Acuity Newsletter
introduction
By Paul Stevens
Welcome to the Acuity’s Newsletter for Fall 2009. Acuity is your Engineering Technologies Partner, focused on improving operational efficiencies in companies with complex product and/or process requirements. We have had the fortunate pleasure to serve our customers in this capacity since 1993. Our collection of software partners represents best-in-class market leaders in the area of Mechanical CAD/CAM/CAE and specialized engineering processes such as composites design/analysis/manufacturing. Our collection of 260+ customers comes from every imaginable vertical industry segment, from Aerospace/Defense to Marine to Industrial Machinery and Alternative Energy.
Acuity’s goal is to bring our high-level of technical expertise and our world-class software vendors into our customer relationships to understand the business issues (related to engineering and manufacturing) and ultimately optimize the use of PLM tools to squeeze the most return out of their intellectual property.
We know that we all have had a challenging year this year, but improving our company's efficiencies is almost always a top priority, and we have exciting news to share with regard to new tools and services that can help your company do that in a number of different areas. Some new areas for us are composites design and manufacturing and two terrrific new tools for your quality control team. Thanks for reading, and please let us know of any questions or thoughts on how we can improve our next newsletter.
Sincerely,
Paul Stevens
What's New?
By Paul Stevens
Acuity has worked hard this past year to partner with software vendors that have developed technology solutions that fill needs in key industry verticals such as Aerospace & Defense, Marine, Energy, Medical Devices and Automotive. The following partners have been added to our list of product offerings within the past year:
FiberSIM provides the best-in-class composite design solution, part of an end-to-end solution for OEMs and supply chain companies working with composites
“The most efficient nesting software in the world”, JetCAM was added as a primary component of our composite solution set, and provides the best nesting available for any process requiring nesting of materials for the manufacturing process.
MSC Software is a leading global provider of integrated enterprise simulation solutions, MSC rounds out our composite solution set.
Validation Tool, a unique solution to CAD model quality and validation concerns, the Validation Tool gives complete, precise comparison of 3D CAD files with encrypted reporting capabilities and allows you to easily comply with Boeing's DS-519991 requirement.
Build!IT is an integrated software solution for 3D measurement, inspection and reverse engineering – with applications across a broad spectrum of industries.
Dassault Systems is a leading PLM vendor and strategic partner of Acuity’s in our solution offering to the Aerospace, Trucking, and other industries.
DISCUS software automates your First Article Inspection document creation and cuts your cost of creation by 50% or more and allows easy compliance with AS9102!
NX for Apple Mac is Here!
By Doug Dingus
Siemens PLM Software has expanded two of their core design and implementation philosophies with the release of NX 6.0.3 on Apple Macintosh. Siemens has a long history of producing powerful and open cross-platform software tools used everywhere from small shops to large scale aerospace, medical and defense. NX 6 on Mac features best in class CAD and CAM, bringing world-class engineering software capability to Macintosh computer users.
NX 6 is not an Aqua native application instead the legacy X window system and Motif are used for the GUI, aligning the NX on Mac software most closely with the traditional Unix / Linux look and feel. All CAD / CAM functions operate as they do on Windows versions.
Installation is a breeze, like it is with any Mac application. All that is required is to load the latest from X.org, Open Motif, NX, and optionally the NX License Server.
NX 6 can make use of any NX license server system, meaning an existing NX site can add a Mac to the mix with little effort beyond loading and configuring the software. 3D Connexion Space Mouse type input devices are supported.
There are a few differences between the PC and Unix versions of NX. On Mac specifically, some file format translators are not available, nor is the integrated CAE tools, like Strength and Stress Wizards, and FEA analytical tools.
All NX data is cross platform, meaning an NX user on a PC can easily exchange data with one running Linux, or Mac. Licenses work across platforms too. A 64 bit Windows computer could be used for FEA, leaving the Mac computer to focus on design, detailing, technical surfacing, assembly and CAM.
Click here for more information on NX for Mac or,
Email Doug with your specific questions.
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Why PLM for Your Business?
By Patrick Kennedy
PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) is a rather broad term that can mean lots of things to a variety of people, because it can do lots of things for a variety of people. What you get for your investment depends on what problems you want to solve, because at its core PLM is all about addressing the difficulties faced by people who create and use product data.
Common tasks addressed by PLM include: finding the files you need; knowing you’re working on the latest version of the file; knowing whether it’s released or not; releasing documents in an automated, reliable and auditable process and protecting your released files from unauthorized changes. These are some of the common challenges that slow companies down.
Yet, maybe your focus is narrower, such as only on CAD data. Do you put a lot of time into creating your part and assembly models? In that case, PLM can help you in other ways, including: going back to a previous revision if you mistakenly change something; preventing duplicate part numbers so you know changes to a part will get rolled up to all the assemblies that are supposed to use it; getting a Where-Used report from your CAD system; sending a BOM from CAD to ERP. PLM will save you time and help your company to be more profitable and efficient.
These are just a few of the many difficulties faced by people in organizations large and small that are addressed by PLM. Regardless of your vantage point, PLM offers solutions.
Email Patrick with questions
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Life After I-deas
By Brian Garcia
Acuity is one of a few companies recognized by Siemens as Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) certified specialists for I-DEAS to NX-Teamcenter migrations. We have assisted numerous companies in a smooth transition to NX and Teamcenter while preserving the organization’s investment and intellectual capital of their Team Data Manager (TDM) data from I-DEAS.
“With the releases of NX6 and Teamcenter 2007.1 (Unified Architecture) from Siemens, the software and migration tools have never been more robust and timely for ALL I-DEAS customers. The time is now to finally make the jump to possibility the best design engineering and PLM/PDM tools on the market.” says Brian Garcia, PLM Applications Engineer at Acuity. He adds, “At these software revision levels, the users will experience a very significant increase in performance, as well as, functionality.”
From working with customers over the years, Acuity has developed different migration strategies for I-DEAS customers depending on the size of the company and project work schedule. This goes along with our proven philosophy of “customer first” practices. Implement software and new releases of software ONLY when they have been fully tested and vetted to minimize any software bugs. Make the customer successful at all costs.
As we all know, there is no good time for projects of this nature, but Acuity has tried to develop a program that will be the least invasive and cost effective. We work to understand the project deadlines of the end users, so any disruptions to your company’s engineering community will be minimize.
The new digital design tools will be leveraged quickly and the learning curve will be small to maximize customer project budgets. Time to market has always been the cornerstone for any business but even more so now in our current economic climate. Acuity honors this more now than ever by implementing some of our PLM best practices and by helping our customers easily manage their data in Teamcenter.
The transition to NX and Teamcenter will bring new-found functionality that I-DEAS users have never experienced. They will be able to store and link any document (Microsoft Office or comparable, pictures, PDF’s, etc) related to the CAD file that is being created in NX or I-DEAS.
In the Teamcenter environment, ALL these files can be managed and processed through a workflow to be released with added security on your enterprise data server. The power of the file searching functionality will make I-DEAS users wonder why they waited so long to move forward to Teamcenter!
Finding files is very easy and fast. These new Product Data Management (PDM) features will open many possibilities and help your company understand why security and sharing of your data, specifically, in Teamcenter is so important. Teamcenter excels in these areas along with focusing on the PLM aspects of moving company documents and procedures into lifecycle states.
By implementing these practices, there will never be a question of what the latest “released” revision is and chance of manufacturing an old revision is virtually eliminated…losing time and money will be minimized.
Making the investment to move to NX and Teamcenter now when business is slow will increase your bottom line both sooner and later!
Email Brian with questions.
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