PTC

PTC introduces Onshape-Arena connection for product development and supply chain collaboration

September 13, 2022 By WTWH Editor Leave a Comment

PTC announced the availability of the Onshape-Arena Connection, a new functionality that connects its cloud-native Onshape product development and Arena product lifecycle management (PLM) solutions. The Connection enables product data to be shared instantly between the Onshape and Arena solutions with the click of a button, helping companies to accelerate the product development process and simplify collaboration with supply chain partners.

“The Onshape-Arena Connection is the next step on PTC’s journey to make the product development process faster, easier, and more agile for designers, engineers, and suppliers, and it’s only possible because of the cloud-native architectures of Onshape and Arena,” said Jon Hirschtick, General Manager of Onshape at PTC. “This is product development from a single provider with CAD, PDM, and PLM workflows fully realized in the cloud.”

The Onshape-Arena Connection supports continuous, cross-functional product development that can significantly reduce costs and schedule impacts on the manufacturing process. With the Connection, all stakeholders in the product development process – including design engineering, quality, procurement, and supply chain partners – are always working on the same version of a design. This allows for design reviews at any time and improvements to the product before investments are made in expensive manufacturing lines and tooling.

“The Onshape-Arena Connection can reduce the friction, high costs, and coding that typically occur when trying to connect product data management and product lifecycle management systems,” said Felix Alvarez Rivera, Chief Product Officer of Wavemaker Labs, Inc. “This functionality makes it easier for product data to flow from engineering to operations, including supply chain partners.”

The Connection requires zero downloads, installs, or administration time and comes at no additional cost to Onshape and Arena users.

PTC
www.ptc.com

PTC provides Onshape to MassRobotics to accelerate design for robotic startups

February 17, 2022 By WTWH Editor Leave a Comment

PTC and MassRobotics announce a new collaboration that will see PTC provide free licenses of Onshape, its cloud-native product development platform, to MassRobotics and its resident startups. With Onshape, MassRobotics’ community of future-minded startups can leverage the latest in cloud product design software for robotics development.

“Our team at MassRobotics is very excited to collaborate with PTC and the amazing Onshape team to utilize the innovative capabilities of Onshape to better scale the next generation of successful robotics startups,” said Fady Saad, co-founder & VP of strategic partnerships at MassRobotics.

With simultaneous collaboration and integrated data management, Onshape enables engineers to innovate without concern of design stalls, crashes or losses. Robotic startups can use Onshape to accelerate their design processes and increase speed to market, giving them a competitive edge in today’s fast-paced economy. With Onshape, multiple MassRobotics engineers can work on their complex assemblies at the same time, allowing an entire team to instantly see edits or changes, no matter who makes them or when.

The robotics market continues to grow rapidly, with spending predicted to exceed $240 billion by 2023, according to IDC. Onshape is used for design and development by commercial robotics companies, reinforcing the value that it can bring to the MassRobotics community.

“The robotics industry is becoming more vital than ever as companies look to automation and faster processes to address supply chain disruptions and labor shortages,” said David Katzman, SVP of general operations at Onshape. “We are thrilled to provide Onshape to the innovative startups at MassRobotics as they help revolutionize the market.”

Model-based definition or the perils of disconnected detours

September 27, 2021 By Leslie Langnau Leave a Comment

By Brian Thompson, DVP and GM, CAD Segment, PTC

When I speak with manufacturers, they often tell me that moving towards becoming more model-based is at the top of their priority list. Initially, they might have started down this path to eliminate the extra work required to build 2D drawings off of their 3D models. Now, manufacturers want to make the 3D model itself the gravitational center. The disconnect between the 2D drawing and 3D model is hobbling both their internal efficiency and external competitiveness.

More formally known as model-based definition, MBD is about creating rich “Technical Data Packages (TDP),” which include the 3D model and associated data elements. At the core of the TDPs is the 3D model, along with its associated dimensioning and tolerancing to clearly communicate design intent and geometric form control. Thanks to the TDP, users who sit downstream from engineering can understand and use that model without needing separate 2D artifacts – the information is in the model itself.

