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Mcity test concept assesses driverless vehicle safety before they take on public roads: Rebuilding consumer confidence after crash deaths

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Bruce Jenkins | Ora Research

Mcity at the University of Michigan has outlined a test-track-based concept for evaluating the safety of highly automated vehicles before they’re tested on public roads that could emerge as a model for a voluntary standard for safety testing. Mcity is a public-private partnership led by U-M to accelerate advanced mobility vehicles and technologies.

Mcity’s mission is “driving the future of mobility.” In 2014 the University of Michigan launched Mcity as an “advanced mobility research center…to cultivate the diverse expertise and resources required to realize the potential of emerging mobility technologies, and their commercial and economic viability.” Mcity describes itself as “leading the transition to a new world of connected and automated vehicles. Our work goes beyond technology and considers all aspects of the future of transportation and mobility.”

Test track project comes after two highly publicized autonomous-vehicle fatalities stoked consumer fears about safety of driverless vehicles

The new test track project comes after two highly publicized autonomous-vehicle fatalities stoked consumer fears about the safety of driverless vehicles, and slowed development of these technologies “that have the potential to save lives, conserve energy and expand accessibility to transportation,” Mcity said. The Mcity ABC Test concept would create an independent safety assessment for highly automated vehicles (HAVs). It would be a key element in a three-pronged approach to HAV testing, along with simulation and on-road evaluation.

“Highly automated vehicles must be developed in a responsible way to fully realize their promise as a useful tool that will benefit society,” said Mcity Director Huei Peng, the Roger L. McCarthy Professor of

Mechanical Engineering at U-M, who is leading the Mcity ABC Test project. “The Mcity ABC Test is an approach that can help rebuild public trust and accelerate the development of these potentially life-changing vehicles.”

The crash of an Uber Level-4 automated vehicle prototype in March 2018 killed a woman as she was crossing a street in Arizona when the car’s sensors failed to detect her. A Level-4 vehicle can drive itself without human intervention. Five days later, a man was killed on a California highway when the Level-2 automated Tesla car he was driving using Tesla’s “Autopilot” highway assist system failed to notice the driver’s inattention and did not turn off or disable the technology. Instead, the car crashed into a roadside barrier and caught fire. In a Level-2 vehicle, the driver is expected to pay attention at all times and take over driving when necessary.

Recent surveys by groups including JD Power found that as many as half or more of U.S. consumers are concerned about the safety of driverless vehicles.

ABC test: Accelerated evaluation, Behavior competence, Corner cases

The ABCs of the three-part test include “Accelerated evaluation, Behavior competence and Corner cases.”

Accelerated evaluation concentrates on the most common risky driving situations. Behavior competence puts vehicles through a set of scenarios that correspond to major motor vehicle crash frequency. Drawing from a variety of sources, Mcity compiled a list of 50 such scenarios, of which 35 were chosen for near-term focus, including 16 scenarios for low-speed, path-following Level-4 vehicles. Corner-case testing focuses on situations that test the limits of automated vehicle performance and technology.

Mcity researchers are working on executing the Mcity ABC Test beginning with three accelerated evaluation behaviors, and the 16 behavior competence scenarios for low-speed Level-4 vehicles, such as the driverless shuttles Mcity is operating on U-M’s North Campus. Mcity will pursue funding support needed to prove the Mcity ABC Test concept.

Researchers are developing the ABC test concept using the Mcity Test Facility, U-M’s controlled, real-world environment for testing connected and automated vehicles. The ABC test could be scaled for larger test facilities as well, such as the American Center for Mobility in Ypsilanti Township, Mich. U-M is a founding partner of ACM.

Access the white paper

A comprehensive white paper outlining the crucial need that inspired the Mcity ABC Test protocol, along with specific test components, was released January 15, 2019 at the AutoMobil-D symposium at the North American International Auto Show at Cobo Center: “Mcity ABC Test: A Concept to Assess the Safety Performance of Highly Automated Vehicles”.

