Trending at CIMdata

Today, from its historic Norwood Motor Manufacturing Facility, Siemens announced a $66.8 million in-kind software grant to Cincinnati State Technical and Community College. Students there will now have access to the same Siemens’ product lifecycle management (PLM) software used throughout the global manufacturing industry to design, develop and manufacture some of the world’s most sophisticated products in a variety of industries, including automotive, aerospace, biotechnology, machinery, shipbuilding, and high-tech electronics. “The manufacturing industry in America is on the rise and it is being transformed by a software revolution that is enhancing productivity, increasing efficiency and speeding time to market,” said Chuck Grindstaff, president and CEO, Siemens PLM Software. “This revolution requires a highly trained workforce. With this grant, Cincinnati State Technical and Community College will be able to integrate world-class PLM technology into its curriculum, so that its students are even better prepared for co-op assignments and for high quality manufacturing

The Circle is: a) A misspelling of the Cyrkle, a sixties one hit wonder with “Red Rubber Ball” b) An potentially malevolent application in the company of the same name, which is the topic of a popular book of the same name by Dave Eggars (confused, I am) c) A blatant attempt to make a poor pun as a blog title Of course, anyone who reads this blog knows that the answer is C. Why? The theme of this year’s PLM Market and Industry Forum is “The Circular Economy.” Products and services offered in the marketplace must meet a wide range of requirements simultaneously. Of course the customer should always come first, but there are additional stakeholders with needs to be addressed. With more criteria to meet, it makes sense to consider them as early in the development process as possible. The notion of concurrent engineering, which emerged in the 1980s, addresses those needs; it

The more you read about industrial sustainability and the circular economy the more you hear about corporate leaders who are readying their companies to take advantage of the transformational opportunities that will undoubtedly become available. All this has implications and opportunities for PLM. Most apparent is the need to embed the end of a product's useful life through the creation of innovative new products while at the same time supporting the full lifecycle. Those companies able to do this will be rewarded. For more information take a look at CIMdata's Essential Reading List on this topic. Let us know what we should add to this list HERE. Sign up HERE for access to our free PLM recources and to receive updates on this topic. A CIMdata Essential Reading List: The Circular Economy The Ellen MacArthur Foundation http://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/business/reports (registration required) Towards the Circular Economy Vol.1: Economic and business rationale for an accelerated transition Towards the Circular Economy Vol.2: Opportunities for the fast-moving consumer goods sector Towards the

Zero Wait-State, a provider of Product Lifecycle Management solutions and services introduced their newest application, LoadState at the Oracle Value Chain Summit, in San Jose California, February 5th. The product was developed with input and feedback from their client SubZero-Wolf, a high end manufacturer of kitchen appliances. The product was deployed live at SubZero-Wolf in late January. Some key features of the product include the ability to read, interpret and import regulatory spreadsheet and custom spreadsheet forms directly into Agile. It also validates the entered information, and creates a declaration in Agile. Finally, it uploads the substances data and sets the declaration compliance status for different specifications in Agile and attaches the original supplier submitted form to the Agile declaration. Miah Finley a Business Systems Analyst from SubZero-Wolf had this to say about Zero Wait-State and LoadState," With ZWS and LoadState, the intricacies of global compliance became simplistic to manage." Zero Wait-State

Advanced Solutions, an Autodesk Platinum Partner and Authorized Training Center (ATC), today announced the newly designed innovation offering, Workflow Simulation + Analysis. Advanced Solutions' Workflow Simulation + Analysis empowers businesses to make informed decisions which improve efficiency, eliminate waste and increase profit. Using a structured process, the workflow simulation team collects data, builds models, designs alternatives, validates designs, and simulates "what if" scenarios. This process results in workflow data, which informs business decisions to reduce operational waste. As part of the Advanced Solutions 2013 Autodesk University luncheon, the Industrial Engineering team gave a preview of the new service offering, providing guests with a chance to answer some simple questions about their day-to-day business process. The presentation introduced 7 kinds of operational waste experienced by every business: Over-production Transportation Inventory Over-processing Waiting Defects Motion Traditional Simulation Modeling is the process of creating and analyzing a digital prototype of a physical model or process to predict outcomes for the real world. Taking this concept to the next

