Well, it's Jan. 2, 2007 and it's back to work. Besides the usual over-eating and over-drinking, my holidays and time off were good. If only Christmas was a time to recharge the batteries!? The fact is the holiday season is stressful and harried. It is good time to gather the family and that we did. Now, it's back to business.
I have yet another update on the Delta faucet episode. After a week of waiting, Delta sent me the wrong color spout, but it was my fault. I specified the model 474-NN and it should have been the model 474-SS (as in stainless steel). I pinged Delta on New Year's Eve day and heard back on Jan. 1, 2007 that the new part was on the way. How's that for customer service?! They may have been on the look out for me, knowing I am the editor of a big magazine and writing about my faucet, but regardless, Delta's customer service has been terrific. And it's lifetime warranty on my kitchen faucet is real and easy. By easy, I mean the company doesn't make you provide reciepts, passports and birth certificates to get a free replacement.
I'll add that Delta's web site is among the best product centers online I've visited. It's attractive and well-ordered with pictures that can be enlarged to verify the right product. That said, I still flubbed the color. I also thought Delta was straightforward and candid about the problems with the plastic threads in the faucet that were prone to stripping.
Almost every automaker has had to 'pick a side' when it comes to alternative fuel options and ways to divest from a reliance on gasoline. Fiat is looking to back compressed natural gas or liquid propane as an interim solution.
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Against a backdrop of mounting product complexity and a need to keep a lid on development costs, companies are recognizing a need to make simulation a more integral part of the design process. In response, vendors in the CAD world are building out CAE functionality as part of their CAD suites while simulation vendors are building tighter integrations to leading CAD tools. Keith Meintjes, Ph.D., Practice Manager, Simulation and Analysis at CIMdata, Inc., joins Design News CAD Editor Beth Stackpole in this radio program to explore the new face of integrated CAD and CAE, how companies are benefitting from this tighter partnership between platforms, and how integrating CAE earlier in the development cycle pays off in optimized product designs.
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