Mcity

American Center for Mobility

U-M Transportation Research Institute

In, April Engineering Leaders Will Gather at COFES to Look at Technology Convergence

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The Congress on the Future of Engineering Software has a new home in 2019. Just in time for its 20th anniversary, the even will move from Scottsdale, Ariz., to Menlo Park, Calif., the heart of Silicon Valley.

The conference is think-tank event where those involved with engineering technology industry come together to discuss best practices, share ideas for managing change, and find strategies to achieve financial success. This year, the event takes place April 7 to 9.

It’s relocation is obviously no accident.

“With this move, we’re showing that engineering software is moving into the future of more high technology products,” said Jim Brown, president of engineering consulting firm Tech-Clarity and a member of the COFES Institute board of directors. The institute provides leadership for COFES.

The meeting this year includes subjects like CAD and PLM software, but also addresses new methods of engineering design as well as new technologies making their way into the engineering realm.

“There’s so much convergence of new technologies like artificial intelligence, IoT, connected products and 3D printing  that are starting to come into the design world for things like generative design,” Brown said. “It’s kind of up to as the engineering software community to come together as users of the software and as the academics and industry thought leaders and software vendors to put our heads together to figure out how we can do more with these technologies.”

To illustrate the changes the engineering field has recently experienced, Brown pointed to the shift from products, like automobiles, that had previously been strictly mechanical in nature, to items that now commonly include mechanical, electrical, and even software systems.

“Now a car is trying to schedule your service appointments and soon as part of smart city initiatives it will be communicating with other cars and with traffic lights,” Brown said. “Our tools, our mindsets have to change. The engineering software community is excited for these changes, but we need to determine how to react to them and how to support them.”

For nearly two decades, COFES had been owned and run by Cyon Research. It recently moved to operating as a nonprofit.

Last week, conference leaders announced that Microsoft will deliver a keynote on the COFES 2019 theme of technology convergence—the pairing of two or more technologies in a single device–from a software perspective.

The trend of convergence creates new challenges and opportunities for any company developing software solutions for design and manufacturing.

Microsoft leaders will share their insights regarding the possibilities the cloud can bring to companies for competitive advantages when it comes to software solutions for design and manufacturing, said Diego Tamburini, Microsoft principal industry lead, cloud for engineering and manufacturing

The need to effectively design in this new reality will become increasingly more important, he said. While companies are dealing with convergence with brute force, the software tools do not exist yet to manage the expanded, evolving design process, he added.

Microsoft’s keynote is titled “What Does the Manufacturer of the Future Look Like? A Microsoft Perspective.”

Keeping up with the COFES theme of convergence, Microsoft will share thought leadership in the areas of connected products, connected services, factory of the future, intelligent supply chains, and the strategic trends that Microsoft is witnessing and their vision of a cloud-enabled marketplace of solutions enabling best-in-class solutions that work together, Tamburini said.

 

 

 

 

 

Khronos Group Releases Provisional Standard for AR and VR Devices

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The Khronos Group of Beaverton, Ore., an open consortium of leading hardware and software companies that come together to create advanced acceleration standards, has released the OpenXR 0.90 provisional specification. OpenXR is a unifying, royalty-free, open standard that provides high-performance access to augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR)— collectively known as XR—platforms and devices.

The new specification can be found on the Khronos website and is released in provisional form to enable developers and implementers to provide feedback at the OpenXR forum.

The OpenXR 0.90 provisional release specifies a cross-platform application programming interface (API) that enables XR hardware platform vendors to expose the functionality of their runtime systems. By accessing a common set of objects and functions corresponding to application lifecycle, rendering, tracking, frame timing, and input, which are frustratingly different across existing vendor-specific APIs, software developers can run their applications across multiple XR systems with minimal porting effort—significantly reducing industry fragmentation, said Brent Insko, lead VR architect at Intel and the OpenXR working group chair.

The Khronos OpenXR working group was formed in early 2017 with the support and participation of leading XR companies. Throughout the development of the specification, multiple Khronos members have been developing independent implementations to ensure a robust and complete specification. Many of these implementations are becoming available for developers to evaluate including the Monado OpenXR open source implementation from Collabora, and the OpenXR runtime for Windows mixed reality headsets from Microsoft. Also, the Unreal Engine from Epic plans to continue to support OpenXR.

