We recently spoke with Ed Walsh, VP of Global Sales at Sigmetrix for an update on the company and its technologies. During the interview, he spoke how the company continues to be focused on helping customer design and build better products through mechanical variation management.
Sigmetrix is unique because it’s not just a software company, but also a service and training company that together provide a comprehensive solutions approach for its customers.
Sigmetrix is a company whose focus has always been on helping companies create better products through mechanical variation management.
Walsh said, “We can break mechanical variation management down into two parts. Better products would mean a product that’s safer, maybe more efficient, produces less pollution, and is more accurate. For us, that’s what better products mean. Variation is something that comes in and can make those products not so good. Maybe makes the product less competitive or makes customers less happy. So, we’re trying to manage that to make better products”.
“Our customers want to get the most out of their technology investments with the most efficient use of their resources. This includes things like having solutions that scale to multiple skill levels in an organization. We address this need by having our cornerstone tolerance analysis tool (CETOL 6 Sigma) that is used for advanced applications because it’s very powerful, but also a 1D tool (EZtol), that’s relatively simple to use. We are seeing an increased demand for tools that teach people geometric dimensioning and tolerancing (GD&T) as they use them by incorporating training solutions in all of our tools. We feel that that education helps establish a use case, or ability to be used, by that whole spectrum of users”.
MCADCafe Interviews Ed Walsh, VP Global Sales, Sigmetrix
What Does Mechanical Variation Management Mean?
Sigmetrix’s mission statement is “Better products through mechanical variation management.” We asked Walsh if he could elaborate on what that actually means.
“I think the way we can best describe it is by defining what variation actually is. Variation can represent any number of things between the viscosity of a fluid or the amount of flow through a circuit, just based on the random variation of how things work in the world, for example, weather”.
We recently interviewed Ed Walsh, VP of Global Sales at Sigmetrix for an update on the company, its technologies, and the state of the industry. Like our previous discussion, during the interview, he spoke how the company continues to be focused on helping customer design and build better products through mechanical variation management. “Sigmetrix is unique because it’s not just a software company, but also a service and training company that together provide a comprehensive solutions approach for our customers,” Walsh said.
When asked for a little background on himself and Sigmetrix, Walsh said, “Over the past 20+ years in the industry I’ve witnessed a need that customers have conveyed – they want to get the most out of their technology investments with the most efficient use of their resources. This includes things like having solutions that scale to multiple skill levels in an organization. We address this need by having our cornerstone tolerance analysis tool (CETOL 6 Sigma) that is used for advanced applications because it’s very powerful, but also a 1D tool (EZtol), that’s relatively simple to use. We are seeing an increased demand for tools that teach people geometric dimensioning and tolerancing (GD&T) as they use them by incorporating training solutions in all of our tools. We feel that that education helps establish a use case, or ability to be used, by that whole spectrum of users”.
Reflecting on his first job, Walsh said, “I worked for a company that was an OEM to heavy equipment manufacturers, such as John Deere, Caterpillar, Case, and New Holland. Mostly John Deere, but we also built operator enclosures for the other companies. The company I worked for itself had, up until me starting there, really did more contract manufacturing and not much design work. At that time, the engineers were doing design work on giant sheets of vellum and using pencils and manual drafting tools. I was part of the first dedicated team of designers using a very early version of Pro/ENGINEER. We were given a general idea for CAD with functional requirements, but no design parameters”.
MCADCafe Interviews Ed Walsh, VP Global Sales, Sigmetrix
“The great part for me was that I had the ability to go out to the pattern maker that was right next to our CAD workstations and say, ‘Hey, I want to make something like this’, and they could mock it up, and I could see how the parts were fitting together and where are they going to fit, and did it make sense from functional and manufacturing standpoints. If we needed something bigger, we could go down to the production line, but it gave me a really good idea of what actually was happening once the design concept left my CAD station. Overall, it was a really good experience for me”.
Well, another Labor Day has come and gone, and summer is almost over, but that means that a new version of SOLIDWORKS is about to launch. It actually and officially launched earlier this week.
