Technology Update
Trace Parts 3D Library for CATIA V5
Trace Parts has joined the DASSAULT SYSTEMES' Software Community Program (SCP) as a Partner in October 2001. Through this development partnership Trace Parts is still the first Partner to complement native CATIA V5 standard parts catalogs by delivering to CATIA V5 users millions of standards V5 parts directly accessible from DS 3d PLM solutions.
Trace Parts leverages the V5 architecture to develop an extensive library of international standard CATIA-native 3D parts. Customers from all industries, and especially Industrial Machinery, will benefit from all the most commonly used components in mechanical design from the largest names of the mechanical industry: ASCO/JOUCOMATIC, BOSCH, FESTO, INA, LEGRIS, NADELLA, NORELEM, PARKER, RABOURDIN, SKF, SMC, SNR,...
Trace Parts completely eliminates the time consuming process of finding and modelling international standard and manufacturers' components. The time saved in this way allows the designer to spend more time on the more critical stages of the design process.
Trace Parts is much more than a simple CAD library:
- Contents: Millions of components straight from the leading component manufacturers in the world (ASCO/JOUCOMATIC, BOSCH, BOUTET, FESTO, FAIRCHILD FASTENERS, FIBRO, HASCO, INA, LEGRIS, NADELLA, NORELEM, PARKER, PAULSTRA, RABOURDIN, SIAM-RINGSPANN, SKF, SMC, SNR, …) and international standard institutions (NF, ISO, BS, DIN, UNI, ANSI…). The content includes such components as: fasteners, shaft ends, keys, pins, gears, bearings, cylinders, flanges, reducers, elbows, electric motors and structural sections, and also included are detailed technical documents regarding the individual products. The content of Trace Parts is relevant to most mechanical designers in the machinery, automotive and aerospace industry.
- Integration: Trace Parts is run directly from within CATIA V5 and the components generated are inserted directly into the current Product Structure with all their Bill of Material information attached (designation, reference, manufacturer, standard, mass, etc…).
- Power: Several search engines are included in the application as well as a 3D viewer, these features mean that time is saved when selecting components as the right component is found from the first time.
- 2D views: Once the component has been selected you can automatically generate the 2D views in DWG or DXF format.
About Trace Parts
Trace Parts is the ideal link between parts manufacturers and drawing offices. It offers a unique software solution for the distribution of CAD models and component information. Trace Parts CD is a very extensive parts library seamlessly integrated within all the main CAD software on the market: CATIA, SolidWorks, Solid Edge, Inventor, Mechanical Desktop, thinkdesign, TopSolid, any ACIS, IGES, STEP or Parasolid compatible software and soon Pro/Engineer and Unigraphics.
Trace Parts Online is a powerful online internet portal that delivers CAD models coming from the same parts database as Trace Parts CD.
Trace Parts is a new and fantastic means of communication for all manufacturers, which brings major productivity benefits to drawing offices, whether they are specialised in the mechanical, electro-mechanical, tooling, aeronautical or automotive sector.
Trace Parts is being distributed in North America by
LionHeart Solutions, Inc.
More information about Trace Parts is available at http://www.traceparts.com.
Business Process and Change Management Automation
Manufactured products are subject to many engineering changes, which may result from diverse factors; Among which are: Defect in design, changes in design upon customers' request, marketing considerations, changes in budget, changes in supply or material availability and more.
The typical (midsize) manufacturing organization processes 2,000 ECOs a year. Since in most cases, participants may be scattered across departments, geographical boundaries, and separate organizations, such as with supply chains partners, the average ECO takes 3 weeks and more, to process. SMARTEAM can make this process happen in 2 days.
