From Shop Floor to Software : manufacturing

CAD in Japan

Leslie_Gordon — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 14:10:00 GMT

I'm at the SolidWorks 2009 conference in Orlando, Florida, looking out my hotel room window, which oversees a lake lined with palm trees, the Swan Resort with giant statures of swans on its rooftop, and blue, sunny skys. I heard it is warmer in Cleveland, but I am in no rush to get back home to snow, ice, and near zero temperatures.

Yesterday, I spoke with Haruyoshi Iida, President and CEO of SolidWorks Japan K.K. He says the CAD system first came to Japan in 1995 when Jon Hershtik made sure to introduce a localized version for the language. Interestingly, SolidWorks has an large presense in Japan, he says, with about 80,000 seats, 40,000 of which are commercial. Mr. Iida says Japan has 300,000 manufacturing companies, mostly heavy industry. Many of these companies still use 2D, but industry is slowly moving to 3D. He says Japanese companies are not "in a big rush."

2009 PTC Annual Global and Media Analyst Event

Leslie_Gordon — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 13:08:00 GMT

Boston is sunny but cold -- a nice break from our gloomy Cleveland winter and its excessive snowfalls. PTC is holding its annual media event at the company's Needham corporate headquarters. Attending are about 100 to 150 media analysts and a few trade journalists from Japan, Italy, Germany, and the U.S., among other countries.

Part of day one:

Dick Harrison, President and CEO spoke on PTC's corporate strategy: He says PTC's business is good and it has made 241 million so far this quarter. All the channel partners and salesmen are optomistic about the "product development solution (PDS)." This is shorthand for PTCs various applications such as Pro/E, Windchill, Arbortext, and Mathcad, etc. Harrison says EADS in Europe, which had used SAP is switching to the PDS. He also says PTC recently got a 20,000-seat order from Samsung. Spending is difficult in a tough economy, but customers are focused on PLM: They want to globalize and have shorter lead times; they want to automate the product-design process. Harrison says the high-end CAD market is saturated for large enterprise customers. Standalone CAD is a thing of the past. Companies need PLM for global collaboration. Many U.S. companies are outsourcing detailed design (CAD). Product Point (basically a version of Windchill on Microsoft's Share Point) targets SMBs with CAD and PDM. Harrison says PTC is just as big as SolidWorks and Autodesk in the SMB space. PTC is not laying off any of its salesforce. China is its second-largest market for emerging geographies. SAP, Dassalt, and Seimens are all European based. PTC just bought Synapsis (compliance software for EU standards).

Jim Heppelmann, Chief Product Officer says the modular approach to the PDS means that SMBs can now have analysis, surfacing, and CAM capabilities. He defines programs that are "integrated" means they are engineered to work together. CADDS -- old Computer Visions Technology -- is now for ship building. CoCreate -- explict modeling tool. Pro/E is growing in SMBs; Mathcad, Arbortext usually for larger companies. ProductView; InSight; ProductPoint works with SharePoint and can also work with the complete Windchill. InSight is the new name to the Synapsis acquisition (takes a BOM and performs a chemical analysis of each part to see if they don't comply with a specification such as REACH, RoHs, and other compliance standards). The beginning of a platform for BOM analytics.

According to Heppelmann, SharePoint is like the "new Windows" in that soon everyone will be using it. It's a "social-computing" platform. ProductPoint is for small workgroups that need to vault and share structured information, and for Windchill customers. SharePoint is the fastest growing product in Microsoft history. Discussion forums, wikis, blogs, RSS, IM... Social computing and Web 2.0 -- came out of a social community. Gives people a way to work togeter. Web.1 was HTTP; HTML; and Java. SharePoint is platform for social networking for a business community. Wildfire 5 will be optimized for social computing. ProductView: graphics provides a visual front end so you can, for instance, see which part of the assembly is not compliant. Can do a graphical search, or a digital mockup inside a Power Point slide, for examples.