I spoke with Kishore Boyalakuntla, SOLIDWORKS Vice President, Portfolio Management and Brand UX Leader about what was new in SOLIDWORKS 2018, and there was a lot to cover. Keep in mind, though, that I’ll just be touching on what I consider to be the highlights in SOLIDWORKS 2018 this time around. In the coming weeks and months I’ll be going into much more detail on the new version’s features and capabilities
Design To Smart Manufacturing
This time around, SOLIDWORKS says its design-to-manufacturing process provides the tools needed to implement a comprehensive design-through-manufacturing strategy, all inside the SOLIDWORKS environment. These tools let you work without having to export and import data from one system to another. With IP embedded in the 3D design model, and at the center of the model-based definition (MBD) process,, and thanks to associativity, changes from design or manufacturing are automatically reflected in all related CAD models, CAM programs, drawings, and documentation.
Additionally, all the information for manufacturing, inspection, and simulation and verification is directly linked to the design, so it always reflects the current design iteration (which is always a good thing).
A few weeks ago we were in Los Angeles attending SOLIDWORKS World 2017. As usual, it was an overwhelming whirlwind of people, sights, sounds, and information while it was taking place, but has come into better focus now that some time has transpired for letting all of it sink in and make sense. One of the things I wanted to especially sort out was SOLIDWORKS’ take on model-based definition (MBD), where it stands today, and where it might be headed in the future
The last day of SOLIDWORKS World 2017 I sat down with Oboe Wu, SOLIDWORKS MBD Product Manager, and we discussed several aspects of MBD. Our discussion on SOLIDWORKS MBD centered around the creation and consumption of MBD data (that are tied to customers’ workflows), and the fact that MBD is transitioning from the “why implement” phase to the “how to implement” phase.
In the video below, SOLIDWORKS MBD Product Manager, Oboe Wu, discusses how to eliminate conversion of 3D data to 2D documents and fully leverage 3D design data throughout an organization and partners to reduce redundant tasks. He explains MBD from SOLIDWORKS’ point of view.
Since it began in 1986, Spatial has developed software components – modular software packages that perform a set of specific and related functions. This class of software is designed to work as a functional component of a larger application, such as CAD, CAM, CAE, Additive Manufacturing (AM), and Building Information Modeling (BIM). The goal of component software is to standardize the interfaces between software utility functions so that they can work together efficiently and cohesively.
In developing its software components, Spatial has always realized, too, that the best engineering software excels at optimizing imported data for data reuse. Spatial understands that design data reuse is much more than just data exchange.
It’s almost the end of November, so with just over a month left of this year, it’s not too early to start thinking about what we’ll be covering in 2017. The calendar below reflects what we perceive as some of the most important topics today, as well as feedback from our readers and other supporters.
The main theme for each month will be covered in an extended article or series of articles so that the topic can be covered in a more comprehensive way. We’ll also be covering some of the major MCAD events throughout the year, reporting what we see and hear from vendors, partners, and attendees.
We’ll also be covering some of the major MCAD events throughout the year, reporting what we see and hear from vendors, partners, and attendees. All of the events we attend will include daily written coverage and Tweets throughout event days, as well as video and audio interviews.
If you have any thoughts of topics you would like to see covered in 2015, feel free to contact me at jeff@ibsystems.com or 719.221.1867.
We look forward to an exciting 2017and providing you with the MCAD content you want most for improving your design, engineering, and manufacturing processes.
Keep MCADCafe.com your source for all things MCAD because 2017 is going to be a great year!
2017 MCADCafe Editorial Calendar of Monthly Topics
January 2017 – CAM Trends
February 2017 — Cloud Computing with MCAD Applications
A couple of weeks ago, I attended a very interesting event called the 3D Collaboration & Interoperability Congress 2016 (3D CIC) that was hosted by our colleagues at Action Engineering. The actual conference event was two days, but was preceded by a SOLIDWORKS user group meeting that focused exclusively on model-based definition (MBD) for an entire day. Myself, along with about 60 other attendees got a good look at MBD, not just SOLIDWORKS’ perspective, but a broader view, as well.
I was fortunate to sit next to Oboe Wu, product manager at SOLIDWORKS who is a huge proponent of MBD. With SOLIDWORKS MBD, you can communicate product and PMI directly in 3D, bypassing time-consuming 2D processes, in other words, drawings.
SOLIDWORKS MBD sets data such as product models, dimensions, geometric tolerances, surface finishes, welding symbols, bills of material (BOM), callouts, tables, notes, Meta properties, and other annotations within the SOLIDWORKS 3D environment in 3D PMI. Because all the information needed to guide the operation is integrated with the 3D models, traditional 2D drawings are no longer needed (at least in theory).
