ECAD Continues To Expand Into The MCAD Arena
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ECAD Continues To Expand Into The MCAD Arena

ECAD Continues To Expand Into The MCAD Arena

Below are two announcements that we received this week, one from PTC and one from UGS. Although they each discuss different things, they both involve a common thread - the continued merging of electronic computer-aided design (ECAD) and mechanical computer-aided design (MCAD) and how, combined, they are influencing the areas of both design and manufacturing.


PTC Expands Its Windchill Electronics Support

PTC announced the general availability of new Windchill capabilities, including two new Windchill modules, specifically designed to optimize the development of products which mix mechanical, electrical and software components.

The major capability enhancements include: Anticipated benefits of the new capabilities are improved quality and shortened time-to-market, enhanced regulatory compliance and greater capacity to manage increasingly complex supply chain requirements.

Optimizing vendor selection and manufacturer part sources across multiple product lines and geographies is a major challenge facing product companies today, with huge implications on product cost and time-to-market. With the introduction of Windchill Supplier Management, an optional module of Windchill PDMLink, PTC customers can now manage, analyze and communicate critical supply chain-related information. This includes approved manufacturer and vendor lists (AML, AVL), environmental regulatory compliance, lifecycle status and end-of-life risk and component and supplier preferences (approved, do not use, etc.).

Windchill Supplier Management delivers a key linkage between design and manufacturing functions, providing designers with access to supply chain information during design. This allows them to make better decisions from the beginning of the development process. In addition, earlier collaboration with suppliers can help to reduce re-designs and delays during release to manufacturing. Customers can also reduce operating costs by identifying and eliminating ineffective and redundant suppliers.

These supplier management capabilities also significantly extend Windchill PartsLink Classification and Reuse - another optional, integral module of Windchill PDMLink. Released earlier this year, it enables companies to achieve greater design reuse of preferred parts by combining comprehensive enterprise component management with high-speed parametric search. In combination with Windchill PDMLink, these modules comprise a comprehensive enterprise component and supplier management solution.

Many companies that develop products with embedded software are struggling to ensure that the right version of source code is delivered with the right version of the product. The latest release of Windchill 8.0 introduces a solution for interfacing with Software Configuration Management (SCM) systems that manage software source code and related software artifacts.

The Windchill Integration for Rational ClearCase integrates IBM Rational ClearCase, the software configuration management system, with Windchill. This new module enables the data developed by software developers to be synchronized with the appropriate versions of the corresponding mechanical and electrical designs, all within a single, secure system. This solution facilitates greater collaboration and innovation among globally distributed product development teams resulting in improved efficiency and higher quality.

The ability to quickly identify PCB design changes has been a difficult challenge for electronics manufacturers. This release of Windchill delivers the integration between Windchill PDMLink and InterComm EDAcompare, PTC's solution for comparing different versions of an ECAD or PCB design. Now, when changes occur, Windchill automatically identifies the disparity between the two ECAD designs based on attribute, netlist, bill of materials (BOM) and graphical series of comparisons. When combined with the change management processes supported by Windchill PDMLink, this solution provides early PCB change identification and management -- a vital capability for products containing PCBs and a key missing piece in most PLM solutions.

"PTC is committed to helping our customers in the electronics industry remove obstacles that impede product development success," said Chad Hawkinson, director of electronics and high tech marketing and strategy, PTC. "By addressing key problems in the product development process, these new Windchill enhancements provide powerful solutions to help improve customers' ability to get high quality products to market faster, and at lower costs."

UGS Launches Electronics Version Of Tecnomatix For Electronics Manufacturing

UGS Corp. announced Tecnomatix for Electronics Version 7 software, the company's first integrated suite of digital manufacturing software solutions custom designed for the global electronics industry.

Designated as "Version 7" to align it with the entire family of UGS' Tecnomatix solutions, Tecnomatix for Electronics automates and streamlines all key product planning and execution processes enabling global electronics manufacturers to systematically enhance product delivery, cost and quality in an increasingly competitive industry and challenging regulatory environment. The Tecnomatix for Electronics suite combines several digital manufacturing software products previously offered by UGS as individual solutions for printed circuit board (PCB) assembly, final assembly and manufacturing execution.

As a result, UGS can focus this newly packaged offering in the areas of new product introduction (NPI) and manufacturing execution systems (MES) while providing a level of functional integration and coordination of the suite's development and release. The resulting solution helps companies face challenges such as increasing demands for new and innovative products, shrinking delivery schedules and regulatory compliance requirements.

"With the new release of Tecnomatix for Electronics, UGS is uniquely positioned to address our electronics customers' core manufacturing requirements while facilitating compliance to increasingly stringent regulatory directives," said Al Hufstetler, director of Tecnomatix Marketing for UGS. "UGS is committed to helping all of its customers transform their process of innovation by offering them world leading comprehensive and robust PLM software and services. Tecnomatix for Electronics continues this strategy by further enhancing UGS' digital manufacturing family of solutions."

By combining multiple software products into an integrated suite, Tecnomatix for Electronics provides the electronics manufacturing industry with end-to-end solutions for planning and executing manufacturing processes: These announcements combined point to the fact that not only is mechanical CAD getting more closely entwined with CAM and CAE, it is also getting cozier with the electrical and electronic, or ECAD, side of things. Of course, PTC and UGS aren't the first or the only companies to realize and try to capitalize on ECAD. I say this because while CATIA, Pro/ENGINEER, and NX have had some pretty sophisticated ECAD capabilities, Inventor and SolidWorks can also deal with ECAD, albeit at a different level.

So exactly what is ECAD?

