Siemens Schools Students on Simulation and Digital Design

As digitalization begins to permeate all aspects of the design cycle, Siemens PLM Software is doing its part to ensure students make the grade, including its latest partnership with the University of Cincinnati’s College of Engineering and Applied Science (CEAS) to establish a learning hub for new engineering technologies.

Siemens ponied up nearly $1 million along with software and staff support to create the new Siemens PLM Simulation Technology Center, housed on UC’s main campus. The Siemens crew will team up with CAES faculty led by Dr. Jay Kim, department head of mechanical and materials engineering, and Dr. Sam Anand, a professor of mechanical engineering, to train up to 500 students over the next five years. Their goal: To build a curriculum that emphasizes hands-on learning, multi-disciplinary collaboration, and most importantly, giving students exposure to how simulation and other digital design technologies can be leveraged throughout the product development cycle.

University of Cincinnati’s new Siemens PLM Simulation Technology Center will gain access to its Simcenter simulation suite. Image Courtesy of Siemens PLM Software

While many university-level engineering programs introduce CAD, they don’t provide much, if any, hands on learning with simulation and other components of a full PLM suite, according to Dora Smith, Siemens PLM Software’s global director of academic partner programs.  “If you look at the digital skills related to engineering, they are not really being developed in students today,” Smith says. “Maybe they learn CAD, but they’re not learning digital skills for simulation or manufacturing or automation. We want to show them the whole continuum and teach students a set of digital skills that they will need going forward.”

Beyond providing PLM and simulation software, Siemens is working with CAES faculty to design a curriculum that emphasizes hands-on experience and multi-disciplinary collaboration, Smith says. The partners are creating projects and learning assignments that apply tools like simulation, simulation data management, and additive manufacturing to solve modern-day design problems—in one such example, a future mobility system for the smart cities of the future.

The projects aren’t just limited to engineering and product development, Smith says. The idea is to bring engineering students together with students representing other functional areas like design or marketing, mimicking the cross-functional teams required in the real business world. “These projects bring together design engineers and business students because that’s how they’ll work in the future,” she says. “They collaborate with students in other parts of the globe, leveraging Teamcenter. They’re learning real-world skills about how to communicate across time zones.”

As part of the partnership, Siemens is also exploring the idea of creating vertical industry-specific template apps that might be more appealing to student engineers, Smith says. The PLM provider is also open to forging similar curriculum partnerships with other engineering programs.

“A lot of schools teach one part of the [PLM] suite, but we want to see courses and projects challenge students across disciplines and the whole suite of design software,” Smith says.

Watch this video to hear more about Siemens’ Simcenter simulation portfolio.