| The PAIN | The SOLUTION |
- Increasing frequency of changes
- Missed deadlines result in failure of delivery in time-to-market, lost revenue, lost market share
- Number of Customer Service files
- Many different participants within the organization or out in the supplier network
- Synchronizing changes to the manufacturing environment
- Escalation - Stalled production line due to flawed design and decision making
- Adhering to industry standards - ISO/OSHA /FDA
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Change Management, including: Process templates for Engineering Change Request (ECR), Engineering Change Order (ECO) and Product Release
- Workflow Automation throughout the enterprise and across the supply chain (over the web)
- Engineering Change Orders on Bill of Materials (ECO on BOM)
- Component approval process
- Full traceability for intelligent decision making
Regulatory Compliance due to accurate document history and tracked security control and processes (FDA Compliance)
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SMARTEAM manages and automates the engineering design scenario for both mechanical and electrical items, by providing organizational communication focus and giving enterprise users the power to streamline business processes across the extended enterprise, linking people, information and applications together.
Expediting engineering change processes over the web, while automatically routing processes from one stage to another helps businesses leverage subject matter experts across the extended enterprise to drive better, more efficient decisions and processes, improve customer satisfaction due to faster EC cycles, meet deadlines, and more.
SMARTEAM enables authorized users to:
- Create pre-defined or custom-made processes that are translated into color-coded flowcharts
- Assign tasks, initiate, track history, and monitor processes with statistical reports
- Get e-mail notifications
- Receive tasks and modify related documents
- Advanced authorization mechanism
- Advanced audit trail
MSC.visualNastran V5i … Integrated Solutions for CATIA V5
Seamlessly integrated with the CATIA V5 environment, the MSC.visualNastran V5i family of products provides companies and their design teams with the scalable resources needed to enable them to focus on product performance while improving reliability and repeatability in their design process.
The new products are based on Dassault Systemes V5 Component Application Architecture (CAA) and have been developed in close partnership with Dassault Systemes. They give CATIA users integrated, scalable access to MSC.Software's simulation tools and technology, increasing the opportunities to reduce design and testing costs throughout the product lifecycle.
"We are leveraging MSC.Software's core strength in simulation technology and integrating it with CATIA to give design engineers an extremely powerful set of tools," said Frank Perna, chairman and chief executive officer of MSC.Software. "Our partnership with Dassault Systemes is a key piece of our overall business strategy. Utilizing simulation earlier in the design process dramatically increases its impact and I know that CATIA users around the world will see immediate positive effects."
Gateway products enable CATIA V5 users to directly access the corporate simulation resources. Closely supporting the CATIA V5 portfolio, the current gateways provide direct access to MSC.Nastran, MSC.Marc, ANSYS, and ABAQUS, as well as in-house proprietary systems using the STEP AP209 standard.
Generative products seamlessly integrate MSC Simulation solutions with the CATIA V5 environment. Currently available Generative products include MSC.Nastran Generative (GPN), MSC.Generative Nonlinear (GNL), MSC.Generative Thermal (GTH), and MSC.Dynamic Designer Motion.
What products have been announced?
With MSC.visualNastran V5i integrated solutions, CATIA V5 users benefit from the world's leading Simulation Technology from inside their preferred PLM system. These highly functional products are seamlessly integrated into the V5 environment.
The nine current members of the MSC.visualNastran V5i family include:
- MSC.Nastran Generative (GPN) enables CATIA users to directly access basic MSC.Nastran simulation capabilities in a fully generative way from within their familiar CATIA V5 Generative Structural Analysis (GPS) environment. It provides an integrated, generative and seamless integration between CATIA V5 Analysis and Simulation products and MSC.Nastran.
- MSC.Generative Thermal (GTH) enables design teams to simulate complex thermal operating environments within CATIA V5. This fully integrated and fully generative solution enables the effects of heat transfer due to conduction and convection to be simulated.
- MSC.Generative Nonlinear (GNL) provides CATIA users with the ability to simulate large deformations and the complex effects of material plasticity. It provides an integrated, generative and seamless integration within Dassault Systemes' CATIA V5 portfolio of Analysis and Simulation products.
- MSC.Dynamic Designer Motion for CATIA V5 allows dynamic motion simulation to be performed on CATIA V5 assemblies. Dynamic Designer Motion, the foundation for all other CATIA V5 Dynamic Designer products, will be able to create motion models from CATIA assemblies and kinematics, simulate the dynamic motion of the assemblies, and allow users to view animations and XY plots of resulting motion.