Windows SharePoint manages office documents. ProductPoint bolts on top of it. Can work with CAD structures, even Mathcad and Arbortext structures. Also other appplications such as Autodesk. Has Microsoft Ribbons UI. Lets engineers see an aggregation of information from a bunch of different sources. PLM Connector -- shares information between PLM solutions (manufacturer's and supplier's portal). Maintains PLM information. Is used with Product Point to integrate with other systems. ProductPoint only requires SharePoint or MOSS (Microsoft Office SharePoint Server).

Microsoft: Also designs all its products in Pro/E. Office SharePoint Server (platform). Collaboration = blogs, wikis, rss reeds, social networks, tagging, social bookmarking, mashups, and personal profiles. "Social Computing." SharePoint and ProductPoint together can automate the distribution of media. Works in the background to generate almost everything about "My Site." Can search for collegues by social distance. Can keep up to date with people in a hands-off manner. Retiring work force walks out the door with valuable information: Use Wikis as a way to create pride in people that are leaving (their name is on the article) and provide a familiar interface for young engineers. Pod-casting kit for SharePoint -- record and publish infomation on media players, Web pages, and the like.

Old DWG, New BIM?

Leslie_Gordon — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 16:01:00 GMT

CAD at the Venetian Resort

Autodesk is again hosting its annual Autodesk University (AU) event at the Venetian Resort in Las Vegas. It's still pretty early, so things haven't yet geared up. The developer must have sympathy for those of us who travel a distance to get here and thus are still reeling from jetlag -- the keynote speech from CEO Carl Bass is not slated to start until around
10 am! Most similar venues have attendees getting up around 7 am.

Anyway, I absolutely love the Venetian Resort, especially the fake "Venice" that comprises a series of fancy shops and resturants, a real canal full of real water, and gondoliers dressed in the traditional red and white striped shirts. Some of my collegues hate Las Vegas because it is so sleazy. I don't gamble but I love the neon lights and the glitter. But you can sense a heart of darkness: I've been told that there are shops where desperate gamblers can pawn their cars, recreational vehicles, and even home mortgages.

Old DWG, New BIM

At the registration area is a large board that attendees can use to post their idea on how to get a more sustainable

world. Ideas: Share our vehicles, Go local; Turn off the lights; Build digitally; Use solar wind and energy. And -- my favorite -- "Old .DWG, new BIM." BIM is a big buzz in architectural circles lately. It stands for Building Information Modeling and is said to be a term that was coined by Autodesk to mean "3D, object-oriented, AEC-specific CAD." Of course, DWG is the traditional drawing format. Can you teach an old DWG new tricks, er, that is to be a BIM?

Ideas on Innovation

Tom Kelly, co-founder of design company IDEO spoke at this morning's keynote session. He says, design is not superficial, it is strategic. It creates value. It can make the difference between love and hate. If you wanna' innovate, you have to design. Now you have to out-innovate the rest of the world. It is like the Red Queen effect from Alice in Wonderland. We are running, but we are not getting anywhere. So you have to run twice as fast. What if we are first, or perhaps the best? IDEO designs: From the Apple mouse to helping the Red Cross redesign the experience of donating blood.

What works in innovation and what doesn't? His book: The Ten Faces of Innovation. Learn from other people's failures. His mistake: The human brain can handle only 7 bits of information at a time. So don't talk about the 10 top faces.... talk about the 2:

Designs used to be driven by specifications and technical challenges. The Anthropologist would go to lakes and streams and come and tell us about it. This is a source of innovation. The act of discover is in seeing with new eyes. In the process of developing expertise, most designers start filtering out new experiences. Vuga de -- the opposite of deja vu. Start to ask questions differently. For example, Oral B wanted to innovate around kid's toothbrushes. IDEO started with anthropology -- every toothbrush in the world had the implicit assumption that kids' toothbrushes should be a small version of their parents. Kids actually hold toothbrushes differently and needed big, squishy toothbrushes. Had best selling toothbrush in the world for 18 months until others caught up.

Next is the Experience Architect. He thinks about the total experience the customer has. Good book -- The Experience Economy.

For example making a birthday cake:

Commodity way -- Mom goes out and buys stuff to make a birthday cake. Cheap, but a lot of work and a lot of risk.

