December 2005

By DE Editors

Editor’s Pick of the Week—December 29, 2005 PLM Solution Handles Compliance

Late last week, Agile Software Corp. (San Jose, CA) announced Agile9.2, the latest version of its PLM (product lifecycle management) suiteof solutions. Version 9.2 features enhanced overall functionality, withparticular emphasis on enhancements to the suite’s compliance, productportfolio, product collaboration, and quality managementsolutions.  Additionally, the Agile PLM suite now supports Linux.In version 9.2, the Agile Product Governance and Compliance module, nowfully integrates the Bill of Substance within the BOM (bill ofmaterial), which adds improved supplier and regulatory information,ensuring effective compliance throughout enterprise operations. Inaddition, PG&C also includes upgraded Bill of Substance adaptersfor Agile partners—PartMiner, i2 technologies, Avent, andArrow—enabling suppliers environmental standards declaration tools.Thismeans that your organization will have immediate and extensive supplierand regulatory information, making you better equipped to meet suchenvironmental regulation standards as the Waste of Electronic andElectrical Equipment (WEEE) directive and the Restrictions of HazardousSubstance (RoHS) regulations.The Agile Product Portfolio Management now offers executive portfolioanalytics and bidirectional integration with Microsoft Project,enabling product development investment optimization through tightlysynchronized program and product information, maximal resourceutilization, and cross-program visibility and decision support.Available portfolio analytics include time to market, financial,resources pool, program, and issues tracking.

The Agile Product Governance & Compliance interface displays thesubstance composition of a bill of material as both a list (left) and in theform of a pie chart (right). Click on images to enlarge.

In Agile 9.2, the Product Collaboration solution now offers enhancedchange collaboration and document management capabilities. Thisprovides each extended design and supply chain user secure access tocritical product record data, including BOMs, attributes,manufacturers, configurations, specifications, documents, models, workinstructions, and revisions.With 9.2 Agile renamed its Product Service and Improvement solution toAgile Quality Management. Along with its new name, this module has beenenhanced with advanced analytics capabilities to drive improved productquality and customer satisfaction by tightly integrating customer,product, quality, and regulatory information within a closed-loopcorrective action system.Also new in Agile 9.2 is an enhanced interface that includes localdate, time zone, and currency information. Additionally, Agile 9.2 willsupport Red Hat Linux AS version 4.0 and is available in fivelanguages:  English, French, German, Japanese, traditionalChinese, and simplified Chinese. For complete details, click here.

 Editor’s Pick of the Week—December 21, 2005 CAM Suite Updated SmartCAMcnc continues rapid development of SmartCAM.SmartCAMcnc (Eugene, OR) has announced the release of its SmartCAMV12.5 suite milling, turning, fabrication, and wire EDM applications.This release continues the modernization of the ACIS-based SmartCAMproduct family, which had languished for a number of years because ofcorporate instability brought on by successive acquisitions.SmartCAM V12.5 has undergone a variety of architectural and usabilityimprovements that affect the entire application suite. For example, itsmodel files now let you import, create, and name up to 10,000 layersand up to 64 groups. This allows for more flexibility in organizing andmanaging SmartCAM data as well as lets you establish practices thatbest fit your design and manufacturing standards. OpenGL DynamicRendering lets you rotate, zoom, and pan fully rendered design modelswith toolpath and wireframe design elements. You can also now updatethe main SmartCAM interface window with the new Render window viewingorientation should you want.Also new in SmartCAM V12.5 is the ability to automatically applyhole-making processes to commonly sized or located model features,eliminating manual selection of holes. Groups holes of a specific sizeand process can be created easily. The DXF/DWG/IGES exportfunctionality of the SmartCAM CAM Connection data translator has beenupdated to support current file formats. The SmartCAM applications nowcontain a fully up-to-date, integrated export capability.Improvements to the SmartCAM suite have been coming regularly since itreemerged in December 2003, and the company has a number ofimprovements planned for 2006. For complete details on the SmartCAMV12.5 suite of manufacturing applications, click here.