With MBD, 2D drawings become less necessary and meaningful. Instead of having a 3D model and a 2D drawing in a traditional workflow, the model is the drawing in an MBD workflow. The MBD approach provides a direct connection and single digital data thread from design to engineering to inspection.
Interoperability, collaboration, inspection, quality, standards, proprietary data, neutrality, competition, and innovation – these are words and realities that all manufacturers deal with daily. Over the years there have been myriad attempts to bring this stuff together, all while protecting IP. However, as we know, while the attempts to make this happen have often been valiant, too often they have fallen well short, or worse, failed altogether.
That failure may be on its way to being a thing of the past with the advent of the Quality Information Framework (QIF), an ANSI standard that supports digital thread concepts in engineering applications ranging from product design through manufacturing. Based on the XML standard, it contains a Library of XML Schema ensuring both data integrity and data interoperability in Model Based Enterprise (MBE) implementations. (more…)
Remember a long time ago when the so-called “paperless office” was just around the corner. Well, we’ve all turned a lot of corners over the years waiting for the nirvana that still seems to be “just around the corner.”
Of course, strides have been made for a way to communicate design engineering information in a paperless manner, but one of the most promising developments has been model-based definition (MBD) and model-based engineering/enterprise (MBE).
We spoke with Aaron Kelly, SOLIDWORKS’ Vice President, User Experience & Product Portfolio Management about many things regarding the SOLIDWORKS 2015 portfolio launch, including a brand new offering called SOLIDWORKS MBD. It is designed to help improve communication between design and manufacturing teams by enabling them to communicate product and manufacturing information (PMI) in 3D. The intent here is to use Model Based Definition and to no longer use 2D drawings to define products.
Over the course of a year I read a lot of books — technical, non-fiction, hardcopy, and digital. Most of them I get through, although there are some I don’t even try to finish, and a few become favorites and are kept for future reading on my bookshelf. I just finished a book entitled Re-Use Your CAD: The Model-Based Handbook by Jennifer Herron. When I saw Handbook in the title, I thought it would be just a dry reference book, but I was pleasantly surprised that it was much more than that — it’s a good learning resource.
First, a little about the author and model-based engineering/model-based design (MBE/MBD).
I’ve known Jennifer for several years as we’ve crossed paths at software conferences. She is the owner of Action Engineering, a company that specializes in the promotion, process development, and standardization of 3D CAD MBE and MBD. She is an expert in multiple CAD packages, which she uses along with her practical design experience to hone standards and processes that optimize the ROI of all CAD systems.
She also offers model-based documentation education seminars, MIL-STD-31000A schema and modeling best practice training, as well as planning consulting services for Model-Based Engineering implementation. Keep in mind as you read the book that based on her experience, she is a stickler for standards, such as ISO, but you realize that’s probably a good thing.
Her company is a consulting firm that transitions government organizations and companies to effectively and efficiently implement Model Based Engineering. With a specialty in training organizations to document and tailor their business practices to be compatible with CAD, PDM and PLM software tools, Action advises companies in: CAD modeling standards and best practice, designer modeling efficiency, CAD configuration management, MBE training, team collaboration and CAD interoperability.
The concept(s) of MBE/MBD have received a lot of attention in the past few years because this approach handles product development using a digital master model, and not just necessarily CAD. All downstream activities can be derived from the master model to develop a product. The MBE/MBD approach replaces puzzling documents and can minimize the need for physical prototypes before an optimized design has been developed. In other words, engineers and designers can simulate and iterate as much as necessary to refine a model while also meeting requirements and adhering to design constraints.
Now on to the book . . .
Reuse Your CAD Handbook
The book is structured in a logical manner for those both new and experienced with MBE/MBD. Throughout, it stresses the importance of standardizing, centralizing, documenting, and reusing a CAD database. It’s written in a CAD-agnostic manner, so its principles can be applied in any CAD environment, regardless of vendor.
A sampling of some of the topics covered in the book include:
Explanation of the philosophy of designing products using CAD model-based life-cycles
Implementation guide to model-based commercial (ASME Y14.41), government (MIL-STD-31000A) and company standards
Model-based benefits, risks, and action plans
3D MBD model organizational schema
3D MBD model protocols to satisfy the schema CAD agnostically
Part and assembly modeling best practice
Mass property implementation methods
3D model Data Exchange (DEX) methods
MBE support infrastructure requirements
Product data management (PDM) fundamentals and requirements