Lectra is pleased to announce that Imperial is implementing Lectra Fashion PLM to reinforce its position in the fast fashion market and support its worldwide business growth strategy. Founded in Bologna, Italy, in 1978 by Adriano Aere and Emilia Giberti, Imperial provides menswear and womenswear to 4,000 customers across the world, including Italy, Europe and Asia. The company, which delivers 6 million pieces per year, decided to expand its activities in 2012 and invested in 80 multi-brand stores. Imperial’s challenge is to cope with increasing activities, while continuing to deliver up-to-date quality collections on time. “With the company growing at a very fast pace, we need to be able to master the end-to-end development process,” says Adriano Aere, Imperial Founder and President. “As consumers demand more and more variety and newness, we also need to become faster and produce more,” he adds. The fast fashion brand decided to integrate Lectra Fashion PLM to

solidThinking, Inc. today announced that solidThinking Inspire has been selected as the Golden Mousetrap Winner in the Design Tools - Hardware & Software CAD/PDM/PLM category. The awards celebrate the companies, products, and people who are energizing North American design, engineering, and manufacturing. The Golden Mousetrap Awards were announced at a ceremony held February 11, 2014 at the Anaheim Marriott. Design News' editors worked tirelessly to evaluate the many entries received to select the products most deserving of inclusion on the list of finalists. The finalist entries were then sent to the entire editorial team and the distinguished Advisory Board for final selection of the winners. "We are honored that Design News has recognized solidThinking Inspire with the Golden Mousetrap Award," said James Hassberger, President of solidThinking. "Recognition from an industry-leading publication like Design News is a tribute to the innovative tools that solidThinking offers. It is our commitment to radically improve the

Two Engineers Without Borders USA (EWB-USA) chapters received grants totaling $10,000 from Knovel in support of important community health initiatives in the Philippines and Cameroon. The University of Notre Dame EWB-USA Student Chapter was awarded one grant for a project designed to provide a clean and reliable source of drinking water to a school in Sangmelima, Cameroon. The Philadelphia Professional Chapter of EWB-USA was awarded the other grant in support of an initiative that will bring potable water to the village of Apatut in the Philippines. Both chapters submitted an application and received funding as part of EWB-USA's Fall 2013 Project Grants Program. EWB-USA is a nonprofit humanitarian organization established to support community-driven development programs worldwide through partnerships that design and implement sustainable engineering projects. Knovel became an EWB-USA corporate partner in 2012, and last year, Knovel provided a grant to the University of South Carolina chapter. Knovel’s cloud-based application integrates technical information from more than 100 engineering

Integware today announced that they have released a whitepaper that covers best practices for PLM project governance. The whitepaper is available for download now at the Integware website. The whitepaper was co-authored by Graciella Byers, Director of PLM at Integware, and Greg Letendre, Integware’s Senior Solution Consultant. The PLM consultants at Integware have found that PLM system implementations will not be successful unless proper governance guides the program/project, proper organizational support is put into place for the changes and supporting business processes are deployed. “PLM implementation is extremely important, as it serves as the product-information backbone for companies and their other enterprises,” said a spokesperson from Integware. “The purpose of this document is to provide examples of governance structures that may be adopted for organizations implementing a PLM solution.” The whitepaper contains several tables and charts that help to illustrate Integware’s PLM consulting principles. “PLM training is a big part of what we do,” said the Integware spokesman. “We created

Dassault Systèmes today announced that the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) will adopt the company’s 3DEXPERIENCE platform for 10,000 users (students and educators), including its full range of capabilities in the design authoring, digital manufacturing, collaboration, scientific simulation, and visualization fields. Today’s announcement comes after nearly 12 years of collaboration, in which Georgia Tech and Dassault Systèmes have partnered to establish an ambitious science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education program unique in academia. Georgia Tech’s Integrated Product Lifecycle Engineering (IPLE) Laboratory and Dassault Systèmes jointly developed a new pedagogical model to educate tomorrow’s engineers through a cloud-based design and manufacturing infrastructure. Several years ago, key figures at Dassault Systèmes and Georgia Tech realized that the future of science, technology and engineering was collaborative in nature. Funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), a new type of curriculum for STEM in high schools was developed in partnership between Dassault Systèmes