Product way -- Betty Crocker makes the batter. More expensive, but saves a lot of time.

Service level -- Go to a bakery and buy a ready-made cake that squirts the kid's name on it. No risk. Expensive

Chuckie Cheeses -- Terrible in many ways except you can be a hero for your kids that day if you pay big bucks for a Chuckie Cheese party. Parents are willing to pay almost anything. No risk.

How to get an idea: Find an opportunity hidden in plain sight. For instance, the Westin Hotel and its Heavenly Bed. No one else had thought to design around the businessmen who flies in late, goes to bed and goes to work early (not around the spa and pool crowd).

Use simplicity as a tool. The simpler as the better. Aspire to the "wet-nap interface" of moist towelettes. Just tear open and use.

New trends to check out -- "algorithimic design," and biomimicry

"EDM No-No"

Leslie_Gordon — Thu, 29 May 2008 11:30:00 GMT

A few readers wrote in to MACHINE DESIGN commenting on the mistake I made on my blog item "Artistic EDM". In it, I said that "electrically conductive materials cannot be EDMed." Ovbiously, this is incorrect. As one reader says, "EDM will spark-erode any material that conducts electricity."

Dear readers, thanks for keeping me on my technical toes!

Live from Autodesk World Press Day 2008, San Francisco

Leslie_Gordon — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 16:19:00 GMT

Day one brought announcements about new capabilities in Autodesk's 2009 releases. But all that later.

CEO Carl Bass spoke on trends on CAD. An interesting example, he says, is the bar for engineering and design has been raised by the gorgeous graphics of entertainment industries. Another trend has an increasingly global market ruthlessly commodizing just about everything. And speaking of the global economy, says Bass, about 40 trillion dollars will be spent in global infrastructure in the next few years. China alone is going to build 50 new airports in the next ten years.

How are projects of the scope as the recent replacement and rebuilding of the Bay Bridge managed?

The world's largest self-supporting suspension bridge, the Bay Bridge was kept open while this happened. Drive-through animations were created to show motorists detours. On Labor day 2007, the bridge was closed for three days to replace a huge section. Infrommercial on TV showed animations to motorists. A lot of free press was had because simulations were so compelling. Bay area freeways during that time were almost empty, proving that good communication can affect motorist behavior

Bridge simulations created about 10 years ago created a digital model of the bridge in 3D Studion Max to generate rendered images. The 3D model provides a repository of information.The software incorporates time into the 3D model to communicate complex construction techniques as defined by multiple project schedules. Three major contractors were building in a constricted space and 3D and 4D models let team members work out complex design issues.

More to come...

An outsourcers dream -- Costa Rica

Leslie_Gordon — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 19:16:00 GMT

A few days ago, at the big MD&M 2008 show in Anaheim, Calif., we attended a Roundtable Discussion in which lead medical-manufacturing experts discussed topics such as outsourcing, material innovations, and recent manufacturing trends. Participating experts included Dave Mabie, Atek Medical, Steve Bruner, Nusil, Jerry Hansen, Circle Medical, Tom Black, B. Braun, Jim Klapper, The Lee Co., Bill Welch, Phillips Plastics, and Jennifer Ponti, G&L. Here are some of the interesting comments they made:

When asked about emerging trends, Jerry Hansen first says from a contract manufacturer’s perspective, the medical market is exploding. A big trend has devices that were the size of a toaster now the size of a quarter. He says more OEMs are outsourcing R&D work, which is now considered a variable cost. A big pressure is on to provide what’s called “interim manufacturing,” a way for customers to get mid-range volumes before they move on elsewhere to high-volume production.

Steve Brunner says companies would be wise to keep an open mind about materials such as the new hybrids. Jennifer Ponti agreed and says a lot of newer jobs involve silicon hybrids. She says it will soon be feasible to target materials to specific patients. This is already being done in small groups, i.e., neonatal and women’s health. But make sure materials are established as biocompatible through the FDA, or else your project will get stopped dead in its tracks.

