Thu, 20 Jun 2013 06:06:19 GMT <![CDATA[longwellweb.com]]> Thu, 20 Jun 2013 06:06:19 GMT I finally had a chance to spend some quality, one-on-one time with the Infinite Z this past week.  Not the first time I got my hands on the stereoscopic glasses or the 3D stylus, but I notice a distinctly better user experience each time.

While it's fun to see grown men giggling like schoolgirls the first time they see the 3D images and interact with the objects, the question is always "but how can you use it?"  It's a classic chicken or the egg scenario where the technology requires the development of specific applications, but the applications rely on the technology to create value.  To a lesser extent, the same questions were asked about the iPad when it came out.  "Sure, you can touch it, and that's cool.  But, what does it do that is revolutionary?"

My opinion is that time will tell.  The technology is available, and it is up to the application developers to make use of it.  The Apple Ap store didn't fill up until the iPhone had been released for some time, and until then the iPhone had only limited value. 

Ironically, the person least impressed by the technology was my 8 year old friend at work.  He picked up the glasses, took the stylus, and interacted  as if objects were actually on the desktop.  No coaching needed.  It was natural.  On the other hand, several of the older design professionals took some time to realize that this is more than a digital drawing board, and they needed to adjust to the concept of depth and rotation.

The Z

Personally, if I ever lose my sanity again and decide to build a custom house I would hope that this type of technology would be available to me as a review feature.  It would have seriously helped to avoid a few costly mistakes.   

I could also see the application in a high end retail environment.  The level of realism is so great that I could see retailers reducing their physical inventory by augmenting a showroom with a digital catalogue. 

So, aside from being wicked cool, virtual reality is a technology that is ready for an application.  I hope to see more in San Diego in a few weeks.

 

 

]]> <![CDATA[Personal, Desktop Virtual Reality]]> Wed, 01 Feb 2012 04:42:26 GMT

“Rise and shine, everybody. Huh? Zak? Marshall?
Bertie? Uncle Fungus?
Where is everybody? Come on, guys, we're gonna miss the migration.”

 

 

- Syd the Sloth from Ice Age

 

Have you ever noticed that when it actually comes time to migrate your CAD data, you wake up one morning all alone? On one hand, it’s your data. You made it. You allowed it to grow organically into the amorphous amoeba, or set of amoebas, it has become. The structure, integrity, and complexity of the data set is a direct result of a company’s historical design process. This is always the wildcard in the time, complexity, and cost if a successful integration. Realistically, asking a PLM vendor to tell you if your data is a mess is like asking a hospital photographer if your baby is ugly. Unfortunately it is their place to point out inconsistencies, poor practices, and lapses in data discipline. These data disciplines may not have even made strategic sense until you have gone to the precipice of “implementing a system”.


A realistic data migration plan requires a team effort. It needs experts in the actual data as well as independent data experts that know how this type of information is handled in the target system. Given a certain number of records, and qualifying and quantifying those errors will lead to a realistic action plan for sterilizing the data before it is fed to your new system. No matter how sweet that mountain stream looks, it’s still a good idea to use a trusted filtration system... 
A good, lightweight version of one of these audits can be found from Razorleaf…

http://www.razorleaf.com/cadfit


On the other hand, even with the best migration plan, you will never realize exactly what you have stepped into until you’re knee deep. This is where pilot projects, development environments, and staged deployments are crucial. As a general rule, product development cannot stop to accommodate data cleaning and, this is a great opportunity to leverage vendors. 

