Yes, good question, Beth. There are a number of forces that fall on the design engineer -- environmental compliance, collaboration, incorporating new technology, mobile access to design, design for outsourced manufacturing, increased time to market. So much for the contemplative work at the bench.
That's a really interesting point you raise, Rob. These developments are all positioned as helping the design engineer be more efficient in everything from actual design work to communication. But you're right in identifying that it definitely puts more responsiblity on their shoulders. I'm curious from our community out there what they think in terms of new tools, new responsibilities.
So many of these developments seem to put more pressure and responsibility on the design engineer: environmental compliance, collaboration sign-offs, you name it. Is this ultimately a time-saver for the design engineer or is it just one more level of responsibility?
I think that is their approach. That and the ability to test more continously throughout the design cycle as opposed to the typical method of a handoff at the end to testing, when if problems are encountered, turns out to be very costly.
This answers, or starts to answer, a question I've had for some time: as cars become increasingly dependent on processors doing tons of different tasks, how is all that code in all those subsystems being managed? Specifically, how is it all being developed and tested, and has the systems engineering approach arrived yet? This looks like an excellent start on breaking down the silos.
Nice article, Beth. If I understand this right, given this integration tool, the system being tested could be testing with other systems simultaneously so a problem between conflicting systems could be caught earlier?
A new battery design, which replaces lithium with abundant and low-cost elemental sulfur, is still in its nascent stages but shows real promise for giving batteries more energy potential.
PTC will offer a virtual desktop environment for its Creo product design applications, potentially freeing engineers to run them from remote desktops on a variety of operating systems and mobile devices.
The push to achieving more intelligent, integrated manufacturing is putting a strong focus on networking and connectivity as key enabling technologies.
Now that solar and wind harvesting technologies are a thriving market, researchers are seeking other environmentally related energy sources for which they can create harvesting devices.
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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