“OpenXR seeks to simplify AR/VR software development, enabling applications to reach a wider array of hardware platforms without having to port or re-write their code and subsequently allowing platform vendors supporting OpenXR access to more applications,” Insko said “The OpenXR provisional specification—together with the runtimes publicly available at launch and coming in the next few weeks—will enable hands-on, cross-platform testing by application and engine developers.

“The working group welcomes developer feedback to ensure an OpenXR 1.0 specification that truly meets the needs of the XR industry,” he said.

Added Nandan Nayampally, vice president and general manager, client line of business at the semiconductor and software company Arm:

“It is significant when so many key players in the industry come together to create an open standard like OpenXR. We look forward to seeing adoption of the new standard, and believe that reducing barriers for cross-platform XR applications accelerates growth, innovation, and diversity in the VR and AR industry.”

Philippe Kalaf, chief executive officer at Collabora said his company was dedicated to royalty-free open standards and open source technologies. He also spoke about Monado, an open-source implementation of the OpenXR spec.

“Monado is an open-source project and codebase to harness and focus wider community effort around XR technologies,” he said. “Collabora plans to provide the technical foundation and industry leadership to accelerate the development and deployment of XR technologies on Linux while providing XR device vendors the choice to use and contribute to a Linux-based platform for their XR products.”

Microsoft also offered feedback on the new standard.

“Microsoft believes that for mixed reality to thrive, it must be open for everyone: open stores, open browsers and open developer platforms. We’re dedicated to supporting the launch of OpenXR this year on Windows Mixed Reality and HoloLens 2,” said Alex Kipman, technical fellow at Microsoft.

The Khronos Group is an open industry consortium of over 140 leading hardware and software companies creating advanced, royalty-free, acceleration standards for 3D graphics, augmented and virtual reality, vision and machine learning. Khronos standards include Vulkan, OpenGL, OpenGL ES, OpenGL SC, WebGL, SPIR-V, OpenCL, SYCL, OpenVX, NNEF, COLLADA, OpenXR and glTF.

Khronos members are enabled to contribute to the development of Khronos specifications and to vote at various stages before public deployment. They are able to accelerate the delivery of their platforms and applications through early access to specification drafts.

 

Maple 2019 strengthens core math capabilities

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Maplesoft announced a new release of Maple, the mathematical software that makes it  easy to analyze, explore, visualize, and solve math problems. Maple 2019 includes  improvements to its mathematical engine for both core routines and specialized tools. The release also provides advances to the Maple programming language, more education tools, new visualizations, and other improvements for the mathematicians, educators, students, engineers, and scientists who use it.

Improvements include:

–Hundreds of improvements to core functionality, such as solving equations, integration, factoring, and differential equations
–Increasing the ease in finding symbolic solutions to partial differential equations, including new methods that solve new classes of problems, more flexibility in choosing the methods to try, and improved simplification of the results
–Significant work to strengthen, consolidate, and polish Maple’s support for tensor computations, with support for classical and quantum mechanics, special and general relativity, and standard tensor notation for input and output
–More group theory tools for constructing, computing with, and visualizing more groups, along with significant performance improvements
–More signal processing, including new algorithms, manipulation tools, and visualization techniques
–A comprehensive, easy-to-use environment for the parallel computation of the electronic energies and properties of molecules, available in the new add-on product, the Maple Quantum Chemistry Toolbox from RDMChem

Maple 2019 also includes a variety of improvements in other areas, such as enhancements to the Maple programming language that help customers write more efficient code, a  redesigned start page that makes it even easier for new users to become productive quickly, new visualizations for analyzing data, and additional interactive Math Apps that support teaching and learning key concepts of computer science.

Maplesoft
www.maplesoft.com/products/maple/new_features

 

ModelCenter MBSE for PTC Integrity Modeler: Validate system behavior & performance using any software application

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Bruce Jenkins | Ora Research

Continuing the industry-wide surge to make software for model-based systems engineering vastly more usable and practical, Phoenix Integration unveiled release 1.0.1 of its ModelCenter MBSE for PTC Integrity Modeler. The new product is the first to utilize Phoenix Integration’s next-generation MBSE integration platform, ModelCenter MBSE.