A few ideas I have to continue this thought in the future are:
·         Fix it up front, or just load the crap?
·         Who is going to use this stuff anyway?
·         Establishing a Realistic Data Migration Plan
·         What’s in a name? “Files” vs. “Items”
·         Data structures… “one of these things is not like the other one”
]]> <![CDATA[Come on guys, We're gonna miss the migration!]]> Mon, 05 Sep 2011 04:07:37 GMT With the start of affordable 3D CAD applications on the desktop there was a lot of talk about using digital information at end use manufacturing. It was exciting. The term “the paperless shop floor” was coined and the benefits were naively touted despite the fact that the technology wasn’t quite there.
While it was true that the documents could be viewed digitally, and even in some cases marked up, but there wasn’t a comprehensive deployment plan in place to do everything that paper provides now. So I guess the question is: Why do we love paper? 
Over the years I have worked with top notch manufacturing associates, and I asked a few of them what the love affair with paper is all about. At a start up, high tech manufacturing facility, these folks represent a dynamic new type of workforce. While it’s natural for people to resist change, this group is quick to adopt new methods, incessantly looks for process improvements, and is committed to develop the highest quality manufacturing solution. Here are a few allegorical scenarios about paper on the floor.
]]> <![CDATA[The Digital shop floor takes one step closer to reality…]]> Wed, 27 Apr 2011 08:39:56 GMT ·        Ease of Mark-up: I believe in Daniel Pink’s assertation that today’s workforce is driven by providing a quality output. As such, manufacturing operators often go out of their way to make notations about the most successful way to perform operations and propagate those ideas. Relying on strictly digital sources limits the manufacturing operator’s capacity to pass on lessons they have learned and mitigates their essential contribution to the process.
·        Portability: You can’t take a computer terminal with you. Computers are limited in many shops, and in most cases they are stationary. Printed paper drawings allow users to take the information with them to perform tasks in areas that are inconvenient to the grid.  
·        Availability: A shop may have one computer to many technicians, and a resource allocation issue is always eminent. Clear direction for each individual needs to be addressed for every shift in order for digital deployment to be successful. A desirable workforce that WANTS to work is hesitant to wait around for documentation, and will proceed with information that was provided previously.  
·        The “Check off” factor: Frankly, it can be hard to make impromptu marks on digital documents. In the scenario of an electronics technician manually terminating an electrical harness, he will naturally want to check off the leads as he addresses them. The same idea applies to torque specifications, and incoming quality documentation. 
]]> <![CDATA[Why do we love paper?]]> Wed, 27 Apr 2011 08:38:48 GMT It is my pragmatic opinion that a digital shop floor is an all-or-nothing proposition. If you provide digital documentation, you must provide an avenue for input from the manufacturing personnel. If you provide an input from manufacturing personnel, you must then provide a status update on the input. At the end of the day, engineers would have to spend more time on the floor to anticipate operator’s needs and realign their output to match it. 
Mobile PLM is certainly a stepping stone towards a digital shop floor. Compared to laptop computers, mobile devices have superior battery life, and are extremely portable, affordable, and robust.   However, there are issues left to be considered by vendors. Some technologies focus on the BOM and the items, and others focus on the digital rendering. None that I have seen have an avenue for feedback.
It seems that the digital shop may be looming, but there continues to be a tangible disconnect. To close this gap, Engineering and Manufacturing will have to develop their process in synchronicity and information will have to flow freely in both directions. Now that the technology is in view, it may be time to look at the cultural inhibitors. 
]]> <![CDATA[All-or-nothing?]]> Wed, 27 Apr 2011 08:33:46 GMT If you are like most engineers you have endless lists in Excel of a PLM system that describe parts and attributes. Where is it sourced? How much does it weigh? Is it pending a design change? What is the release status? Who designed it? While Excel is great for a lot of things, it only describes objects. It doesn’t show you where it exists in space, how big it is, or how it interacts with the parts around it. 
Realistically, a list is just a grouping of items and looking at them linearly can realistically lose a lot contextually. Trying to treat everything in an identical way is great for process, but looking at realistic representations of the parts enables value judgments. 
For example, imagine an engineer leaves the group, and his workload needs to be reassigned. It’s easy to query a data vault to get a list of his parts, but searching the CAD data for the “Drawn By” meta property will show the actual parts.  This makes intuitive choices easier in terms of prioritizing or reassigning design responsibility.  In composer you can reassign the meta properties, rerun the query, and effectively check off your list in a visually meaningful manner. 
Query
While a query, show with ghost is useful, another suggestion is to select the geometry in question and change the property that the dynamic tool tip displays. This lets you interrogate the attributes just by hovering over the actors. 
A couple other ideas are:
Query for parts released since a certain date. This could be a great way to highlight notification for changed parts to the manufacturing floor. 

Imagine engineering is putting together a prototype assembly using parts from multiple sources. By changing the visual attributes for parts as they are received it will become obvious when enough of the necessary parts have arrived to start building some of the sub-systems. A list can show that a part is missing, but it doesn’t tell you if the part is actually important. 