Bill Welch says for quality and data management, ISO 13485 should be in the DNA of every design house. Also important is ISO 14971 for risk management, which comes out of ISO 13485. He adds that implementing ISO standards and complying with the FEA are tickets you need to even get in the door of medical manufacturing. Past that, it’s a relationship-building exercise.

Jim Klapper says another big trend is towards integrated systems. He says companies want to buy a turnkey package, not bits and pieces. He adds the ISO stuff is actually great because now everyone knows what is expected.

Jerry Hansen says companies now want partners that look and act like they do. A new term covers this idea – “insourcing.” This could actually be outsourcing, he says, but the name makes people feel as if they are all in things together. Also, don’t forget that different kinds of businesses might need to do things different ways. For example, there is a big difference between companies selling finite devices that might have thousands of customers compared to companies providing a service that might have eight customers.

It was also mentioned there is now a lot of outsourcing to Ireland because of the tax benefits and an educated labor pool. Another favored place is Costa Rica. It is computerized, has a “tax-favorable manufacturing environment,” and has a less than 5% employee-turnover rate.

Electrochemical grinding, to two-shot molding

Leslie_Gordon — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 12:07:00 GMT

It's day two or is it day three here at the MD&M show in Anaheim Calif. -- jet lag and all the excitement has made me lose all sense of day and time!

There is some pretty amazing and cool new technology on display. Here are just a few examples that caught my eye:

-- Machines from Everite Machine Products in Philadelphia grind and cut difficult materials regardless of their hardness or strength. The machines use an entirely different kind of machining process called electrochemical grinding (ECG). In ECG, the anode is the workpiece and the cathode is the conductive grinding wheel. A continuous stream of electrolyte flows at the interface of the grinding wheel and workpiece and passes the current in the circuit. Since ECG does not rely solely on an abrasive process, the results are precise cuts free of heat, stress, burrs, and mechanical distortions. Good applications include grinding the hole in needles and trocars. Under an electron microscope, it can be seen that abrasive grinding and grit blast deburring does not remove burrs, but rolls them to the inside. ECG, in contrast, shows a perfectly smooth edge.

-- Metrigraphics in Wilmington, Mass. makes microcircuitry in which high-resolution photolithography, thin-film coating, and microminiature 2D and 3D precision electroforming combine for a high density, multilayer flexible circuit with 5-micron traces and spaces. The circuits can be placed in implantable devices for diagnostic imaging, monitoring, and drug administration.

-- Silicon formulations from Saint-Gobain's plastic division allow what is called two-shot molding. Basically, plastic and silicone components can be molded together in one operation.

-- PCB mount pressure sensors from Kavlico Corp. in Morpark, Calif., uses piezo-resistive sensing that lets designers select a standard voltage output device, or alternative digital SPI output. Selecting digital output lets designers eliminate components due to the embedded 10-bit analog-to-digital converter. This saves space, component costs, and reduces power consumption.

-- CMP Global in Barbados, BB, performs what is called pressure diecasting. This injects molten metal into a steel mold under pressure to form a near net shape product. It is a cost-effective way to produce metal parts for large volume production.

-- New packaging machines from RapidPak in Lodi, Wisconsin, do not use air bladders to seal products like traditional machines. Rather, they use a patent-pending method in which servos apply the sealing pressure. This provides a closed loop system because the torques from the servos can be used as process parameters: A too-high torque, for example, lets the system know there is something wrong.

-- A process called rotational molding produces spherical shapes with one piece construction -- there are no bonded seams to come apart. Albert International in Gainsville, Georgia makes things like blood pressure bulbs, in-line pumps, and syringes with this process.

-- Rogan Corp. in Northbrook, Illinois overmolds liquid silicone rubber directly to plastic and metal parts. This works well in applications such as waterproofing complex geometries and electronic interconnects.

The Anaheim Convention Center is not too bad looking, and seeing some sunshine is great. But California is unseasonably cool like most of the rest of the country.

Big trends in the future of CAD

Leslie_Gordon — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 03:23:00 GMT

Day Two: Jeff Ray, CEO of SolidWorks, says the show has so far drawn 4,400 attendees. In the future, he wants to see more sharing between DS technologies and SolidWorks. He says software developers cannot afford to "fall in love with their own technologies." Companies should never think that they own customers. Nobody does. Customers can pick whatever they want whenever they want. Ray also says Latin America is SolidWorks' fastest region of growth, even faster than China.