PTC says its Integrity Modeler SySim software “helps your systems, software and product line engineers create consistent, high-quality models to communicate requirements, consider design alternatives and make good trade-off decisions. By leading them through appropriate industry standards and automating repetitive tasks, it reduces time and effort. It also simplifies the design process and helps find potential problems much earlier.”

Closing “the disconnect between systems engineers and engineering analysts that prevents MBSE from achieving its full potential”

Model-based systems engineering (MBSE), Phoenix Integration notes, is “an emerging and powerful methodology for designing complex systems. A key aspect of MBSE is the use of a systems architecture model (SAM) as a single source of truth for describing the evolving system design throughout its product lifecycle. By aligning people, processes and technology around a single vision of a product, MBSE promises to dramatically reduce the development cost and risk of complex systems. The challenge is the disconnect between systems engineers and engineering analysts that prevents MBSE from achieving its full potential.”

To remedy this, ModelCenter MBSE 1.0.1 for PTC Integrity Modeler allows engineers to “validate system behavior and performance using any software application,” according to Phoenix Integration:

  • Connect any software application to PTC Integrity Modeler’s system models:
    • COTS tools such as Excel, MATLAB and Simulink.
    • CAE tools such as HyperWorks, NASTRAN, ABAQUS and ANSYS.
    • CAD tools such as Creo, NX, CATIA V5 and SolidWorks.
    • Legacy FORTRAN or C++ applications.
    • Python, Java and VB scripts.
    • Databases and PDM/PLM solutions.
    • Almost anything else.
  • Run the connected simulation directly from PTC Integrity Modeler’s unique SySim:
    • Graphical functional co-simulation.
    • Direct interaction with simulation parameters.
    • Record simulation results with optional model import.
  • Validate system behavior and performance early in the lifecycle.
  • Close the simulation loop, comparing models with the real world.

“Unique and powerful ability to validate system behavior and performance early in the lifecycle using any executable model”

PTC vice president of product management Hedley Apperly said, “The integration of Integrity Modeler 9.0 and its SySim with ModelCenter gives our customers a unique and powerful ability to validate system behavior and performance early in the lifecycle using any executable model. This will help Integrity Modeler customers to reduce costs and design better products.”

Phoenix Integration director of technical business development Scott Ragon said, “We’re very pleased to partner with PTC to bring our ModelCenter MBSE integration technology to Integrity Modeler. We look forward to continuing our collaboration with PTC and working with them to provide our customers with innovative modeling and simulation products.”

Phoenix Integration

Phoenix Integration characterizes its ModelCenter as “the environment for model-based engineering.” ModelCenter is a “vendor-neutral software framework for creating and automating multi-tool workflows, optimizing product designs and enabling model-based systems engineering. It is used by leading organizations worldwide to reduce development costs, improve engineering efficiency, stimulate innovation and design more competitive products. Successful applications can be found in multiple industries including aerospace, automotive, defense, electronics, energy, heavy industry and shipbuilding.”

ModelCenter MBSE for PTC Integrity Modeler

Phoenix Integration

PTC Integrity Modeler

SolidWorks Partners with 3-D Printer Rize for Immediate Additive Manufacturing

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SolidWorks and Rize Inc., a maker of 3-D printing technology have joined to integrate the CAD software with Rize’s additive manufacturing capabilities. The companies announced their business partnership at SolidWorks World held in Dallas in February.

The SolidWorks CAD software will now feature a 3-D print add-in from Rize Inc. The feature will streamline 3D printing and make use of of Rize’s augmented polymer deposition (APD) technology, which does not produce harmful emissions and makes use of safe and recyclable materials, says Andy Kalambi, Rize chief executive officer.

