Software Features

Software is the product; hardware the platform

Software is everywhere these days. Most of us cannot get through our day without interacting with a software product. PTC’s Matt Klassen discusses the impact software is having on discrete manufacturing.

IT certification – a must for today’s design professionals

It is great news that so many graduates are leaving schools, colleges and universities with more design qualifications. However, given the current challenging economic climate the market is very competitive, with graduates and creative professionals alike battling for the same roles.

Pushing the boundaries of traditional milling

Chris Bentley is managing director of Mach One Engineering, a company that specialises in the manufacture of precision engineered components and assemblies. A core customer base is the satellite communications business for whom it manufactures aluminium 4G broadcast amplifier casings.

Simulation lifts design exercise to a higher level

A Norwegian university research project is using computer models to predict the performance of complex offshore materials handling equipment. In the short term, the work is helping designers pick the best components for the job; ultimately, the aim is to automate more of the design process.

More Software Features Features

A collaborative tool for mechatronic system designers(21/11/2012)

Hydraulic and pneumatic fluid power technology has streamlined manufacturing processes, and these days fluid power transmission and actuation systems can be customised to meet the needs of a host of different applications. Ken Christie describes an engineering software tool that can help designers to model and ultimately simulate these systems to a high degree of accuracy before committing to hardware prototyping.
PLM and ERP should be collaborators, not competitors(11/10/2012)

Success in business is usually about collaboration – between customers and suppliers, between companies offering different areas of expertise, between teams. The aim is to make two plus two equal rather more than four. Inside individual companies too, success is normally about people and systems working together to common purpose to produce more than the sum of the parts.
VR helps researchers understand molecular processes(14/09/2012)

The University of Sheffield’s Krebs Institute Structural Biology Group (SBG) has recently installed an ActiveWall virtual reality (VR) system and is using Virtalis’ own VR software enabler for PyMOL* (a widely used 3D molecular visualisation application) both to visualise and interact with molecular data in spectacular stereoscopic 3D.
AMR finalises design well before manufacture(04/09/2012)

Rick Simpson, a design engineer at Aston Martin Racing (AMR), explains how PTC’s Creo design toolset is helping AMR reduce lead times from design to manufacturing, fixing design issues long before they go into manufacturing.
UK Manufacturing warms to PLM(16/08/2012)

UK manufacturing is increasingly positive about the business value of Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), says PTC regional director, Kevin Asbridge: "PLM has emerged as a driver for change that can actually materially impact company performance in the way that ERP did from a cost reduction perspective in the '90s and early 2000s, and companies are extremely hungry to actually get those benefits." Kevin is interviewed here.