- MSC.Nastran Gateway enables CATIA users to export the "run ready" MSC.Nastran input file as well as import and visualize the results of the MSC.Nastran execution without leaving their familiar CATIA V5 GPS environment.
- MSC.Marc Gateway enables CATIA users to export the "run ready" MSC.Marc input file as well as import and visualize the results of the MSC.Marc execution without leaving their familiar CATIA V5 GPS environment.
- MSC.Gateway for ANSYS enables CATIA users to export the "run ready" ANSYS input file as well as import and visualize the results of the ANSYS execution without leaving their familiar CATIA V5 GPS environment.
- MSC.Gateway for ABAQUS enables CATIA users to export the "run ready" ABAQUS input file as well as import and visualize the results of the ABAQUS execution without leaving their familiar CATIA V5 GPS environment.
- MSC.Gateway for STEP AP209 enables CATIA users to transfer finite element information from CATIA V5 Analysis and Simulation environment to a STEP format, and demonstrates MSC.Software and Dassault Systemes ' commitment to open systems.
What product is next?
Existing members of the MSC.visualNastran V5i family are intended for general-purpose applications. The 2003 V5i series will extend the coverage and functionalities of current products, in addition to providing new set of general-purpose and vertical applications.
For more information on the MSC.visualNastran V5i product family, please visit http://www.V5i.com
From the Beginning: The Critical Role of Data Quality in PLM
By Dennis Visentin, P. Eng., (Email: dvisentin@rand.com )
Executive Vice President, RAND Worldwide (ACCURiT - Solutions in Software)
While there are several different visions of Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), which is the next tidal wave to hit the global manufacturing sector, everyone seems to agree that the products themselves stand at the center of PLM process. As any design engineer will remind us, at the heart of almost any new product lays a model from which it can be manufactured. But what happens when the CAD model itself is defective?
There is an old children's party game that calls for each player to pass along the complex message that their last partner has whispered in their ear. What propels the game is the inevitable transformation that takes place between the original message and the hardly recognizable final one. Unfortunately, many manufacturers face the same challenge each time they share their CAD models amongst the different internal and external departments and supply companies involved in their process chain. And for the manufacturers, the need to assure data quality is far too critical to provide any opportunity for amusement. For example, according to Daimler-Chrysler, CAD quality problems were costing the company about $23 million per year before it began aggressively to address the problem.
Trying to produce a car part or the body of a mobile telephone from a defective CAD model is a bit like using a seriously outdated map to navigate your way around a foreign country. The objective may be reached eventually, but the process will take far longer, cost far more and involve far more effort than anyone ever intends.
Manufacturers do not secure high quality data simply by running a software check at the end of the design process. To achieve this data standard requires nothing less than the implementation of a quality-checking environment that is fully integrated with the end-to-end work processes of each and every CAD user.
Total Data Quality Management
Companies must not only check the quality of their data if they want to save the time and expense needed to resolve problems and rework models. Rather, they must manage and improve the data itself. Both experience and common sense prove that the later in the design cycle a problem is found, the more difficult and expensive it is to fix. In other words, the CAD data must be "cleaned up" at the designer's station before that data becomes associated with any working model and that same high standard of quality control must be maintained at any point at which the model may be modified. Of course, the checking tool must be fast, easy to use and, in the end, something that saves design time and thus, enhances the designer's ability to meet the deadlines and productivity levels mandated by management.
Statistics from DaimlerChrysler's operations in Germany showed that, in 1999, out of 200,000 CAD models produced, only eight percent were without defects. Another half of the models had major defects and almost six percent were so faulty that they had to be discarded. About a year after the carmaker began to encourage their suppliers to use its newly standardized Data Quality Management tool, Q-Checker; more than thirty percent of their models were defect free.
