This announcement seems to have caused some consternation among Indian engineers for obvious reasons:

http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:T43k_JInIiUJ:www.deccanherald.com/content/36619/todays-letters.html+Washington+Accord+india&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

So, the process starts at Catia V5 for part design. Here, the company brings in functional tolerancing — it does not need to add dimensions to models. Next comes putting the part in the assembly. Everything — including the BOM — is modeled. The company then uses a translator to divorce PDM from CAD. This puts most of the data in a cental database and helps keep model file sizes small. The firm does EVERYTHING in 3D. It hooks into SmarTeam workflow actions and picks up FAA approval data. Thesystem generates updated BOMs on-the-fly. Part of the process involves comparing the results of actions. The firm uses Kubotek’s validation technology which compares surfaces (not features generated from point clouds). This shows whether, say, files from different versions of a program are acceptably precise. It also uses ITI’s comparison technology. Repairing faulty data is a matter of “STEPPing it out and putting it back in the machine, without indexing a revision to the engineer.”

Next, the process proceeds to manufacturing with Delmia which drives the equipment on the floor. It is also used to model the whole plant. The speaker says guys on the shop floor can now use Catia to make revisions needed for manufacturing. Shop personnel love this because it gives them a career path to engineering.

The upshot of all this? Projects that used to take 30,000 engineering-hours now take 12,000.

The attendees here extremely knowledgeable. Most self-deprecatingly call themselves, “graybeards.” James Gordon, VP of Validation Development at Kubotek USA Inc. actually had a hand in writing, or completely wrote, many of the kernels in use today. He is especially interesting to talk to because of his extensive knowledge of the CAD industry’s history. I am to speak with him more later.

Brett Hillhouse of IBM talked about “Trends in Aerospace and Defense Product Development.” The complexity of products such as airplanes causes expensive failures — not at the individual component level but at the assembly level, when all the bits and pieces have been put together. One example he gave was windshield wipers that didn’t work once installed on the car — someone forgot to calibrate the sensor for the coefficient of glass used on the vehicle. The problem is so bad, he says, that some companies feel they have to completely redo their product development processes. What is needed is a “requirements engineering” phase that captures all the non-functional, as well as the functional, needs of a design. For example, Can passengers in a car actually use the cup holder or is it in such an unwieldy position they would get a hernia while reaching for their cup of java? According to Hillhouse, CAD and PLM are not enough for global dealings.

So, what exactly comprises a system? In the sense that Hillhouse speaks of, a system provides a set of services; it is used by an enterprise to carry out a business purpose; and it consists of hardware, software, data — and workers. Companies should use a model-driven approach to systems development, says Hillhouse. The approach is similar to that of 3D CAD in that it ties all the constraints, artifacts, etc., into one model. The new approach is artifact-based, not paper-based.

IBM calls what it does “open services for lifecycle collaboration,” says Hillhouse. This is an IDE using the REST API (short foe Representational State Transfer) and integrating systems engineering, requirements engineering, and detailed design with a set of underlying best practices.

The NTSB released the public docket for Flight 1549 on June 9, 2009. The docket contains a wealth of information that can be utilized in a full 3D reconstruction of the accident. K3 Resources, a Denver-based company that specializes in technical animation and accident reconstruction, did this video as a marketing project but reportedly got engrossed in the whole effort and invested some 200 hours in it. They say, “Integrating all spatial and temporal data allows us to approach this accident from a never-before-seen perspective.” That’s for sure. The video is a bit over seven minutes and spans the entire flight time of Flight 1549. There are also numerous other resources on this page, including radar images on which you can make out the bird clusters.

Well worth watching.

Tuesday:…The main conference begins at 1 pm, so I had a chance to check-out the surroundings. Earlier this morning, plently of people living in or near the resort were out on the green, chipping shots, or zooming around like mad on their golf carts. It’s only about 10 am now, but everyone has moved indoors or onto patios as the Arizona heat starts to climb.

Attendees are working on a patio at the resort.

The local fauna includes beautiful flowers as well as cactus and other stuff you normally associate with a desert.

Stay tuned for more to come….

http://community.machinedesign.com/forums/thread/1468.aspx

Now comes a confirmation of that viewpoint from higher education experts. In a recent article on the Chronicle of Higher Education Web site, Marty Nemko, an Oakland, Calif. career counselor, contributes the following:

“All high-school students should receive a cost-benefit analysis of the various options suitable to their situations: four-year college, two-year degree program, short-term career-prep program, apprenticeship program, on-the-job training, self-employment, the military. Students with weak academic records should be informed that, of freshmen at “four year” colleges who graduated in the bottom 40 percent of their high-school class, two-thirds won’t graduate even if given eight and a half years. And that even if such students defy the odds, they will likely graduate with a low GPA and a major in low demand by employers. A college should not admit a student it believes would more wisely attend another institution or pursue a noncollege postsecondary option. Students’ lives are at stake, not just enrollment targets.”

The rest of the exchange is equally illuminating:

http://chronicle.com/article/Are-Too-Many-Students-Going-to/49039/?sid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

So we are heartened to see that another institution devoted to industrial training is getting into the headlines. The Manufacturing Skill Standards Council (MSSC) is a training, assessment and certification system focused on production and supply chain logistics workers. Recently Illinois State Senator Dan Cronin visited gearmotor manufacturer Bison Gear & Engineering Corp. to explore Bison’s successful implementation of the MSSC Program for his cable television series, “Illinois Education.”

The 25 minute “Illinois Education” video can be viewed at the BisonGear.com website, along with two related short videos entitled, “Implementing the MSSC creates a better skilled workforce at Bison” and “Employees benefit at Bison with the MSSC program.”

With all this going on, it seems likely that programs such as SketchUp might eventually get delivered directly through the browser rather than as a desktop application. Maybe CAD will follow?

At least that is a conclusion that can be drawn by a recent report from Rutgers and Georgetown University researchers. They contend that there are plenty of kids talented in science and math coming out of high school, but most of them tend not to pursue advanced degrees or careers in these fields. And the reason seems to track back to a lack of career opportunities in math and science.

The authors write that the fall-off in top-performing high school grads pursuing studies in STEM “may indicate that the top high school graduates are no longer interested in STEM, but it might also indicate that a future in a STEM job is not attractive for some reason.”

You can read an Education Week write up of the report at this link, which also contains a link to the full report:

http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2009/10/28/10engineer.h29.html?tkn=ZQ[FHhMHPmR0MnDTN3v8WfWt%2FKowJkPYxxn2