MBD is not another way of spelling ‘paperless engineering,’ as if mere convenience were the reason for such a strategic shift. The manufacturers we work with are talking about a broader and grander idea: a different way of approaching the product development, manufacturing, delivery, operations, and service processes so that the 3D model is the source authority.

By implication, these manufacturers are also talking about innovation, and how they might use breakthrough technologies such as simulation, additive manufacturing, and generative design to design better products faster. MBD is as much an approach to corporate strategy as it is an approach to design, product development and manufacturing.

That’s the exciting part – the vision that gets people to commit their time and resources to the effort. I would offer this advice to those who aspire to a model-based journey. Think of a rock climber scaling a cliff face. As he or she ascends, that climber will need to put an anchor in the rock through which to pass the rope.

Your 3D model is that anchor. Start there.

3D model as Anchor
This is no getting around it: every MBD journey starts by looking at your modeling practices and ensuring that your model truly reflects your design. One customer discovered, as they implemented MBD, that they had to train their engineers to know where and how to apply drafts to their injection molded parts, instead of relying on the manufacturing team to do it. Another found that simulation results would be inaccurate unless certain critical features were modeled in complete detail, instead of leaving some geometry details to notes.

Today, I look at the model itself as a precise database for all PMI rather than as a supporting item to create a 2D drawing quickly.

A geometrical product specification is gold for manufacturers.

A word of caution
Next, examine your own mental models and beware of outdated beliefs. We sometimes see those who have (unknowingly) gone halfway with MBD – only to stop on the manufacturing floor. In the past, a certain amount of rework was part of the design process, as was the willingness to accept change at the worst possible and most expensive time. Allow me to be candid. With MBD, your experts on the shop floor will need to learn to place the 3D model at the center of everything they do, too. This will surely help them streamline industrialization of the design, minimize mistakes, and produce the highest-quality output. This will definitely be a change for the manufacturing team, but everyone I’ve talked to has said this is worth it.

Disconnected detours
The worst choices in business are ones you don’t know you’re making. With that in mind, consider whether an MBD journey would, in fact, be less costly in time, money, materials and morale than situations such as the scenario described below.

At one manufacturer, final drawings were made into pdfs and put on a server where all could access them. Not surprisingly, CNC machines soon were decorated with marked-up pdfs showing late-breaking changes. As the model evolved, there was no way other than person-to-person to get the changes to the manufacturing floor. One employee jokingly referred to the ‘sneaker net’. The manufacturing engineers encountered the same situation, and the changes they made on the shop floor often didn’t get to the designers, who unknowingly proliferated errors.

In our opinion, becoming model-based is a journey. To prepare, commit to making the 3D model the source of all authority and then take a moment to reexamine your modeling practices. This will take time, but your reward will be more value for the investment you’ve already made, confidence that engineers can now spend their valuable time doing what you paid them to do, and circumstances more favorable to innovation. That’s what our customers are seeking.

PTC
www.ptc.com

Vuforia Instruct offering streamlines the creation of 3D CAD-based work instructions

May 28, 2021 By WTWH Editor Leave a Comment

From the stage of the Vuforia Live Virtual Event, PTC announced the release of the new Vuforia Instruct out-of-the-box offering from the Vuforia Enterprise Augmented Reality (AR) Suite.

With PTC’s Vuforia Instruct, enterprises can leverage 3D CAD data to easily create, deliver, and scale interactive AR work instructions

The Software as a Service (SaaS)-based offering, available on the PTC Atlas platform, empowers original equipment manufacturers to extend the value of the digital thread all the way to their front-line workers. With Vuforia Instruct, enterprises can leverage 3D CAD data to easily create, deliver, and scale interactive AR work instructions, enabling them to optimize inspections for Quality and Field Maintenance use cases.

