CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
7 September 2004
Product News
UGS Introduces NX DesignLogicT
UGS launched NX DesignLogicT. This new software technology provides users with capabilities for rapidly embedding design knowledge and engineering rules into NXT product definitions, allowing engineers to build a higher level of design intent versus traditional parametric systems.
NX DesignLogic will be available as part of NX 3, which is scheduled for release this month. NX is a next-generation digital product development system that helps companies transform the product lifecycle. With the industry's broadest suite of integrated applications, NX touches the full range of development processes in product design, engineering and manufacturing.
"NX DesignLogic furthers the effective, consistent capture and reuse of knowledge," said Chuck Grindstaff, executive vice president, PLM Products, UGS. "NX DesignLogic creates an advanced 'learning environment' for engineering and manufacturing knowledge usage. This results in new levels of efficiency in the product design process, providing enhanced support for lean design initiatives. And, with functionality that allows engineers to meet robust performance and manufacturability guidelines - or design to a higher level of intent -overall product quality is improved, eliminating potential defects. Engineers can design products that meet robust performance, manufacturability and quality guidelines - key criteria for Design for Six Sigma initiatives."
NX DesignLogic Features
The type of rule definition embedded into NX typically requires custom programming. With NX DesignLogic, engineers have "on the fly" access to the embedded NX rules engine through a streamlined user interface. The intuitive interface guides the user through the creation and selection of rules, presenting necessary input criteria in a logical sequence. Unnecessary user interaction is significantly reduced through the filtering of input and decisions. The knowledge captured by NX DesignLogic can be used in collaborative product development - enriching the product development process, enabling companies to develop into learning organizations and supporting continuous improvement and flexible processes.
"NX 3 is certainly impressive and builds on the strengths of NX 2," said Paul Phillips, staff engineer, Global CAD/CAM Development Kennametal, Inc. "The NX DesignLogic functionality is a big improvement as you can seamlessly create new features while interacting and analyzing the model."
NX DesignLogic will provide customizable capabilities that allow for easy capture and reuse of engineering intent. Designers will have the ability to easily apply best practices to the digital model and eliminate the reoccurrence of design errors.
Engineering intent can be expressed as associative measurements, functions, formulas or references, allowing for the simple building of intelligent models.
NX DesignLogic includes:
• Associative Measurements - Users can associatively connect feature parameters to measurement results, such as length, area, volume and center of gravity.
• New parameter entry tool - The newly designed parameter entry tool provides engineers with an updated way of choosing whether a parameter should be driven by measurement, a formula or function or another parameter; or, the tool allows the user to pick from a list of most recently used values.
• New expressions user interface and interaction - The expression editor has been completely redesigned to allow easy navigation and interaction with the new capabilities. Search tools, as well as auto-complete functions, enable the user to quickly find the function or formula that is desired for the design task on hand.
• Formula builder - The formula builder allows designers to link to a wide variety of knowledge resources. These knowledge resources can be Microsoft Excel spreadsheets, formulae, functions, rules and requirements. User defined functions can be created by the user and exposed into the formula builder as a company specific knowledge base.
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