]]> <![CDATA[Who needs Excel when you have 3Dvia composer?]]> Tue, 15 Feb 2011 10:10:16 GMT It’s hard to believe that this is only my 3rd SolidWorks World, but someone had to stay home and answer the phones. This year, I’m glad that’s not me. Year one (2008) I was with a VAR, Year two I was a SWUG leader (2010), and this year I’m attending as a Presenter, CSWP, SWUG leader, and adding blogger to the list. Apparently I need to learn how to say “no”.

 

I’m not a sports fan, but Software Convention coverage always reminds me of the hype leading up to the Super Bowl, so I may as well throw out my speculations now so I’m not accused of playing Monday morning quarterback. Of course last year’s big announcement was about SolidWorks on the cloud. Of course we will see and hear more about that, but I think that will be overshadowed by, to quote Al Dean from Develop3d , the “Dassaultification” of the brand Millions of designers have grown to love over the last 14 years. Change is scary, but thirteen years ago people said that CAD will never run on a desktop, and look where we are now. Something people neglect to realize is that the VAR channel was highly instrumental in the success and growth of the product by providing strong local Technical Support, Training, and Service. I don’t see that channel going anywhere, and I can still count on someone that I have a relationship with answering the phone when I call.

 

The questions I will be looking to answer this year are subtler. First of all, there are a lot of SolidWorks customers with three to five seats. These people still collaborate, and generate data that needs to be shared and managed. Many are using PDMWorkgroup, and it still fits their needs. There are even more groups that aren’t using it, but should be. I hope to learn more about a solution for this group, and maybe even a migration plan.

 

The next thing I’m curious about is totally uncharacteristic for me. I rarely talk about simulation, because frankly, I’m just not smart enough to understand its subtle mathematical nuances. However, as SolidWorks and V6 get a bit more comfortable with each other, what does this do to the Dassault simulation offerings? Will SolidWorks simulation go the way of the Pontiac?

 

Of course one of my favorite parts of SolidWorks World is the partner pavilion. These smaller, nimble software companies change more in the span of a year than even a release of SolidWorks. New technology pops up every year, and the partner pavilion is a great incubator to showcase software concepts.

]]> <![CDATA[SolidWorks World 2011 Pre-Game]]> Sat, 22 Jan 2011 05:29:33 GMT Before anyone gets their panties in a bundle, let me clarify that I'm not suggesting you ditch your CAD system and jump to a competitor. Instead, I'm suggesting that you participate in the co-development programs that your current vendor probably already offers.  
 
Advances in outward facing CRM technology is making it easier for companies to solicit input from their customer base, track trends in demand, and plan development projects that more closely align with what the industry is asking for. The days of pouring over individual enhancement requests are ending, and data trend tracking is going to allow companies to respond more quickly to industry demands.
 
A great example of this trend is the annual SolidWorks Top 10 enhancement request site. Users are given a forum to enter their ideas to make the software better, and then given points to vote on the ideas. These suggestions are reviewed at SolidWorks World every year, and it is a powerful platform to get visibility for new ideas. 
 
However, with power comes responsibility. These programs are only as effective as the collaborators are cooperative. Over the last few years the lists have been populated with suggestions that could probably be considered complaints rather than truly innovative new ideas. I think we can all agree that "make the software more stable" is already on the radar for development companies, and as a contributing body we shouldn't waste our votes to support those types of ideas. Instead, the program would be more useful if we commit to supporting great NEW ideas. This would allow innovation to filter to the top of the list, and it would give developers more actionable suggestions to make their products great. 
 
For example, check out one of my little ideas...   I'm a huge fan of "selective open" in large SolidWorks assemblies. However, I have an attention span shorter than most, and I dislike picking parts from the graphics window. I have noticed that I can select parts from the feature tree, but that annoys me when I'm opening an assembly whose structure I'm unfamiliar with. I am in the habit of looking at an assembly in the Treehouse structure before I open it in SW, and in that case I already know which files I want to load and which I don't want to bother with. 
 
So, my suggestion would be to design selective open for SolidWorks assemblies from a list of file names or attributes. (opening the files from the treehouse environment would be even better, but we can start small) The PLM implications of this would be significant, and there are a lot of cases where this could significantly improve workflow. 
 