Users of the SolidWorks CAD system can download the feature from the Rize website. After it’s been installed, SolidWorks users can select a “Rize 3D Print” option that transfers their CAD files to the Rize platform. The model will then be automatically pre-processed to  be ready for 3D printing. This reduces the time designers spend performing pre-processing and post-processing for their models, Kalambi says.

A Rize add-in for SolidWorks allows CAD users to print their designs in 3-D at the touch of a digital button.

Post processing can account for 80 percent of the costs of creating a part via additive manufacturing, he adds.

The collaboration came about because Dassault Systèmes, which owns SolidWorks, recognizes the importance of 3-D printing to the CAD and engineering community, says Gian Paolo Bassi, chief executive officer of SolidWorks.

“Printing like this is beginning to replace not only what we manufacture but the way we design and the way we work,” he says. “And wherever there is a 3-D printer there must be a design tool.

“Now we’re going to fine-tune the design process to work perfectly for 3-D printing,” Bassi adds. “Another important part of this partnership is that we can now move 3-D printing closer to the design experience.”

The partnership will allow more designers to make use of additive manufacturing, Kalambi says.

“We want to make 3D printing inclusive so anyone who wants to can use it to produce real industrial parts, not parts for play,” he says. “We want to drive sustainable innovation, which means being totally compliant with environmental standards.

“As an industry, 3-D printing has done a lot in terms of bringing new productivity to engineering, so engineers can reduce the costs and time spent making parts,” he says.

The partners hope to cut post-processing costs and to make additive manufacturing a “one-touch operation” that will allow engineers to launch a part within the SolidWorks system, manufacture it, and pick that part up from the printer within a short period of time.

“The capability to do this drives innovation. Engineers can iterate much more quickly and improve the product quality and the speed at which the product is developed,” Kalambi says.

As part of the partnership, every Rize One 3-D printer purchased will include a coupon redeemable for a SolidWorks license, he adds.

 

 

 

 

enGits: Task-specific CFD software and services

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Bruce Jenkins | Ora Research

enGits GmbH is a highly specialized software developer and engineering service provider based in the town of Todtnau in Germany’s Black Forest, with more than 20 years’ experience in developing and applying simulation technology, especially in the field of CFD. enGits describes itself as a “competent partner for engineering simulation solutions. Our main strength is the field of fluid dynamics, but we are also often confronted with problems from different fields. Our applications range from ventilation in tunnels and the oil-and-gas industry all the way to space applications.”

“Software-independent consultancy”

enGits offers what it terms “software-independent consultancy, because we do not believe in one perfect software which fits all problems.” The company explains its philosophy and business approach: “Several good open-source tools exist which enable you to work very cost-effectively. Open-source also enables to tackle certain very specific problems by customizing the software. On the other hand, there are also good proprietary packages which, in many cases, might be the better choice. We use simulation software on a case-by-case basis and we can help you to choose the best software for your task.”

A significant part of enGit’s work “deals with very specific CFD tasks. Usually, these are task which cannot be solved easily with existing off-the-shelf software solutions. The picture below tries to give an impression of such a complex simulation. In this specific case, acoustic loads on the payload fairing of a launch vehicle had to be computed.”

Simulation of acoustic loads on payload fairing of a space launch vehicle.

enGrid: Open-source mesh generation software

At the same time, enGit offers two off-the-shelf software products. One, called enGrid, is open-source mesh generation code for CFD applications. enGrid uses an “in-house development for surface meshing and prismatic boundary layers,” the company says, with a module for hex far-fields planned for the next release. Tetrahedral parts of the mesh are created by calling the Netgen library. Internally, enGrid uses the VTK data structures as well as the *.vtu file format.

Currently enGrid has interfaces to Blender, Gmsh, STL and several other file formats. Gmsh can be used to import STEP and IGES files, and can also be used for simple geometry modeling. Since its 1.2 release, enGrid has provided native export to OpenFOAM, and since release 1.4 to SU2. This includes export capabilities for complete OpenFOAM cases including boundary conditions, as well as support for polyhedral cells. enGrid is released under the GPL, and is a useful addition to the open-source CFD community.