Also speaking was an electrical systems teacher at Long Beach Community College who has his pre-engineering students design submersible robots in SolidWorks and enter them in robotic competitions. He thinks that human-intensive manufacturing is rapidly disappearing, but we should not be all doom and gloom -- there are plenty of rich opportunities in automation. People are needed to design, build, and install robots, as well as maintain them, for example. He says a recent graduate who knows more than just one thing, say, mechanical, electrical, hydraulics, and pneumatics, have their pick of high-paying jobs.

Ex-CEO and one of the founders of SolidWorks, Jon Hirschtik gave an interesting look CAD's 50-year history. It all started in 1963 with Ivan Sutherland who wrote his M.I.T. thesis on "SketchPad: A Man-Machine Graphical Communication System." Back then, he even discussed the idea of doing structural analysis in CAD and applying constraints to models -- unheard of at the time. Hirschtik says the 1070's brought 3D modeling research at Cambridge University. Research in using B-reps as the basis of CAD was underway. And Alan Grayer and Charles Lang helped write the ACIS and Parasolid kernels. The name "ACIS" came from its developers' initials: Alan Charles Ivan System. The 1970's also brought some of the first commercial applications such as Computer Vision, Cadam, and Applicon, and a Unigraphics CAD-CAM system called "The Total Solution." By the 1980's, second-generation CAD was coming along with CATIA in 1981, AutoCAD in 1983, and Pro/Engineer in 1987. SolidWorks was developed in 1993, and since that time, there have been 16 major releases.

Hirschtik also discussed what he thinks are the big trends in the future of CAD:

Hosted computing -- Applications run on Web sites, not on PCs. Only the Web browser runs locally. This is already being done extensively in other areas (e-mail, online banking, and Google Docs).

Open source -- The source code is open for anyone to change. If they do change it, they must implement the changes in the original code. Current examples include Linux, Apache, MySQL, OpenOffice, Firefox, and Apache.

Video game technology -- Graphics quality, 3D user interfaces, and physical simulations are all things that CAD will exploit more and more in the future.

Touch Interfaces -- Already big with the iPhone, Wii, and 3-axis mouse.

3D printing -- Can only get bigger in the future.

Welcome to my new blog

Leslie_Gordon — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 00:12:00 GMT

This new blog is a continuation of my on-going one, archived here. As mentioned previously, my first love is manufacturing, specifically the shop floor. I moved through the ranks the hard way, in one job, working for a half-crazy, old-world machinist, Frank. His motto: "You shalt NOT make scrap." His was the classic old-fashioned shop -- small, dim, smoky, and permeated with the (sweet) smells of cutting oil. The shop was packed with ancient Browne & Sharpe screw machines that pumped-out parts ranging from simple, aluminum brake components to highly complex and tightly dimensioned heart-lung items made from exceptionally hard material. One complex part required drilling about 10 or 15 tiny holes in exact locations around the top. Each hole had to angle exactly and meet at a central point at the bottom of the part. Frank special ordered the 0.005-in. diameter drills from Switzerland. No other shop could make these parts, including large, so-called modern ones. Read Why designers ought to know about manufacturing.

Later, I worked at a Tier One manufacturer of automotive valves, setting-up and running large progressive-die presses that stamped out valve-train washers and forging presses that smashed heated metal-rod blanks into the initial automotive-valve shape. I also set-up and ran automated finishing cells in which there were several machines including a seater that ground finish seat-dimensions and centerless grinders that ground final stem sizes. Tolerances held were plus or minus 0.0001 in. I put myself through college while working third shift, eventually getting a BA in English. When the Tier One went down the tubes, I attended graduate school, getting a MS in Information Architecture and Knowledge Management at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio. That led to my second love -- computers and computer software, including CAE, CAD, and CAM. I will occasionally try to link to or discuss interesting or cool software in this blog. Let me know if you have a favorite and I'll feature it.