Tag Archives: Teamcenter

Siemens PLM Software’s Active Workspace mines product data

April 18, 2012 By in Manufacturing industry, PLM Industry Tags: , , , , 1 Comment

18 April 2012: For a long time I have been less than an enthusiastic advocate of PLM based systems as a vehicle for managing development processes. Sure, the storage of data is an important way of gathering product development data. Yet, viewing and using the associated data was always difficult. I found that, coming from a CAD background, which provides glorious views of 3D products, scrolling through page after page of data tables quickly becomes mind-numbingly tedious. Often one needs to view different datasets in different ways to attain a glimmer of data needed for decision-making.

Siemens announcement recently of Active Workspace (AWS) for their HD-PLM environment is their latest, and best attempt to present data graphically to the user, making the system perform the work of visually integrating the vast amount of integrated product data.

Last Fall, while attending a Siemens analyst conference, the company rolled out some preliminary information about Active Workspace. I was excited then about the long-term possibilities of revising the ways users can extract and make use of vast amounts of data. This announcement provides a very useful beginning for this project.

Exactly what is HD PLM? It’s not a product, but an architectural framework. HD-PLM, announced two years ago, provides a technology foundation enabling Siemens product development team to produce a common set of integrated software tools that will identify, capture and collate the massive amount of information available in manufacturing enterprises, and apply meaning to that data using an intuitive visual environment.

Two weeks ago, on 3 April 2012 Siemens announced Active Workspace Version 1, the first product to achieve the beginning of that vision. Grindstaff noted that “Active Workspace creates an intuitive and personalized 3D graphic interface that significantly enhances the ability of our PLM suite of offerings to deliver knowledge instantly to the right people, at the right place and in the right context to support rapid and intelligent decision making.”

To find out more I sought out some details from Siemens and had a conference call with two product managers for AWS: Bill Lewis and John Whetstone. They described AWS as having the following capabilities:

  • Find information fast
  • Visualize and navigate
  • Compare and report
  • Collaborate
  • Configure and share control

Lewis described AWS as a tool to help the vision of semantic data understanding enabling users to make smarter decisions using HD PLM. Indeed products are getting more and more complex. HD PLM is looking to solve this. He sees this as a tool for all PLM users; not just professional users, but casual users as well.

The slide below shows the products supported by AWS.

Products supported by Active Workspace V1

An example of AWS in action

Whetstone performed a live demo for a sample company. We start by searching for all objects in the database for the company. The search yields the following 130581 results:

Searching for all objects

Data was taken from Teamcenter and indexed to achieve the speedy result, which took only a few seconds. Note the object filter types at the top of the screen.

Selecting the type – Physical Design Model Elements – resulted in this:

Revealing Physical Design Model Objects

These are the physical mechanical model elements of the company, each designated with a different part number.

Shown below are the types of objects from which we can choose as a high level selection. This data is already in the Teamcenter data which we extract. The data extraction methods and rates are user determined.

The types of object filters offer ready access

Drilling down to the hard drive we get only 61 objects:

View of model elements in one sub-assembly

This is the tile view, showing access to other data associated with each object, such as: revision, owning user, type, and other data. Along the right side are icons that can launch applications, such as shape search and visual navigator, where used, and more info.

Visualizing the top level hard drive and using the JT object formats, here is the result:

Visual navigator display for the hard drive sub-assembly

Note the pan, zoom, and rotate options at the top of the image above. Drilling down to the drive heads shows this:

Displaying a sub-assembly within the hard drive

The “more info” icon reveals attached documents such as FEA results.

Revealing additional information associated with the drive heads

AWS requires the user to have a license of Teamcenter (TC). It is a companion product to TC.

My impression:

This is a big deal for Siemens and their users. It basically allows data mining of related, or as Siemens refers to it – the semantics of the data. Semantics, or the problem of understanding, allows one to make sense of the miasma of data relations associated to products. What is the product, what functions does it do, where does it fit, what were the specifications and were they met, what tests were performed, and so on. This data is stored within Teamcenter. Making sense of the data stored in different databases is difficult.

AWS seems aimed at the largest users. Early adopters include GM, Ford, JPL, and Rolls Royce.

While I was turned on by the AWS capability, this release seems to have an awkward and incomplete UI. Also, the reporting and rollup capabilities need to be extended. For instance, cost rollups and product status do not seem to be available yet, but are on the drawing board. Searches are limited to single attributes.

AWS V1 is available now. Maintenance releases are scheduled for July 2012 and Nov 2012. While the next major release is not due until the end of 2013, there is plenty in this release to keep users busy.

Pricing seems modest. $750 per named user. But, for large installations this could add up quickly. I expect there are volume discounts.

As far as competition, only Dassault Systemes with their V6 Enovia 3D Live offering is even in the same ballpark.

More info can be found at www.siemens.com/plm.

