Beth, I know what you mean when you say at the top of your article that PLM has been a tough pill to swallow. It seems that engineers and organizations have a hard time seeing the value of what they do now to help organize the information on a project for future use. We tend to think about the next deadline in our design process, not what the needs of the organization down the line. I was in one of those organizations that you mention. On the other hand, having that information available really makes you more effective over time.
I think that with products like this we are getting to a level of automation that takes some of the load off of the individual trying to solve a problem in the here and now. That is the trade-off.
It's a royal pain, but it has to be done. Take firmware for mobile phones. PLM is absolutely necessary to handle firmware releases, do regression testing. Done wrong, and you have very, very angry customers.
What is truly needed is for Siemens to talk to and LISTEN to their customer base. While new buzz words like 4GD, HD-PLM and Active Workspace generate excitement from a sales perspective, alot of the issues with PLM are much more rudimentary and if addressed properly, the user base would be telling everyone they know why they can't live without this technology.
@Kdkimball: What are some of the critical problems you see with PLM ease of implementation? The interesting thing is Siemens says a lot of these new technologies are a result of listening to their customer base and their requirements. I'd be curious to see where you see the disconnects.
New versions of BASF's Ecovio line are both compostable and designed for either injection molding or thermoforming. These combinations are becoming more common for the single-use bioplastics used in food service and food packaging applications, but are still not widely available.
Andrew Morris designed a circuit that could detect a stroke victim's groan and convert the sound into a signal so caregivers would know when help was needed.
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At the Design News webinar on June 27, learn all about aluminum extrusion: designing the right shape so it costs the least, is simplest to manufacture, and best fits the application's structural requirements.
On April 21, NASA launched a novel project, putting into orbit three satellites that employ an off-the-shelf commercial smartphone as the control system.
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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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