“We are thrilled to be working with PTC and Rockwell Automation to bring AR to our customers, and see tremendous opportunity to use 3D work instructions to address critical inspection steps within our maintenance, repair, and sanitation processes on our packaging equipment,” said Alexander Ouellet, Innovation Engineer, Harpak-ULMA Packaging. “The enhanced work instructions created with Vuforia Instruct enable us to upskill our customers’ employees, and even our own technical staff, on intricate procedures in mission critical environments. AR technologies will help our customers reap significant productivity gains by enabling them to improve the accuracy and timeliness of complex, manual processes.”

Approximately 67% of manufacturers are still utilizing manual paper processes for inspections. These existing methods are often error-filled, difficult to transcribe, and costly – ultimately becoming barriers to continuous improvement. Such inefficiencies can result in poor product quality or experiences, cost millions of dollars per year, and lead to loss of brand reputation, market position, customer satisfaction, and revenue. Vuforia Instruct enables companies to eliminate reliance on paper forms by delivering contextual visual guidance and references to front-line workers with built-in, real-time inspection feedback to capture critical insights.

“Vuforia Instruct enables organizations to transform the way they create and scale work instructions to their front-line employees,” said Michael Campbell, Executive Vice President and General Manager, Augmented Reality Products, PTC. “Leveraging existing 3D CAD data, organizations can now guide employees to exactly where work needs to be done and provide them with detailed instructions for critical inspection procedures in context. Such enhancements are critical to industrial organizations looking to increase productivity, improve quality, and reduce unplanned downtime.”

PTC
www.ptc.com

Spatial computing supports large spaces

March 29, 2021 By Leslie Langnau Leave a Comment

PTC announced the newest addition to its Vuforia augmented reality (AR) enterprise platform, the Vuforia Engine Area Targets offering. This program supports the creation of immersive augmented reality (AR) experiences for spaces up to 300,000 square feet. Through the use of Area Targets, industrial organizations can create AR interfaces within their facilities to enable employees to better engage with machinery and understand how the environment is being used.

PTC’s Vuforia Engine Area Targets leverages spatial computing capabilities to support large spaces equivalent to six American football fields

With support from Matterport and Leica 3D scanners, along with NavVis’s indoor mobile mapping systems, Area Targets users can generate photorealistic, survey-grade digital twins, empowering them to create digital canvases of spaces, such as factories, malls, or offices for spatial computing applications.

As one of the leading emerging technologies, spatial computing powers digital twin renderings to support the activities of machines and people, as well as the environments in which they operate. When deployed across the industrial enterprise, spatial computing enables seamless interactions between employees through AR, enabling companies to close the loop on performance management, improve machine learning capabilities with spatial analytics, and optimize design and factory floor operations.

PTC
www.ptc.com

Look up in the sky, it’s CAD software

May 14, 2020 By Leslie Langnau Leave a Comment

A major CAD vendor is betting the modeling software’s future is in the cloud

By Jean Thilmany, Senior Editor

Onshape set off ripples across the computer-aided design community five years ago when it announced its computer-aided design software would exist completely in the cloud. Last fall, PTC acquired Onshape.

The purchase signals PTC’s conviction that engineering companies are ready to embrace CAD in the cloud. The SaaS model, while nascent in the CAD and PLM market, is rapidly becoming the industry’s best practice across most other software domains, said Jim Heppelman, PTC president and chief executive officer.

By bringing Onshape in-house, the software maker has placed itself ahead of the pack in what the engineering software maker sees as the inevitable industry transition to SaaS, Heppelmann said.

“Today, we see small and medium-sized CAD customers in the high-growth part of the CAD market shifting their interest toward SaaS delivery models, and we expect interest from larger customers to grow over time,” he said.

In the future, CAD sellers may reach unique arrangements with resellers to bring CAD in the cloud to a wider user base, according to one potential reseller.

But PTC isn’t going all-in with the cloud. It will continue to offer its on-premise CAD software, Creo.