Siemens NX CAE Symposium: Users show their love

November 27, 2011 By in 3D Design, CAD, Digital Prototyping, PLM Industry Tags: , , , , , 1 Comment

27 Nov 2011: The week before last I attended an invitation only event in Charlotte, NC, as a guest of Siemens at their first NX CAE Symposium. Designed as a way for users to get together to exchange ideas about how they use NX CAE software, some 80 customers attended the symposium, held at the Joe Gibbs Racing Facility just outside Charlotte.

The overall consensus of the presenters and the attendees I spoke with was satisfaction with the NX CAE suite. Many complimented the breadth of the CAE software, some of which I summarize below. Overall users were most satisfied because of the inherent associativity of CAE models with design models.

Several users told stories about how, in the past, they were asked by the design team to evaluate designs and get back to them. Even with an integrated system, the CAE analysts often spend substantial amounts of time simplifying models, insuring that the mesh is adequate for an accurate design, performing a series of analyses, and making recommendations to the design team, only to find that the design team has moved way beyond the design they were working on. Thus their work had to be scrapped. NX’s CAE and design integrations allow analysts to work on the design model, thus having a better ability to stay synchronized with the design team.

Also, NX seems to play well with external solvers, often integrating them tightly into the design stream workflow. Among these were Ansys solvers as well as specialized fluids solvers, such as those from MAYA.

My reactions:
Siemens PLM Software has a well-focused and wide breadth of solutions for heavy-duty CAE experts. Jon Heidorn, Siemens PLM Software (SPLMS) Vice President welcomed the attendees, stressing that simulation is one of their fastest growing markets, encompassing integrated modeling and solutions, system level modeling, multi-discipline simulation and optimization, and the intensely complex simulation data and process management. Beyond 2010 Heidorn predicted software would be available that would perform topology optimization. SPLMS also announced that their partnership with Joe Gibbs Racing was extended to 2016.

Mark Bringle and Nelson Cosgrove of Joe Gibbs Racing discussed their facility and their focus on engineering. Building their cars from scratch, and their engines almost from scratch, but carefully following NASCAR rules for each car, provides an impetus to carefully hone each major subsystem for optimal performance. Fascinatingly, their design cycle during racing season is one week! The three main groups include chassis and vehicle dynamics, aerodynamics, and powertrain. The latest version of NX allows for full chassis FEA modeling. With NASCAR demanding similar car frames and engine performance, their engineers carefully analyze every part to improve weight and aero performance so they can achieve even small advantages over their competition.

Jim Rusk of Siemens PLM Software discussed the latest trends in product development with NX CAE Simulation. He highlighted a few concepts they are working on sand delivering to make it easier than ever. Among these are Synchronous Technology for the CA analyst which makes for easier simplification, workflows for the advanced analyst, continuing improvements in multi-discipline analysis, motion analysis for flexible bodies like springs, multi-solver support, topology optimizations, and HD3D requirements management and validation.

ATK Aerospace, MDA of Canada, and JPL, Proctor and Gamble, and Solar Technologies spoke about their analyses ranging from rocket design to cryo engineering of spacecraft to making 1 million paper diapers to designing complex solar collectors.

Hendrick Motorsports’, Charles Macdonald, discussed detailed part analysis and the tradeoffs they make for lighter, yet strong and most of all highly serviceable parts of a suspension.

Kendra Short, of JPL and the mechanical manager of the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), successfully launched just two days ago, spoke eloquently about how having a sophisticated analysis system working directly on the design model enable them to perform many more complex analyses than would have been possible without simulation done directly on the design models. Without the ability to service the MSL (it’s a long trip to Mars), Ms. Short chatted about the enormous planning that goes into having multiple alternatives in the event of a failure. I found fascinating during a break discussion about how the MSL is to be deployed to the surface using a tether. No backup here, just reliable explosive bolts.

One of the symposiums objectives was to have users exchange ideas about how they use simulation. This seemed to be more than fulfilled. If you have a chance to attend the next symposium, don’t miss it.

Disclosure: Siemens paid for my travel expenses to attend the event.
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Siemens uses game design tools to enable top down design

September 23, 2010 By in 3D Design, CAD, Manufacturing industry Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment

Wow, driving back and forth from Boston to NJ really did me in. 500 miles in a few days, packed with several traffic jams from accidents, plus sitting in conferences for 2 days! So this blog may come to you a bit late. In the way of openness, Siemens paid for my travel expenses to and from the meeting as well as two nights at the hotel.

Anyhow, on Day 2 of the conference (22 Sep), I had the opportunity to view Siemens already released (last week) Mechatronics Concept Designer (MCD) software – a terrific idea, and aptly suited for designers of complex machine tools, especially those machines or groups of machines with lots of parts in motion. Later in the day, Dan Staples, Solid Edge’s head of development, and original architect of ST, described what’s coming in their upcoming release of Synchronous Technology 3 (ST3).

Built as a stand-alone solution, Paul Brown of Siemens, Senior Marketing Director, stated that the Price was about $20K, had no software prerequisites, and includes a copy of NX to assist in the design detailing.