Editor’s Pick of the Week—December 14, 2005Hardware Library Extends AutoCADParametric components completely changeable to fit your requirements.AutoSolids, Inc. (ASI; Pace, FL) has announced the release of ASMechanical, a 3D mechanical hardware library for AutoCAD andAutoCAD-based applications. AS Mechanical includes a complete range ofhardware items from nuts and bolts to steel and aluminum beams,sections, and angles to sprockets and keys and everything in between.Supported standards include ANSI, ISO, DIN, EURO, and others. AS Mechanical can save you the valuable time you waste recreatingstandard components or digging through pages and pages of onlinelibraries of uneditable blocks because its 3D solids are parametric,allowing you to change such characteristics as bolt sizes, head styles,thread pitches, and beam sections easily. To change a model, you clickthe appropriate toolbar button or pull-down menu item as shown inFigure 1. Up pops a hardware dialog (see Figure 2) from which yousimply adjust the available parameters, press the OK button, and theitem is created. Additionally, when you share your designs with otherAutoCAD users, AS Mechanical solids perform and respond exactly likenative AutoCAD solids.AS Mechanical supports AutoCAD versions 2000 through 2006 and theirvertical applications, including Mechanical Desktop, ArchitecturalDesktop, and AutoCAD Mechanical. Through February 2006, AS Mechanicalis available at the introductory price of $99. It is also beingincluded free with new purchases of AutoSolids, the company’s flagshipapplication that extends the solid modeling, viewing, and visualizationcapabilities of AutoCAD, for the same period.A free edition of AS Mechanical, with a reduced number of hardwareitems but without time restrictions, is available for immediatedownload from the AutoSolids web site by clicking here. Additionalproduct demos are also available on that page.For further information, visit the AutoSolids, Inc., website by clicking here.

Editor’s Pick of the Week—December 7, 2005 OneSpace 2006 Eliminates Redundant ToolsCompany says suite streamlines PLM, fosters lean product development.Developer CoCreate Software, Inc. (Fort Collins, CO), plans an early2006 release of OneSpace 2006, the latest version of its productdevelopment platform. Designed to foster lean product development andinspire collaboration, the OneSpace product suite is made up of newreleases of OneSpace Designer Drafting, OneSpace Designer Modeling,Model Manager, OneSpace.net, and OneSpace Live!.CoCreate says its OneSpace 2006 product suite represents the thirdgeneration of PLM (product lifecycle management). By this it means thatmany organizations have found that PLM adds a layer of rigiditycharacterized by lengthy implementation cycles, high consulting fees,and system complex system, rather than maximizing flexibility indevelopment.OneSpace 2006 seeks to streamline PLM by eliminating redundant toolsand processes. CoCreate sees companies leveraging what they alreadyhave to manage product definition and gather and communicaterequirements: Microsoft Office tools like PowerPoint and Excel.Furthermore, most companies already have an ERP system in place, makingtraditional PLM perhaps more than needed. Consequently, CoCreate’ssolution seeks brings flexibility and efficiency to productdevelopment, which lies between product definition and ERP.OneSpace 2006 suite is built on the Microsoft platform and integratedwith the Office environment. It offers open, standards-basedconnectivity so you can seamlessly hand off designs to manufacturing.Among its features are a continuous build-and-check environment thatcuts the stop-and-go development associated with stage-gate processes.Its Designer Modeling 3D CAD component offers a dynamic modeling—history-free—architecture that creates a responsive approach to latechanges, enabling you can make modifications more frequently and laterin the process than otherwise possible with a history-based modeler.OneSpace also enables you to invest in rich model information, meaningthat you can annotate models with pertinent information, Models,complete with your annotations, can be shared with users downstream,purchasing and manufacturing, saving them time and data re-entryheadaches. Model Manager provides integrated model management forcoordinating highly iterative processes. Additionally, it aids in thehand-off of completed designs to others.For collaborative design, OneSpace.net and OneSpace Live! provideWeb-based multi-party 3D CAD design reviews to the entire distributeddesign team and global manufacturing partners.The OneSpace design, integrated model management, and collaborationsuite can be implemented for less than $75 a week per user through thecompany’s subscription licensing—i.e., you rent rather own—program. Traditional and hosted licensing options are also available.Subscriptions include major and minor releases as well as full support,a level of service also available to traditional annual maintenancelicense holders. Here are the different prices for the three primary OneSpace components broken down by purchasing option: 3D Designer Modeling$6,320 traditional license + annual maintenance$2,780 annual subscription ($54 a week) Model Manager$1,050 traditional license + annual maintenance$463 annual subscription ($9 a week) OneSpace.net$995 traditional license + annual maintenance$438 annual subscription ($9 a week)Hosted delivery available ($120 a month per user)To start investigating the OneSpace suite on the CoCreatewebsite, click here. Click here to go to a demo and download page. Click here tostart at the CoCreate home page.