"With the integration of multidomain systems, different disciplines that conveniently worked in separate bubbles in the past -- for example, electrical, mechanical, and software -- can no longer afford to do so," Karnofsky says. "To get a design out to market in a reasonable amount of time and to meet requirements requires much more collaboration."
Specifically, The MathWorks says that when collaboration happens far earlier in the design workflow, companies are much better positioned to garner efficiencies and wring costs out of their development processes.
"Once you adopt model-based design, what you get away from is building your first prototype that went together perfectly. Now, to get it to do what your customers expect it to do takes too many rebuilds to understand the design flaws," says Tony Lennon, The MathWorks' industry market manager for industrial automation. "The cost of rework has gotten to the point where companies need to find a way to get work done more cheaply."
Festo's Bionic Handling Assistant, a mechatronic industrial robot arm,
was inspired by the motion of an elephant's trunk.
Dr. Jerry Krasner, chief analyst with Embedded Market Forecasters, a division of American Technology International, conducted a study to drill down into the financial ROI associated with model-based design approaches. The study confirmed an uptick in model-based design adoption over the last six years. Krasner found that 36.6 percent of model-based design deployments in North America had a significant total cost of development advantage over other deployments. Moreover, the number of developers used per project was smaller with model-based design deployments, according to his research.
"Model-based design has significant cost advantages even for smaller designs," Krasner says, and the approach's advantages in rapid prototyping, code generation, and code reuse add to the value proposition. "The ability to move applications to new hardware and to have interoperability for people in different locations for working on the same project is key."
Jon, I don't think I could have said it better (in fact, I know I couldn't). You really just described the biggest hurdle to model-based design. Because it's an entirely new way of thinking and because it requires a completely different mentality of cross-functional collaboration, there will ultimately be push-back from engineers who don't thoroughly understand the benefits and are reticent to make any kind of change.
To embrace this on a grand scale throughout an engineering organization will require a robust change management effort and as you mention, a champion. Bringing in model-based design tools on a piecemeal basis won't be enough to foster any kind of sweeping process change.
Thanks, Beth. Here's a book I recommend highly, "Driving Technical Change; Why People on Your Team Don't Act on Good Ideas, and How to Convince Them They Should," by Terrency Ryan, published by The Pragmatic Bookshelf. The author describes the types of people we typically find on a team, from the uninformed and the herd to the cynics and irrationals, and he explains how to work with them and get them on-board with new tools and techniques. (OK, you can't convince the irrational people.) Although the book used programmers for its examples, the information applies equally well to engineers who should adopt model-basded design. At 128 pages, the book is easy to read in one evening.
John and Beth are correct about the challenge of embracing Model-Based Design for developing embedded systems. My own experience is that companies gradually adopt, usually starting with control system engineers. The progression is usually multiyear, beginning with desktop simulation, moving to real-time testing and validation, and ending with code generation for production systems. This approach provides increasing value at each stage, can be woven into existing design practices, and avoids the unwanted shock of a complete change to a development process. Industries are in different stages of Model-Based Design adoption. The Aerospace and Automotive industries are leaders, primarily because their software systems are very complex. In 2010, Design News discussed, http://www.designnews.com/document.asp?doc_id=229640, how the Automotive industry is adopting Model-Based Design. Within the industrial markets, automation suppliers developing motor controls and power backups, and solar and wind energy companies developing renewal energy sources are the furthest along the path. As my colleague Ken Karnofsky said in the article, "Software complexity is the big driver." But we are seeing more interest from the traditional machine builders. Recently an engineer with whom I was meeting pointed out that it is the software that running in machines that is becoming more complex, not only the hardware.
Thanks for the perspective, Tony, and a great description for how the adoption tends to unfold within organizations. Jon: Thanks for the recommendation on a book for change management. Whether it's about leading a culture of model-based design or some other type of major process change, I imagine there are some good takeaways for overcoming resistance.
From Dell / Intel® New Paradigms in Design Work Scott Hamilton, vertical market strategist for Dell Precision workstations, 5/2/2013 5
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For industrial control applications, or even a simple assembly line, that machine can go almost 24/7 without a break. But what happens when the task is a little more complex? That’s where the “smart” machine would come in. The smart machine is one that has some simple (or complex in some cases) processing capability to be able to adapt to changing conditions. Such machines are suited for a host of applications, including automotive, aerospace, defense, medical, computers and electronics, telecommunications, consumer goods, and so on. This radio show will show what’s possible with smart machines, and what tradeoffs need to be made to implement such a solution.
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