With CAD in the cloud, designs reside on the software provider’s secure server —rather than on individual workstations. Because the software is accessed and managed online, engineers and designers can work on their models from any location and on any device. The SaaS refers to a provider’s capability to deliver everything needed to run CAD in the cloud—including the cloud infrastructure and the CAD software itself.

Though other CAD makers do offer some type of cloud capability, it’s generally the capability to check files into and out of an application on a cloud-based server; engineers don’t design directly with cloud-based software on other applications, said Jon Hirschtick, president of SaaS, PTC. Onshape differs in that its software exists fully in the cloud and can be used by multiple users in real-time, he added. (Hirschtick founded SolidWorks in 1993 and then went on to co-found Onshape with another former SolidWorks chief executive officer, John McEleny.)

The everyday cloud
You’re already using cloud technology. That’s almost certain. If you have an email account ending in gmail.com or yahoo.com, if you’ve checked a social media account from your desktop or mobile device, if you’ve streamed a movie via Netflix or Amazon or any other provider, you’re a cloud user. The email, social media, and streaming software exist on the software owner’s server (let’s say Google), as does your little piece of it—like your Gmail email address.

Though it’s been possible to run CAD as a SaaS for the past few years, CAD has always been slower than other large, graphic-intense and complex applications to pivot to new platforms, says Len Williams, content manager at designairspace, which gives engineering companies the capability to run any CAD system in the cloud.

“Last year’s acquisition is a very clear statement that vendors like PTC see cloud as a platform of the future for CAD and for all their other software,” Williams added, calling the acquisition a “Windows-level” move.

“CAD systems were originally based on UNIX running on silicon graphics workstations. Then Windows came along and people were laughing at the thought of using CAD on Windows,” he says. “Now most of the major CAD systems run only on Windows.”

Likewise, the way companies buy their CAD software has evolved, he said.

“We went from the old perpetual model, where you buy the software for a workstation, to today’s subscription-based model, where you rent the software,” Williams said. “The next step is when a CAD vendor is running it for you so don’t have to buy hardware or worry about upgrades.”

Large companies already run CAD in the cloud because of the benefits the delivery method offers, Williams added. The difference is, those companies—the French automotive manufacturer PSA Peugeot Citroen is one example—have the funds to build their own, private clouds. Designers, engineers, and suppliers at those companies can access CAD on the private cloud whatever their location: Tulle, France; Brussels, Detroit, or elsewhere.

Working remotely and sharing with suppliers
For the smaller guys, the cloud can bring the same benefits their larger counterparts already enjoy; mainly real-time working together and version management, Hirschtick said.

“Versioning” is built-in, which means file changes are tracked in a central database in real-time. Because any engineer with permission can access the software from any device with internet connection, engineers in different places can work together on a design, such as a power supply, for example. There’s only one power supply file; Onshape doesn’t copy it. But with cloud, everyone in the world accesses real-time single source of truth database. We’re not passing around copies all over the place, he added.

“If multiple engineers happen to be working on that file at the same time, it’s not a problem. If one engineer rounded a corner and another one drilled a hole, both changes get captured,” Hirschtick said. “If we’re both rounding a corner at the same time, you would see my hand there in real-time—at the same table—and a box around the corner would indicate that another engineer is editing that right now.”

The bigger the team is, the quicker the product development process, as everyone—even suppliers—has visibility into the real-time database rather than a copy of something emailed a week ago.

When the workflows are quicker, engineers have more design time and are more willing to innovate to try new things, he added.

Most cloud service providers automatically update their programs. Thus, IT staff can focus on other tasks and engineers know they are working with the latest version of the applications.

Also, engineers aren’t bound to their workstations. The software exists at one central server while engineers work from many. They can be globally dispersed and can work from home or other locations outside the office.

Smaller companies that scale their workforce and supplier base up and down as projects change also stand to benefit from SaaS CAD software. When suppliers move away from a project, the company can easily suspend their CAD license and use of the CAD system, Williams said.