DaimlerChrysler looked at four different tools to help them solve their problems of data quality management and defective models. After a long series of benchmarking and comparative testing, one of the world's largest automakers selected Q-Checker, which is owned and distributed by RAND Worldwide. TransCAT, a wholly owned RAND Worldwide subsidiary, originally developed the technology in Germany according to the standards of the German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA). Q-Checker works in conjunction with both CATIA V4 and V5.
RAND Worldwide was not new to the idea of data quality management. The Company authored a somewhat similar technology six years ago when it developed ModelCheck to work with Pro/ENGINEER. RAND Worldwide sold the rights to ModelCheck to Pro/ENGINEER's owners, PTC, in 1999 for $20 million and the product has become a complementary mainstay of the Pro/ENGINEER design software line.
Essentially, the Daimler-Benz Group runs each of its models through Q-Checker as a key test for defects. The automaker's own models are constantly tested as they are built and they send incoming supplier models, automatically through Q-Checker before they are integrated into the car company's design process. Models are assigned a distinct security level, either "OK" for clean models, "Defective" for those that need fixing or "Knock Out" for models that are too poor to be salvaged. The technology lists each defect and offers the option of having the user fix the problem manually or having it run through Q-Checker's automatic healing process, which works for more than fifty percent of standard defects.
Q-Checker contains checks to assure as well the structural correctness of a CATIA Model, as well as the geometrical accuracy:
Structural checks assure that each CATIA model is in compliance with both industry and specific company standards. For example, models must meet Model Attributes such as Model Dimension, Allowed Geometry Entities and Save Status. Other standards include Layer Classification and Filter Definition, Attributes of Geometry Entities (Standards, No Show, No Pick), Clean Up (CATCLN-Utility, Delete of Unused Details and Empty Sets), and Model Project setting.
Geometrical checks control the integrity of the geometric elements. It contains the recommended VDA 4955 Versions 1 and 2, as well as the SASIG-PDQ v1.1, which have been established as the common guidelines for the German and international automotive market.
The software can easily be used with the predefined standard profiles of the most important OEM's. These can be downloaded from the Q-Checker Website: Http://www.q-checker.com. However, Q-Checker is also freely configurable to meet the unique needs of each corporate user. Check reports can be generated with different contents and in different formats like HTML or XML.Q-Checker provides the option of being able to store the results within a model in a Check Seal. This helps to save time since the results are securely stored so that the receiving part does not have to be rechecked against the specified Profile.
The additional Q-Monitor module stores data results in an SQL database, from where it can be extracted for statistical analysis and administrative queries. Management can use the statistics to evaluate training success and future requirements. Users can react to specific design events, as well as conducting supplier and user assessments based on the captured data. The software allows for the exporting of either pictures or tables. The Client is a Java application that runs on any standard device.
Improving Productivity with Higher Quality Models
The impact of Q-Checker on process chains is such that it is far more than just a "checking tool" - it drives productivity as well. For example, the problem of defective models has driven many CAD users to not trust the models they receive from others. Too often, their response is to build their own models from scratch. With data quality management processes and tools, legacy designs can more reliably be reused. With "clean" models to work with, designers have far less need to make adjustments. As Q-Checker provides the ability to use predefined sets of checks (Check Profiles), it is very easy for a designer to check whether the model fits to the next process step like FEA or CAM. Overall, this more efficient modeling process allows engineering managers and designers to concentrate more on developing and incorporating Best Practices in their CAD processes. Valuable time is not spent on re-work.
All of this helps to support data flow throughout the process chain, which saves design and product development time, thus shortening the time-to-market. For a manufacturer, this can readily result in enhanced competitive market position and improved profitability.
DaimlerChrysler is one of nearly 600 companies from around the world that have incorporated the Q-Checker Data Quality Management Process. Others include automakers Ferrari, Freightliner, Hyundai, Porsche, Mitsubishi and Subaru, as well as aircraft manufacturer, EADS Airbus.