DrNUM: CFD code based on dual-resolution numerics

enGit’s other software product is DrNUM, a CFD code first introduced to the public in 2013 based on a technology called dual-resolution numerics. In contrast to the traditional CFD modeling techniques of either structured or unstructured grid, dual-resolution meshes consist of a set of super-elements with a very simple internal structure. These super-elements are called patches in the DrNUM internal terminology. Patches can be placed in freely overlapping arrangements, and constitute the actual computational grid. The company explains that dual-resolution grids “can be regarded as unstructured grids of super-elements (coarse resolution layer); each super-element, or patch, consists of a highly resolved grid portion which represents the real numerical mesh.”

Large-eddy simulation of pollutant dispersion (approximately 100 million cells) in DrNUM.

At present, DrNUM supports only Cartesian super-elements. The company’s goal for DrNUM is to “achieve an optimal combination of high numerical and algorithmic efficiency within the super-elements, while keeping geometric flexibility on a higher level. This method is thus well suited to run on modern, massively parallel computing devices (e.g., GPUs). It allows processing of flow simulations on the order of dozens of millions of cells on classical single-node desktop computers.”

DrNUM is being developed jointly by enGits GmbH and numrax GmbH, a scientific and engineering organization based in Duisburg, Germany with roots in the local university that specializes in numerical methods for engineering, fluid dynamics, hydrodynamics, aeronautics, energy systems and high-performance computing. A first commercial version of DrNUM will be released in the near future, enGits says.

enGits

numrax

Dassault Systèmes: Many Systems (Including ERP), One Platform

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In a recent post, we detailed SolidWorks’ recently unveiled 3DExperience.Works portfolio, which brings together cross-industry applications on one platform, called the 3DExperience platform. That platform was created after Dassault Systèmes (which owns SolidWorks) acquired IQMS, an enterprise resource planning software company, late last year.

We’ll give a bit more background on IQMS and what the integration means for SolidWorks.

IQMS develops both its ERP and its manufacturing execution systems (MES) for the automotive, medical, packaging, consumer goods and other markets.

Now its software products have been renamed Delmia.Works, or, alternately, Delmia, powered by the 3DExperience platform. The company’s offerings are aimed at mid-market manufacturers.

The acquisition takes Dassault Systèmes’ offerings from design to business and manufacturing processes, said Manish Kumar, Dassault Systèmes’ vice president for SolidWorks research and design.

“This seamless business loop brings IQMS and SolidWorks together,” he said. “Before, they inhabited two separate worlds that didn’t talk together. Now, everything is being driven by the 3DExperience platform. Everything is connected.”

In fact, SolidWorks World, held in February 2019 in Dallas, is to be renamed 3DExperience World and will be held in 2020 in Nashville.

 

Dassault Systèmes’ recently announced the acquisition of manufacturing software maker IQMS.

In 2013, IQMS announced integration with SolidWorks. The acquisition takes that integration even further by targeting midsize manufacturers who are SolidWorks customers. Those customers will now be able to carry out both manufacturing (ERP) and engineering processes on the same, integrated, software platform.

“We must no longer think of industry as a set of means of production, but as a process of value creation,” said Bernard Charlès, chief executive officer at Dassault Système. “This applies not only to disruptive startups and established corporations, but also to the hundreds of thousands of mainstream manufacturers that produce parts integral to the development of new consumer experiences.”

Today’s manufacturing ERP mid-market is estimated at $5 billion, with a 7 to 8 percent annual growth rate through 2023, according to Charlès.

The world’s 250,000 small and midsized manufacturers must adopt and optimize new ways of producing and doing business through digital transformation in order to innovate and accelerate their growth in an increasingly competitive, global marketplace, he said.

“For years, our business has been committed to maximizing our manufacturing customers’ success by delivering a comprehensive manufacturing ERP system built specifically for the mid-market manufacturers,” said Gary Nemmers, chief executive officer at IQMS. “As part of Dassault Systèmes, we can take the next steps in providing customers with new approaches to achieving operational efficiency and effectiveness and do so with a global reach.”

IQMS’s solutions are used by 1,000 customers based primarily in the United States whose 2,000 manufacturing facilities in 20 countries produce for the automotive, industrial equipment, medical device, consumer goods, and consumer packaged goods industries, he said.

