscopic 3D – it works!

July 20, 2012 By in 3D Design, New Technologies Tags: , , , Leave a comment

I noticed that Randall Newton, in his Graphic Speak newsletter of 16 July 2012, commented on the Dimension 3 conference in Paris that focuses on digital 3D. He stated that “not all is well in 3D Land, reports Kathleen Maher; total revenue from 3D movies is dropping, despite blockbusters that do well. 3D in the home is still an expensive novelty, with few choices for consumers.” http://gfxspeak.com

I want to give you some feedback on my own experience with 3D TV and how it changed my perception.

On a recent trip to visit my son, it turns out he had a room added to his house and was in need of a new HDTV. He asked me to help him make a selection. Being somewhat of an electronics geek, I happily agreed, particularly since he was paying.

Off we went to Costco to browse their selection of LED TV’s. One that instantly struck our eyes was a new 3D LED HDTV by Samsung, a 55 inch TV from their new ES Series. While this was almost $400 more than we expected to spend, after looking at it and the rest of the offerings, my grandson lobbied hard for this TV. Even without seeing 3D on this set it blew away anything else in the store. He coupled this with a 3D blu-ray player by Samsung. My contribution was to buy a 3D movie (John Conner 2012) so we could test it out at home.

The hookups were easy, so after about half an hour of moving everything around and connecting all the wires, we turned it on and were literally blown away by the 3D experience! Lightweight active glasses seemed to avoid headaches I typically have gotten from passive glasses.

The picture was crisp and with amazing 3D. I didn’t quite flinch when things appeared to come out of the screen, but came close a few times. I had seen the movie before in 2D and was amazed by the difference. More lifelike. More compelling. Great images.

My conclusion: the next TV I buy will be one with 3D. I wonder why all CAD vendors don’t fully support 3D? We have 3D input devices. We have 3D printers. Yet, few vendors offer 3D display software for graphics design. Why?

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Cloud PLM Systems ease collaboration

July 19, 2012 By in Manufacturing industry, New Technologies, PLM Industry Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment

While there have been several articles negatively discussing using cloud software for CAD, users should be aware that for the PLM aspects of collaboration a cloud based system is by far the best way to go. Okay, there are a few cons to using a cloud system for access, such as concerns over security and potential downtime over which users have no control. Security may be a major concern for government projects requiring super high levels of secure data requirements. For 98% of users this should not be a concern. That does not mean that you should blithely ignore what security your chosen cloud vendor provides – by all means make sure that your concerns are met. But today’s security and encryption seem more than adequate for most users, providing that it is properly executed and monitored. You might even want to consult with independent security experts prior to committing to a solution.

Nevertheless, there are a quite a few benefits that far exceed the other alternative — that of maintaining an internal server capability.

First I need to make an assumption that a typical user installation has the following situation:

  • More than one engineering facility at which design is done
  • Multiple suppliers that need some type of restricted access to the design data

 

Assuming this is the case (and I’ll bet that more than 80% of users fit in this category), then here are only a few advantages cloud based PLM software accrues:

  • Little or no IT required for installation, setup, updates to the software, or backups.
  • A single copy of the database that does NOT require synchronization among multiple servers.
  • Easy management by database administrators
  • Lower software costs??
  • No personnel and space costs for servers or multiple servers
  • Ready internet access via various speed connections worldwide
  • No special costs for high speed telecomm connections

 

I can think of only two PLM systems that are completely architected for cloud operations: Arena Solutions and Autodesk 360.

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Assessing the state of Product Development

July 14, 2012 By in Manufacturing industry, New Technologies, PLM Industry, Uncategorized Tags: , , , 1 Comment

After spending many years working with the CAD/CAM/PLM vendors I am now turning my attention to users of the software.

In my experience with users from many industry specialties, which includes many in-depth conversations and a few handfuls of on-site consulting assignments, users are not taking full advantage of the software and related process tools to re-engineer their environments.

Introducing new tools into a flawed product development process is only a band-aid. Without re-thinking the entire process the latest and greatest software will only result in a nominal ROI.

Instead of thinking about the miniscule advantage of moving from 2D design to 3D design, or the introduction of the latest PLM system, users should instead focus on the overall business benefits that might best cause them to produce better, more timely, higher quality products that can beat the pants off their competitors.

Believe it or not, just a few nights ago I was explaining to my wife, during a long drive home from dinner, about what a difference better design makes. And she actually listened. I guess I was really charged up!

One subject that always fascinates me is how truly innovative products are developed and how often competitors cannot react to substantive changes. She and I both use iPhones, so she immediately connected with the product. Not only that, but she said she loved her iPhone. Never heard that about her Samsung 10 key phone. After reading earlier that day about the current travails of RIM, the maker of the Blackberry phones I explained how RIM and Nokia seem to once have led the mobile phone industry and now both are deeply troubled, and may had difficulty surviving. And all this only in the last few years. Both companies seemed to have missed the point that the iPhone is not really a mobile phone, but a computer that can also make phone calls. The technology and innovation embodied in this product made huge leaps over the then existing mobile phone technologies. And their large competitors failed to recognize it. Then they failed to react to it. What was it in their product development process that was flawed: management, engineering, competitive analysis, business planning???