When the coronavirus began making headlines in early 2020, engineering companies running one Onshape customer with offices in three major Chinese cities particularly welcomed the remote-work capability, Hirschtick said.

“Using Onshape analytics, they showed us where people were working before the virus situation in China,” Hirschtick said. As expected, employees worked at the offices in the three major cities.

“Then they showed a map of activity of first two weeks of virus quarantines and lockdowns in China,” he added. “This time there were 20 little circles in regions all over in China. They could see where their employees logged in remotely.

“It doesn’t matter if employees are caught at home with only an Android tablet, they can still do their work,” Hirschtick said. “Even with the phone they can even do some of their work.

There are cases where running CAD in the cloud just doesn’t make sense. Some companies may use CAD only a small amount of time and will do better essentially renting a CAD program, perhaps through the cloud, Williams said.

With cloud-based systems, issues of total cost of ownership and return on investment are generally murky because companies want to see how cloud applications compare to traditional on-site infrastructure.

“But there are so many intangibles wrapped up in the cloud that it makes it hard to put calculations on it,” said Andrew Sroka, CEO at Fischer International Systems, which helps companies manage identities for on-premise and cloud-based applications. “It’s important to factor in expenses like utility costs and power requirements.”

If you can’t buy, rent
With CAD in the cloud being not if, but when, designairspace has new ways to bring benefit to users and CAD makers; reselling vendor software in the cloud. The company would offer customers workstations with major CAD vendor’s programs already installed. Designairspace can track use, which allows the vendors to charge based on time spent using the programs.

“It would be just like mobile phone plans back in the day, where you buy a plan based on minutes. We can do this with CAD in the cloud,” Williams says. “Let’s say you buy a plan with 500 minutes. If you need it for only one or two days a week, you can buy it in a small, affordable plan that’s a small portion of what it would cost you to buy the software.

“Why limit CAD-in-the-cloud to large companies? In the olden days, only big companies could afford 3-D CAD systems. We want small companies to have cloud benefits,” he added. “They would still need to buy their own licenses, but at least they can run it in the cloud, like the big guys.”

The pricing model would benefit companies with project managers or suppliers who don’t design in CAD but log onto the program intermittently.

“These people use the software only a little bit at a time, so we can price it so it’s not so expensive for them,” Williams said. “This is a whole new market for major vendors.”

Becoming a CAD-in-the-cloud reseller and offering online training in those CAD programs is the “next step” for designairspace, he added. With the business model, potential customers can also receive on-the-spot, specialized training if needed and can test the software to see if it’s right for their needs before buying a priced plan, he said.

Or, engineering companies might choose to run hybrid CAD, in which they host some CAD systems at workstations on-premise and buy CAD in the cloud subscriptions for intermittent users, Williams said.

“That way you can gradually move more and more users to the cloud. You can move one or two and see if it works and if it does move more to the cloud,” Williams said. “The heavy users will never move to the cloud.”

That brings up another point. Workstations that run CAD will always be with us, he added.
Companies that do work for the defense department or for the military must do their engineering work on company workstations. They cannot work remotely, Williams said.
For his part, Hirschtick is dreaming big. He expects widespread cloud adoption for CAD as users begin to see the advantages.

“People think cloud tools don’t have the power or speed but that’s an old fable. Cloud tools have more advantage and speed, it’s not a fair fight,” he said. “With desktop tools, you have one CPU sitting on the desktop. With the cloud, we’re able to use unlimited amounts of CPUs. I gave a demo and opened up ten models with thousands of thousands of parts on Macbook in Chrome on a web browser. There’s no CAD workstation that could open them that fast, even the best desktop configuration.

“In a few years, people will be saying ‘how did you ever do CAD on a desktop. How was it fast enough?’” Hirschtick says.

While the future remains cloudy, PTC is backing clearing skies for CAD in the cloud. With a large CAD maker backing SaaS, expect to see a flurry of news and updates. In other words, don’t delete your desktop program.