In a recent post, we detailed SolidWorks’ recently unveiled 3DExperience.Works portfolio, which brings together cross-industry applications on one platform, called the 3DExperience platform. That platform was created after Dassault Systèmes (which owns SolidWorks) acquired IQMS, an enterprise resource planning software company, late last year.

IQMS develops both its ERP and its manufacturing execution systems (MES) for the automotive, medical, packaging, consumer goods and other markets.

The company’s offerings are aimed at mid-market manufacturers and its software products have been renamed Delmia.Works, or, alternately, Delmia, powered by the 3DExperience platform.

The acquisition takes Dassault Systèmes’ offerings from design to business and manufacturing processes, said Manish Kumar, Dassault Systèmes’ vice president for SolidWorks research and design.

In 2013, IQMS announced integration with SolidWorks. The acquisition takes that integration even further by targeting midsize manufacturers who are SolidWorks customers. Those customers will now be able to carry out both manufacturing (ERP) and engineering processes on the same, integrated, software platform.

It has already been the case that SolidWorks users can link parts, tools and other assembly file details and configurations to create engineering change orders and cross-populate the inventory, bills of material. project management and preventative maintenance modules for increased productivity and to elimination of data inconsistency. With the help of a SolidWorks add-in, users could also check documents in and out of a document control system to avoid overwriting changes, create workflows to ensure that sign-offs occur in a timely manner, manage document libraries, view and print SolidWorks PDFs and track document history.

“We must no longer think of industry as a set of means of production, but as a process of value creation,” said Bernard Charlès, chief executive officer at Dassault Système. “This applies not only to disruptive startups and established corporations, but also to the hundreds of thousands of mainstream manufacturers that produce parts integral to the development of new consumer experiences.”

 

 

 

New MapleMBSE release from Maplesoft lets all stakeholders engage with the systems engineering process

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Bruce Jenkins | Ora Research

Maplesoft announced a new release of MapleMBSE, its software product that enables companies to employ a model-based systems engineering (MBSE) approach to their design projects without requiring every engineer on the project to be an expert in complex MBSE tools.

MapleMBSE 2019.0.

The new release, MapleMBSE 2019.0, further improves the workflow by making it even easier to create and modify many of the structures used to define and analyze a design. “The usability of MapleMBSE makes productive collaboration on system design projects an achievable goal,” the company said, “and the latest release improves the user experience even further.” For background see our MapleMBSE from Maplesoft radically expands accessibility of model-based systems engineering, published in this blog last July.

Excel-based user interface “provides streamlined interface for each task in an MBSE project”

Using an Excel-based user interface, MapleMBSE provides a streamlined interface for each task in an MBSE project, such as defining requirements, impact analysis, tradeoff studies and failure mode effects analysis. These streamlined interfaces make these tasks significantly easier to perform, the company says, and reduce the time and errors that typically come with using a standard MBSE tool. The new release also includes enhanced support for Systems Modeling Language (SysML), the industry-standard systems architecture modeling language used for requirements capture and management by many MBSE tools, including MapleMBSE.

MapleMBSE time savings reported by Nissan over other MBSE tool.

Increased support is available for a variety of constructs that are used to define requirements, architecture, behavior and relationships, including activity diagrams, state machines and parametric diagrams. By making it easier to create and modify these underlying SysML constructs, the company says the new release further reduces the time and effort required to define requirements and the relationships between them, analyze the impact of changes, and improve the design.

MBSE “lets organizations define, maintain and communicate their project goals throughout every stage of their project”

“Model-based systems engineering lets organizations define, maintain and communicate their project goals throughout every stage of their project, and MapleMBSE makes it significantly easier to involve all the stakeholders in this process,” says Paul Goossens, vice president of engineering solutions at Maplesoft. “The usability of MapleMBSE makes productive collaboration on system design projects an achievable goal, and the latest release improves the user experience even further.”