Like a lot of other things in the technical world, ECAD means different things to different companies. Depending on which company you are talking to, ECAD can mean everything from laying out layered printed circuit boards to designing the integrated circuits that are mounted on the circuit boards to routing wires and cables on paths through space and terminating them with harnesses and connectors. More commonly, though, the technologies used for PCBs and ICs is referred to as electronic design automation (EDA). Whatever you call it it's, a complicated proposition - for both design and manufacturing. It gets even more complicated when you add configuration management, ERP, MRP, MES, and other systems to the mix. For our purposes here, though, we'll consider routing wires and cables with their associated connectors and harnesses to be our definition of ECAD.

Just imaging the complexity of specifying, routing, and keeping track of the hundreds or thousands of wires found in a typical car or truck with entertainment, navigation and safety systems. Then, imaging at least a magnitude greater for an aircraft. As the electrical wiring systems in the transportation industry become increasingly complex, so does the need for design software to manage this complexity. Change management for these mechanical/electrical systems also becomes important because a change in one will probably affect a change in the other.

Ok, so we've briefly discussed MCAD vendors embracing ECAD. What about the converse? As it turns out, a very prominent company in EDA, Mentor Graphics, is doing just that - supporting an initiative that integrates the design and engineering of mechanical and electrical systems. It has partnered with some of the big MCAD guns, such as Dassault, UGS, and PTC to tackle the enormous challenges of integrating MCAD and ECAD into a cohesive endeavor.

Mechanical things have become so electrical, that the integration of the two is becoming increasingly critical, not to mention complicated. This is such an important and growing area that in the coming weeks we will be discussing how the integration and complexity management processes are progressing as we interview executives from Mentor Graphics and some of its MCAD partners.


The Week's Top 5

At MCADCafé we track many things, including the stories that have attracted the most interest from our subscribers. Below are the five news items that were the most viewed during last week.

UGS Reports Continued Quarterly And Year-Over-Year Growth
UGS Corp. announced financial results for the third quarter ended September 30, 2005. In the third quarter, UGS marked its ninth consecutive quarter of year-over-year total revenue growth and expanded its market leadership position in the high-growth collaborative Product Development Management (cPDM) space with a year-over-year 73.8 percent revenue increase including acquisitions, or 45.9 percent without acquisitions. UGS' performance was driven by continued growth in its two key product segments (cPDM and CAx) and growth in each of its geographic regions. Total revenue increased to US$290.2 million, or 23.4 percent growth over the same period a year earlier. That includes US$89.8 million in license software revenue, or a 24.9 percent year-over-year increase. The acquisition of Tecnomatix Technologies Ltd. added US$20.5 million in overall revenue and US$7.5 million in license software revenue.

Boeing Launches New 747-8 Family
The Boeing Co. officially launched the new Boeing 747-8 program, which includes the 747-8 Intercontinental passenger airplane and the 747-8 Freighter airplane. Both versions of the new 747 will feature GE's 787-technology GEnx engines, meet Stage 4 and QC2 noise requirements, have reduced emissions, offer lower trip costs, and have an upgraded flight deck and an improved wing. The 747-8 Intercontinental passenger airplane will be stretched 3.6 m (11.7 ft) compared to the 747-400 to accommodate 34 additional seats in a typical three-class configuration. The 747-8 Freighter will be 5.6 m (18.3 ft) longer than the 747-400 freighter. Boeing forecasts the need for about 900 airplanes -- passengers and freighters -- in the 400-plus-seat segment over the next 20 years. Boeing also forecasts that large widebody freighters (65 metric tons and above in capacity) will comprise 34 percent of the freighter market by 2024.

Autodesk Joins Rockwell Automation Encompass Partner Program
Autodesk and Rockwell Automation announced that Autodesk has been accepted into the Rockwell Automation Encompass Partner program. The partnership enables customers of Rockwell Automation who utilize the Allen-Bradley brand of products to reap value from using AutoCAD Electrical software, an AutoCAD-based electrical controls design application, interoperable with Autodesk's other design applications. AutoCAD Electrical automates many tasks for electrical controls designers and provides an ideal path for designers who use AutoCAD to design control systems or generate critical reports, such as a bill of materials, by hand. AutoCAD Electrical contains libraries of Rockwell Automation components that allow users to specify Allen-Bradley product content directly from the included libraries into a design. This process automatically inserts the correct part number and product information into the bill of materials.

Libbey Inc. Standardizes On SolidWorks
SolidWorks announced that Libbey Inc., a glass manufacturer for the food service industry, is making SolidWorks the 3D design standard for its engineers worldwide. Libbey has purchased 21 licenses of SolidWorks software for mechanical and mold engineers who design products, machinery, and tooling for the company's six manufacturing plants around the world. The Libbey engineering group has already used SolidWorks in an interesting way - to transform a set of architectural drawings first created in AutoCAD software into a working, virtual 3D model of a new Libbey plant in China. Libbey mechanical engineers will use SolidWorks to design machinery for operating plants in the U.S., Mexico, the Netherlands, and Portugal. Libbey mold designers are using SolidWorks software to design blow-mold and press mold machines that produce the actual glassware. A key factor in Libbey's 3D CAD investment selection was the fact that SolidWorks software is available in the languages spoken at its existing and future plants, including Chinese, English, and Spanish.

V5 PLM Solutions Available On AMD64 Technology
Dassault Systemes announced the availability of V5 PLM 64-bit solutions on AMD Opteron processor-based systems, starting with Version 5 Release 16. The first AMD Opteron processor-based systems recently certified by Dassault Systemes to run V5 PLM 64-bit solutions are the HP xw9300 workstation and the IBM Intellistation A Pro 6217 workstation. Customers can benefit from increased maximum product model size, high levels of possible product model detail, and overall application performance.


Jeffrey Rowe is the editor and publisher of MCADCafé and MCAD Weekly Review. He can be reached here or 408.850.9230.

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