PTC
www.ptc.com

Designairspace
www.designairspace.com

Accelerate spatial AR programming of machines and robots

April 24, 2020 By Leslie Langnau Leave a Comment

PTC announced the release of the Vuforia Spatial Toolbox platform. Created by the PTC Reality Lab. This open-source platform helps developers create, innovate, and solve spatial computing problems in a new way. Innovators can explore Industrial Internet of Things (IoT) and Spatial Computing, accelerate prototyping for machines, and develop leading-edge spatial Augmented Reality (AR) and IoT use cases to support digital transformation initiatives.

With this spatial computing platform, teams can improve the operation of complex manufacturing environments and make IoT-enabled machines easier and more intuitive to control with on-the-fly programming. Robots can be operated and controlled through more intuitive user interfaces (UIs), and intuitive Human Machine Interfaces (HMIs) can be quickly built, enabling improved human-machine interaction and merging the digital world and physical screens.

“Many developers, innovators, and researchers recognize that AR can help democratize the programming and control of connected machines,” said Mike Campbell, executive vice president and general manager, AR, PTC. “What they need are solutions that help alleviate development overhead for prototyping these innovative, next-gen AR tools. PTC is helping them develop tools and interfaces to spatially interact with and program the world of interconnected things around them.”

As the newest addition to the Vuforia AR product portfolio, Vuforia Spatial Toolbox complements the current commercial Vuforia offering. The Vuforia Spatial Toolbox is a system consisting of two components which combine to provide an industrial AR/Spatial Computing prototyping environment with pre-built UI/UX elements, spatial programming services, an intuitive UI app, and simplified connectivity to IoT with the Vuforia Spatial Edge Server. The open-source environment is designed to drive further exploration around the convergence of the physical and digital worlds and help to push the boundaries of innovation.

To enable users to take advantage of the new Vuforia Spatial Toolbox while working from home during this crisis, PTC created a basic hardware interface add-on that allows them to connect the Vuforia Edge Server with Arduino projects, children’s LEGO® BOOST and LEGO® Education WeDo 2.0 sets, and the Philips Hue smart lighting system.

The technology is the brainchild of Valentin Heun, Ph.D., vice president, Innovation Engineering, PTC, and former scientist at the MIT Media Lab’s Fluid Interfaces Group, where he led the Reality Editor human-machine interface research. Dr. Heun is a leader in the AR industry, and an active author and speaker on topics related to AR.

PTC
spatialtoolbox.vuforia.com

PTC to acquire Onshape

October 24, 2019 By Leslie Langnau Leave a Comment

PTC announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Onshape, creators of Software as a Service (SaaS) product development platform that unites computer aided design (CAD) with data management and collaboration tools, for approximately $470 million, net of cash acquired.
The acquisition is expected to accelerate PTC’s ability to attract new customers with a SaaS-based product offering and position the company to capitalize on the inevitable industry transition to SaaS. Pending regulatory approval and satisfaction of other closing conditions, the transaction is expected to be completed in November 2019.

Located in Cambridge, MA, Onshape was founded in 2012 by CAD pioneers and tech legends, including Jon Hirschtick, John McEleney, and Dave Corcoran, inventors and former executives of SolidWorks. Onshape has secured more than $150 million in funding from leading venture capital firms and has more than 5,000 subscribers around the world. The company’s software offering is delivered in a SaaS model, making it accessible from any connected location or device, eliminating the need for costly hardware and administrative staff to maintain. Distributed and mobile teams of designers, engineers, and others can benefit from the product’s cloud nature, enabling them to improve collaboration and to dramatically reduce the time needed to bring new products to market – while simultaneously staying current with the latest software.

This acquisition is the logical next step in PTC’s overall evolution to a recurring revenue business model, the first step of which was the company’s transition to subscription licensing, completed in January 2019. The SaaS model, while nascent in the CAD and PLM market, is rapidly becoming industry best practice across most other software domains.

Onshape will operate as a business unit within PTC, with current management reporting directly to PTC President and CEO Jim Heppelmann.