Other improvements in this release enhance the integration of MapleMBSE with model management systems, including faster model access through Teamwork Cloud. By connecting MapleMBSE to Teamwork Cloud, customers can seamlessly access models created in a number of different tools including MagicDraw and Cameo Systems Modeler. MapleMBSE can also be integrated directly with other SysML-based tools such as IBM Rational Rhapsody.

About Maplesoft

Maplesoft is a leading provider of high-performance software tools for engineering, science and mathematics. Maplesoft Engineering Solutions provide advanced tools and services for system simulation, calculation management and systems engineering, helping organizations maximize the power of their engineering knowledge so they can complete their projects quickly and successfully. The Maplesoft product suite includes Maple for technical computing and calculation management; MapleSim, an advanced system-level modeling and simulation tool; and MapleMBSE, which supports a model-based systems engineering approach to requirements management.

Maplesoft products and services are used in machine design, robotics, aerospace, automotive, industrial automation and many other fields where engineers face complex challenges. Key applications include the creation of digital twins, dynamic analysis of mechanisms, battery systems modeling, heat transfer modeling and bus fleet electrification. Customers include Boeing, FLSmidth, Ford, Google, Intel, NASA, Samsung and others.

MapleMBSE

MapleSim

Maple

Maplesoft

SysML

3DExperience.Works: Ties Together Applications for Every Department

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Dassault Systèmes executives announced the company’s 3DExperience.Works portfolio at SolidWorks World 2019, held in Dallas this week. The applications on the portfolio run on the company’s 3DExperience platform and are tailored to SolidWorks users and mid-market companies.

SolidWorks executives term the set of software  a “business experience platform.” It provides software solutions for every organization within a company—from design to enterprise resource management.

Use of the applications across the platform should improve collaboration, manufacturing efficiency, and business agility, he added.  Companies can accomplish their work using one cohesive digital innovation environment instead of using a complex series of point solutions that requires jumping between applications and interfaces, said Bernard Charlès, vice chairman and chief executive officer for Dassault Systèmes.

3DExperience.Works connects data and streamlines processes from concept to delivery by providing dashboard templates, managed services, access to industry-focused communities and user groups, and applications specific to a variety of job roles.

The software on the platform includes 3D design, analysis, simulation, manufacturing, and ERP applications. It is available on-premise and in the public or private cloud.

The 3DExperience platform from Dassault Systèmes ties a number of business-use, engineering, and manufacturing software applications that sit on the platform.

“Basically, SolidWorks went shopping at Dassault Systèmes’ headquarters in France and picked technologies to incorporate into its solutions,” said Gian Paolo Bassi, chief executive officer of Dassault Systèmes SolidWorks.

“You’ve been asking for simulation and other technologies to meet the needs of today’s business environment,” he told conference-goers. “We’re uniquely able to leverage most of those needs through our own products, all with the unique SolidWorks DNA.

The new portfolio offers capabilities such as advanced simulation and sub-D modeling, Bassi said.

“3DExperience.Works expands the ease of use and simplicity of SolidWorks applications to a new category of business solutions on the 3DExperience platform,” he added.

Small and midsize firms can work within one cohesive digital innovation environment rather than using a series of solutions that requires jumping between applications and interfaces, Charlès said.

The applications on the platform connect data and streamlines processes by providing dashboard templates, managed services, access to industry-focused communities and user groups, and applications specific to a variety of job roles, he said.

Dassault Systèmes created the portfolio after it acquired IQMS, which produces a manufacturing ERP portfolio of software applications for mid-market manufacturers that has now been rebranded as DelmiaWorks.

“Small and midsized firms worldwide need digital solutions to grow but have long been challenged to find ones that are right for their size,” Charlès said. “We see the benefit the platform has quickly brought to designers using SolidWorks to expand their business.

DelmiaWorks provides a full digital thread for business operations, he added.

Meanwhile, Dassault Systèmes acquisition of Trace Software’s elecworks, set to be completed in March, brings electrical applications to the platform. Users can create schematic designs and control panel design and conduct small-wiring capabilities. Included in the elecworks deal, Dassault Systèmes will also now own a library that holds over 500,000 electric symbols and data for design components.