Do you have similar flaws in your process? Should you be asking whether or not you do?

Lately I have been exploring the idea of developing techniques for how to assess this in user companies. I am becoming more and more convinced that by carefully examining the key processes in product development and comparing them to best in class techniques used by successful organizations that this can be accomplished, and at a reasonable cost.

I’ll explain more about my thinking in future articles. I would love to hear from you about what you think. Reply to this blog and let the rest of us know.

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Developing manufacturing BOMs with BOMControl

June 8, 2012 By in Manufacturing industry, PLM Industry Tags: , , , , Leave a comment

8 June 2012: We all know that the engineering (design) BOM is not usable for manufacturing. It’s not robust enough for manufacturing. It contains much of what manufacturing needs, but not enough. Here are some things needed for manufacturing to have a usable BOM:

  • Non-design elements such as paint, labels,
  • Manufacturing instruction
  • Manufacturing assemblies
  • Test and quality procedures
  • Detailed information on purchased parts
  • Variants for different zones of manufacturing
  • And so on . . .

If this is the case, then one might ask how does one use a design BOM to build an MBOM? Several alternatives come to mind. Rather than giving a dissertation on the subject, I spoke with Steve Chalgren, VP of Product Management & Strategy of Arena Solutions. The company, one of the earliest cloud based providers, provides only a cloud based solution. In fact, the company was at one time called BOM.com.

Founded in the late 90’s, the company has grown to about 100 employees, with 500+ customers, and 15K to 20K users in 40+ countries. More than half of their customers are in the high tech electronics business.

I had a chance to meet with the former founder soon after they were founded, but have not kept up with the company since then. A recent press release revealing that their net new subscriptions grew by over 25% in the first quarter piqued my interest. The company stated that the “increase in new business can be attributed to Arena’s 2011 investments in new products, like PDXViewer and PartsList, and integrations to cloud enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions like SAP Business ByDesign and Netsuite, and component aggregators like Octopart.” My interest centers on possible use in the mechanical realm.

Their products include the following three cloud based products:

  • BOMControl: A collaborative and centralized way to manage BOMs and changes
  • PDXViewer: Share build and quote packages up and down your supply chain
  • PartsList: A lightweight app that helps capture, document, and share designs

BOMControl seems to offer much of the capability that mechanical design users need, including BOM management, import from CAD systems for creating the MBOM, and change management of the created BOM’s. Typical users might include the engineering team, document control managers, operations and manufacturing planning, supply chain management, and suppliers. The software makes it easy to add and track items needed for manufacturing. The fact that it is isolated from engineering CAD systems and from internal PDM or PLM system seems to allow secure access into just those areas that suppliers need without concerns about intellectual property (IP). Allowing suppliers direct access to internal PLM systems always makes me nervous.

The software seems to make sense for those companies that do not yet have or will not soon have a fully integrated PLM system for BOM management. And few do today. My guess is that many companies today use spreadsheets (like Excel) to manage their BOM’s, since most CAD PDM systems have little or no capability for multiple BOM views of the product, instead, focusing entirely on the engineering BOM, the EBOM. While spreadsheets will work for this application, they do not have the capabilities to easily collaborate, track changes, or smoothly interact with EBOMs to automate data exchange.

In the case of electronics manufacturing, an electronic search engine called Octopart automatically searches for the data associated with specified purchased parts and adds it to the MBOM. Capabilities exist for also adding these hooks manually and to include virtually any type of part descriptive files. Thus the Arean Solutions MBOM can become the residence not only of part data, but many other types of data associated with manufacturing. Consider test descriptions, supplier acceptance requirements, engineering test specifications and calculations as just a bit of what is possible.

Shown below are two screen shots of BOMControl managing these exact processes.

Showing the ability to track changes

Allowing various views into the BOM

Plans and pricing

Arena Solutions offers a BOMControl basic plan for $49 per month for up to 3 seats. They also have a 30-day free trial. For more information see their website at http://www.arenasolutions.com/products/bomcontrol/plans/. This trial pricing program is competitive with Autodesk 360 PLM and considerably cheaper than PLM vendors.

Recommendation

Arena Solutions’ products are aimed at taking the design EBOM and allowing a secure system for developing, maintaining, and collaborating MBOMs. All of which are needed to build and even service the eventual delivered product. All user companies without a current or short-term plan should definitely consider BOMControl.

One might think that BOMControl is used only by smaller companies, yet this is not the case. A large proportion of Arena Solutions clients are large companies.

I received no compensation for this review.

For more information

http://www.arenasolutions.com

http://octopart.com/

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