NTCOE is Up and Running!

The North Texas COE Regional Users Group (RUG), is up and running! A RUG is an association of local and regional companies that utilize the Dassault/IBM family of CAD/CAM/CAE products for the design and fabrication of various products. To date, the primary companies involved in the North Texas RUG are predominantly from the aerospace sector. These include Lockheed Martin, Bell Helicopter Textron and Vought Aircraft Industries Inc. In addition to industry involvement, local colleges and universities are providing support by getting the word out about various programs offered to prepare students for careers in the field of CAD/CAM/CAE. Following a kickoff meeting hosted by Vought Aircraft Industries Inc., in the fall of 2001, the first official conference was held on January 25th at the Tarrant County College South Campus. The daylong event was well organized and attended by more than fifty participants.

Benefits of participating in the RUG include educating members in digital technology advancements, exchange of best practices, lessons learned and presentations of selected topics from national COE conferences regarding CAD/CAM product enhancements. Member companies can benefit from the RUG by achieving the necessary understanding of current applications in digital technologies to make the right business decisions for implementation into their day-to-day operations.

Highlights of the January 25th meeting included presentations by IBM on ENOVIA LCA and Knowledge Based Engineering, DELMIA on their suite of products, RUG members overviews of the IBM Higher Education and Training programs at Tarrant County College, Weatherford College and Texas Christian University, member companies status reports on current V4 to V5 migration plans, a logo contest and an election to select a five person governing body for the RUG. Elected to the governing body were, Rod Windsor, Vought Aircraft Industries Inc.; Jeff Maestas, Lockheed Martin; Cindy Hitt, Weatherford College; Steve Loveland, Bell Helicopter Textron; and Jim Johnson, Lockheed Martin.

Weekly planning meetings are being held in preparation for the next RUG meeting scheduled for May 3rd at Tarrant County College South Campus. Anyone interested in learning more about new CAD/CAM/CAE technologies being utilized in the North Texas area and beyond is encouraged to attend. For more information see the following website: http://www.vought.com/ntcoe/.

Arizona CATIA Exchange (A.C.E.) Hosts March Meeting

The Arizona CATIA Exchange (A.C.E.) held a meeting on March 6 at Krebs Engineers in Tucson, Arizona. The group is trying to alternate meetings between the Phoenix area and the Tucson area in the hopes of reaching a larger audience.

The meeting began with a few minutes for social interchange and refreshments, then the group split into smaller groups to tour the Krebs facility to see their design and office areas, shop areas, assembly areas and warehouse areas.

Colleen Kennedy with Krebs Engineers presented a slide show on how Krebs uses V5 CATIA along with SMARTEAM relating it to Krebs parts and processes.

Johnny Hicks, Applications Engineer, Tucson, presented V5R8 highlights tailored to the meet the audiences areas of interest answering questions from the audience as he went along.

Tony Saracco with Krebs Engineers show us some of Krebs 'Cyclone' models and how they use Knowledgeware to improve their product cycle time.

A question and answer period followed. There was a question from the floor regarding Web use with CATIA and we were fortunate to have Rolf Gibbels with Dassault Systemes, Woodland Hill, California in the audience who was able to give an impromptu slide presentation that answered the question in detail.

A.C.E. would like to thank COE for providing handout materials, door prizes and speaker gifts for our presenters.

The topic for the next meeting will center around Assembly Drawings and Parts Lists (Bills of Material) to see how innovative people are with the tools and how users might build on these experiences at their companies. It will be held May 8 at General Dynamics Decision Systems in Scottsdale from 6-8 p.m. The meeting will overview the Spring COE Conference in Palm Springs, California as well.

Contact Larry Gauthier for information:
Larry.Gauthier@gd-decisionsystmes.com.