Shown in the image above is an example of a machine designed with MCD. Designed to work with NX and Teamcenter the idea is to map out a block diagram of the prospective machine, use a library of functional parts that can be re-used or designed, add requisite motions, and prove out the design concept. Then the concept design is passed on to the appropriate engineering disciplines to continue to add detail to the design. I really liked the concept, but there is too much detail to describe here. You can see more at http://www.plm.automation.siemens.com/en_us/about_us/press_kit/mechatronics-concept-designer.shtml.

What is really appealing is that design concepts like this could only have been done before manually, and because of the complex interactions of 3D and motion, would have been very difficult to design and extremely error prone. One could easily imagine this technique used for other design projects.

On the ST3 upcoming launch, due in mid-October, Solid Edge (SE), part of Siemens’ Velocity business unit, and headed up by Karsten Newbury (see my blog dated 22 July), continues to press the envelope by extending ST into assembly design, and allowing a mixture of history based design and ST unordered design. Incorporating some 2000 customer enhancements, ST3 should be an extraordinary release. The ST3 modeling advances also allow all of SE’ other apps, such as piping and wiring to use ST technology and auto update as changes are made.

Got to get some sleep now.

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Siemens PLM Software firing on all cylinders

September 22, 2010 By in 3D Design, CAD, Manufacturing industry, PLM Industry Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment

22 Sep 2010: Yesterday Siemens PLM Software (SPLMS) kicked off its annual analyst conference in Boston, MA, following a years hiatus due to the economy in 2009.

As usual, a really packed day resulted in information overload by early afternoon. Alas, we are not scheduled to get any of the PowerPoint slides until later today so I cannot yet share any with you. Nevertheless, after nine hours of listening, 30 pages of notes, and viewing hundreds of slides, here is short list of the more significant highlights of the day:

  • The transition to new President Chuck Grindstaff seems to be going smoothly. Surrounded by an experienced team of long time PLMers, Chuck is upbeat and feels confident about the transition. Long the technology strategist, he plans to continue as CTO, at least for a while.
  • Following a “difficult year” in 2009, Siemens business is up more than 25% this year. The company trotted out a chart of their success, for example, in the auto industry, noting that 12 out of 15 of the top players now use Teamcenter, traditionally a Dassault Systemes (DS) stronghold. Not only that, but they are displacing DS’ V6 with NX in several accounts. Other top performing industries include aerospace and surprisingly, shipbuilding. Tony Affuso pointed out that being a part of Siemens helps enormously in winning large and very large accounts, because of company stability (120 years in business) and the synergy with other parts of the Industrial Automation Group.
  • On the technology front, Teamcenter is expanding its offering rapidly into new applications. Notable among them is a new System Engineering application that now allows validating products based on customer requirements – one I have long awaited. Solid Edge ST3 is on the horizon. A pre announcement briefing is schedule for later today. Two customers spoke glowingly of its use. Mechatronics Concept Design was oft mentioned today as a new application about to be released. It combines a physics gaming engine along with a hew UI, allowing early concepts to tie together electrical and electronic system into early design. We are due to hear more later today and I will update my readers as I find out more about the technology.
  • For many years I have been a lone voice in the woods imploring PLM vendors to make access to the reams of data easier. SPLMS shows the promise of delivering with HD-PLM. Not exactly sure about what is involved to make this work for each client, but Grindstaff intimated that it could be done with minimal efforts. Their goal is to provide clients access to the massive amounts of data so organizations can customize displays that make sense of often used data. For example, by displaying the graphic of a full car, and color-coding all late items red, a user can instantly see the project status. How about where it does not meets specs, or over cost, or needs work for fit and finish? Wow, this is exciting!
  • Many customers spoke about their implementations, perhaps none so eloquently as Amy Gowder, Director of Performance Excellence of Lockheed Martin Aeronautics about their use of SPLMS software on the JSF program. Working with 3 major variants of the product and 10 international partners companies, they have so far avoided major fit issues as have plagued Airbus and Boeing. Gowder noted that their success is not based on software, but on changes to the ways they work. Wonder how I can get a flight in the Harrier replacement variant?
  • More to come . . .

Update to Aras Software interview

August 27, 2010 By in PLM Industry Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment

Earlier today I had a follow up conversation and demo of Aras PLM software with Marc Lind. To net it out, I asked Marc why users would buy Aras Software instead of one of their vertically integrated competitors such as Enovia, Teamcenter, or Windchill? Marc replied with three main reasons:

  • The software works. It’s reliable, it’s functionally robust, implementations are easier, users can see results faster, and its design promotes much faster upgrades to new versions.
  • The economics of the business model are so compelling. The ROI proves it.
  • Aras Innovator is the platform of the future, in terms of scalability, ability to design release independent custom processes, upgrades, and flexibility, and it’s cloud ready.

You will have to see for yourself — the company has no salesmen, because the downloads are free. Their website contains lots of good info.