CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive

11 August 2009

Company News

Siemens PLM Software Invests in ASU to Help Engineering Students Better Prepare for Joining Workforce

Arizona State University (ASU) will enrich its engineering education and provide students more advanced preparation to enter the workforce through an in-kind software grant from Siemens PLM Software to ASU’s Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering announced today.

With a commercial value of nearly $245 million, it is the largest in-kind grant in the university’s history.

The grant was made through the Siemens PLM Software Global Opportunities in Product Lifecycle Management program – called GO PLM™ – and includes engineering software, student/instructor training and specialized software certification programs.

“Advanced tools such as the PLM software are essential to preparing our engineers for the challenges they will face in an increasingly complex and global economy. They will be able to meet demand for designing and analyzing systems that transcend traditional boundaries,” said Deirdre Meldrum, dean of the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering.

“This gift from Siemens PLM Software aligns with our vision of leading engineering education and research that sparks innovation, and enables engineers to improve the quality of life,” Meldrum said.

“Today’s leading manufacturing and technology companies compete on the basis of time to market, product cost, quality and innovation,” said Dave Shirk, executive vice president of Global Marketing for Siemens PLM Software. “It’s quite clear that today’s best students in top programs, like the program at ASU, benefit through opportunities to gain experience with technology that supports these objectives.”

ASU now joins other leading universities with which Siemens PLM Software has similar academic partnerships or has made similar in-kind grants, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the University of California at Berkeley, Michigan State University, Brigham Young University, Rutgers, Virginia Tech, Carnegie Mellon and Purdue.

ASU Graduate student Adam Dixon said training on Siemens PLM Software’s technology “will make ASU engineering grads more marketable. It will definitely open more doors.”

“Many companies use the software because of its superiority,” said Dixon, who is studying engineering design and works in ASU’s Design Automation Lab. “Having access to this innovative technology will give us a clear advantage in the workforce.”

Jami Shah, a professor in Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering and director of the Design Automation Lab, said Siemens PLM Software “has an extremely generous academic license program. Siemens PLM Software realizes the important responsibility industry has in contributing to higher education.”

“Our mechanical and aerospace engineering graduates go to work for major engineering companies that use these kinds of high-end computer–aided design and finite element analysis software packages,” Shah explained. “This is why it’s important to instruct students with tools such as Siemens PLM Software’s NX™ software.”

“We’ve used Siemens PLM Software’s state-of-the-art software products for nearly 25 years,” he said. The academic license program allows students to use engineering software analysis packages such as NX, I-deas™ and Nastran® to perform critical engineering tasks such as stress and failure simulation, vibration and dynamics analyses and thermal analyses.

“The software is a great teaching tool because it makes everything transparent,” Shah said. “It clearly shows the student how the results of any design work or engineering analysis were computed. You can see and control the workings of the software packages.”

Troy Howe, a senior studying mechanical and aerospace engineering, said the computer-aided design program “has been invaluable to my progress.”

Howe uses the program at work to build three-dimensional models and drawing schematics.

“My training in class gave me the confidence and ability to complete my projects quickly and accurately,” he said. “It has helped me draw praise for the quality of my work. So I’m looking forward to next semester when I’ll take the advanced computer-aided engineering class with the new PLM software.”

GO PLM Program

Siemens PLM Software’s GO PLM™ initiative leads the industry in the commercial value of the in-kind grants it provides and brings together four complementary community involvement programs focused on academic partnership, regional productivity, youth and displaced worker development and the PACE (Partners for the Advancement of Collaborative Engineering Education) program. GO PLM provides PLM technology to more than 1,000,000 students yearly at nearly 10,200 global institutions, where it is used at every academic level – from grade schools to graduate engineering research programs.

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