Acquisition of Knowledge-Based pioneer complements Dassault Systemes' V5 Knowledgeware solutions and consulting services
Dassault Systemes announced the acquisition of Knowledge Technologies International (KTI) in an all-cash transaction. Through its consulting expertise and ICAD software, KTI has become a leader in Knowledge-based engineering (KBE) solutions for the capture and automation of proprietary customer design and manufacturing processes, particularly in the aerospace and automotive industries. Examples of KBE use include the automatic design of the thousands of standard parts in aircraft wings or electrical system components in automobiles.
The acquisition of KTI complements Dassault Systemes' existing V5 Knowledgeware solutions and places the company in a leadership position across the full range of KBE practices. KBE practices are divided into three domains that include: generic applications; industry specific solutions; and customer proprietary process automation. KTI is an in customer proprietary process automation while Dassault Systemes is the leader in generic applications and industry specific solutions.
Integrating the development, capture and reuse of a customer's know how is an essential ingredient for successful PLM implementation. Beyond the "what" of products (the components), Knowledge-based solutions capture and manage the "why" and "how" (the collective knowledge). Combining KTI's KBE consulting competence with Dassault Systemes industry-processes expertise creates an unrivaled services offering in the PLM industry that will make Knowledge-based engineering a reality for all customers.
"Our 3D PLM customers are reaching unprecedented levels of productivity due largely to the next generation Knowledge-based technology we place at the core of our V5 solutions," said Dominique Florack, executive vice president Research and Development, Dassault Systemes. "Over the past 20 years, KTI has developed a unique understanding and expertise in the development and application of Knowledge-based solutions and this acquisition complements our existing services organization to deploy breakthrough PLM solutions for all of our customers."
"This acquisition will deliver tremendous value to our existing ICAD customers," said Dr. Prasanna Katragadda, Vice President Research and Development, KTI. "It immediately secures their investments and provides a roadmap to further expand the management of their Knowledge-based Engineering activities beyond the design and manufacturing stages and into the rest of their product's lifecycle management."
"Over the past seven years, Airbus, with the support of KTI, has secured significant returns through Knowledge-based engineering, enabling automation, integration and innovation of key processes," said S.E. Allwright, head of Knowledge Based Engineering, Airbus. "With the acquisition of KTI by Dassault Systems, Airbus expects to immediately benefit from synergies in the development of Knowledge-based solutions and provision of services. This will enable Airbus to accelerate and broaden our implementation of KBE across our complete set of product lifecycle processes."
IBM Completes Acquisition of EADS Matra Datavision
IBM announced that its acquisition of EADS Matra Datavision, formerly a wholly-owned subsidiary of EADS Group, has been approved by regulatory officials in France and Germany. The new IBM group created by the acquisition will operate as part of IBM's Business Consulting Services (BCS) unit. The acquisition makes IBM the leading Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) player worldwide in both software and services.
The new organization will be led by Cosme de Moucheron, vice president, IBM Business Consulting Services, PLM EMEA. A team made up of both IBM and former EADS Matra Datavision staff will lead the acquisition transition on a regional basis, reporting to Mr. de Moucheron. The new PLM services unit, which will be composed of over 1000 professionals, will complement IBM's current PLM offerings by adding consultants in specific industries, such as automotive, aerospace and defense, electrical and electronics and machinery, as well as by adding more offerings and skills around the PLM platforms of independent software vendors.
Cosme de Moucheron said, "The acquisition of EADS Matra Datavision further accelerates IBM's strategy to consolidate its leadership position in IT services. IBM's vision for clients is to help them transform into on demand businesses - helping them to become more highly responsive, focused, resilient and variable in ever-changing marketplaces. With this acquisition, IBM can now deliver a full PLM service offering to automotive, aerospace, electronics and machinery clients, and help them to become more profitable by building new on demand operating environments."
The acquisition builds upon EADS Matra Datavision's long-term relationship as IBM PLM's top business partner for solutions, and strengthens IBM's ability to provide a comprehensive service offering for PLM solutions through related consulting, implementation and integration services. In addition, the deal puts IBM in a strong position to support all PLM software vendors. This broadening of capabilities has an immediate advantage for IBM clients, who can access all the PLM resources they need from a single vendor.
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