If you like my idea, vote for it. (Yes, you will have to log in, and No, you don’t have to be a SolidWorks subscription customer.) If you don't understand what I'm asking for, vote for it anyway. Trust me, it's an innovation. If you don't like the idea, at least log in and vote down some of the habitual naysayers to facilitate spirit of the collaborative development process. 
]]> <![CDATA[Don't like your CAD software? Change it!]]> Sat, 01 Jan 2011 04:36:25 GMT I just read an article by Oleg Shilovitsky about the weight of data management as a factor in the choice of CAD packages. I couldn’t agree more that modern organizations are moving towards a more holistic view of engineering software that encompasses planning for downstream applications. Even in small and medium sized companies CAD choices are no longer simply about content generation, but marketing, sales, purchasing, and manufacturing are all getting a voice. 

Companies tend to use Enovia with Catia, and TeamCenter with NX. Considering that SolidWorks sold their Millionth seat last year, the question is obvious to ask what is the natural PLM tool for a SolidWorks based company. SolidWorks Enterprise PDM is the natural choice for engineering data management, but the challenge over the next few years will be to take the information to other arenas. Enterprise PDM is still a CAD focused system where the BOM structure reflects the engineering data structure.   It doesn’t have a lightweight file format, and BOM configurability is still handled within a SolidWorks Assembly. (Stay tuned for thoughts on using 3DVia for product mock up and configurability…)

Over the last 10 years a lot of companies have grown up with SolidWorks. They began using SolidWorks as a small design organization, and as they grew to large corporations their data needs grew as well.  The SolidWorks market for full blown PLM is so wide open that even Siemens’ has a SolidWorks Add in for Teamcenter.   That’s not to mention the emerging opportunity for smaller companies with growth goals to start using cloud based data tools earlier in their technology roadmap.
Interestingly, on their website, SolidWorks lists 67 partner products dealing with PDM, 15 of which are gold partners. There must be something missing from the native SolidWorks product line up to support an entire micro industry to that scale. I think I will be quite busy at the partner pavilion at SolidWorks world this year. I wonder if Siemens will be there…
]]> <![CDATA[The SolidWorks PLM Question]]> Sun, 28 Nov 2010 09:28:39 GMT My conversation with Asheen Phansey from SolidWorks this past week has made me think a lot about the fairly arbitrary nature of Product Design. As Product Engineers, we are taught to develop a technical specification, and design a viable solution to the problem. The creative nature of a product designer is naturally drawn to the most elegant solution. We seek the perfect dynamic of function and aesthetic, and maybe there is a function of Ego that drives us to want our design to last forever and be ultimately durable.  We have all seen the scenario where a part requires a specific functional design, but the material for that specific part doesn’t matter as long as it meets the requirements. 
It has become an accepted part of product design that we alter our “ideal design” for reasons such as cost competitiveness, manufacturing, marketing, and even packaging. Do we really want more constraints placed on our creative license? Is adding design for sustainability just putting another seat at the design review table?  Maybe, but the aspect of environmental impact is there whether we choose to acknowledge it or not. Design for sustainability is not a new constraint, but rather a tangible concern that we are only now developing easy to use tools to quantify. It’s hard for Product Designers to admit that the products we design do have a “lifecycle”, but the resources used in their production are undeniable.  
Used upstream, I think all engineers will agree that having more information is always better than having less. SolidWorks Sustainability realistically gives us another powerful data point to make better choices. The interface is simple, the algorithm runs quickly, and it is easy to run scenarios to optimize the environmental impact of design choices. 
One of the problems with environmental initiatives is that they take a champion and discipline to carry through on. Social responsibility is a function of leadership, and can’t be left to the conglomerate. Saying “We should recycle in the cafeteria” is easy, but putting the function in place takes action. On the design side, I think that action step means officially integrating an environmental impact analysis into the change flow process. 
If you are currently using SolidWorks for your designs, I would suggest you visit your reseller with a copy of your product data. Run a few scenarios with your design, and I guarantee you will learn to look at environmental impact in a fresh new way. 
]]> <![CDATA[All things being equal, wouldn’t you develop a Greener product?]]> Sun, 21 Nov 2010 02:20:21 GMT