Barclays acted as exclusive financial advisor to PTC on the transaction.

PTC
www.ptc.com

ThingWorx 8.5 coming in late summer 2019

June 21, 2019 By wpengine Leave a Comment

ThingWorx 8.5 combines new capabilities with domain-specific solutions to serve the digital transformation needs of industrial enterprises worldwide.

Among the new and enhanced capabilities are tools that simplify the composition and deployment of solutions. Customers will be able to configure applications faster and deploy them across multiple sites and geographies. For those who want more readymade solutions, ThingWorx also offers pre-built, pre-configured capabilities for engineering, manufacturing, and service. This latest version of ThingWorx brings enhanced integration with Microsoft Azure IoT and includes additional tools for rolling out solutions at an enterprise scale.

The new ThingWorx Navigate Digital Change Management Application enables internal and external users to actively participate in change management. The series of ThingWorx Navigate Contribute Apps will expand on NavigateView suite, which makes information easily available and facilitates collaboration across the enterprise. Powered by the digital thread, engineers have real-time access to connected product data in ThingWorx to drive the design of next-generation products.

Manufacturing
ThingWorx 8.5 is now compatible with Rockwell Automation’s FactoryTalk Analytics. Additionally, PTC will be releasing ThingWorx Kepware Edge to provide flexible deployment of reliable and secure connectivity for dispersed equipment.

Service
PTC’s service solution suite enables service organizations to transform from cost centers to profit centers and drive product and service innovation through new IIoT-enabled business models. The service optimization solution allows companies to improve margins by minimizing truck rolls and increasing first time-fix rates. With ThingWorx 8.5, digital
service delivery is enhanced through a deepened integration with Microsoft Azure,
enabling manufacturers to now use the ThingWorx Software Content Management App
with the Azure IoT Hub and Azure IoT Edge.

PTC
ptc.com

PTC adds AI and generative design to its CAD portfolio with acquisition of Frustum

November 20, 2018 By Leslie Langnau Leave a Comment

PTC announced that it has acquired Frustum Inc., an advanced generative design software company, for approximately $70 million. Frustum’s technology for generative design leverages artificial intelligence (AI) to generate design options. PTC says it is a transformative addition to the PTC Creo portfolio.

Based in Boulder, Colorado, Frustum offers patented desktop and cloud-based engineering software that enables designers and engineers to go beyond the limits of their personal experience by leveraging powerful AI capabilities that guide the discovery of high-performance, next-generation product designs.

“PTC is pushing the boundaries of innovation with this acquisition,” said Jim Heppelmann, president and CEO, PTC. “Creo is core to PTC’s overall strategy, and the embedded capabilities from ANSYS and, later, Frustum will elevate Creo to a leading position in the world of design and simulation. With breakthrough new technologies such as AR/VR, high-performance computing, IoT, AI, and additive manufacturing entering the picture, the CAD industry is going through a renaissance period, and PTC is committed to leading the way.”

Frustum complements PTC’s strategic relationship with ANSYS, which was announced at LiveWorx in June 2018, and will bring analysis upstream to the very start of the design process. With embedded Frustum and ANSYS capabilities, Creo will be able to recommend design approaches using generative design, guide the user through the iterative design process using ANSYS Discovery Live, and ultimately validate the full product design at scale using the broader ANSYS Discovery suite. With these capabilities embedded in Creo, engineers will have unmatched capabilities to rapidly drive product innovation.

“This acquisition is a natural step for PTC and its customers,” said Jeff Hojlo, program director, product innovation, IDC. “AI and machine learning (ML) are widely discussed as two of the most impactful technologies of the future. For design, engineering, and R&D, the potential positive impacts of complementing the development process with AI and ML are astounding: lowering cost of quality (which is currently 20-25 percent of annual revenue at the average manufacturer), improving product success rate (which remains very low with more than 80 percent of products failing), and improving time to market and time to revenue by meeting customer needs accurately the first time.”

PTC
www.ptc.com/en