Tuesday, October 13, 2009

If Design is all about change; why are engineers reluctant to follow suit?

Design is all about "what-if" and tweaking and changing and modifying. As engineers, we love to get in and sketch out a concept and run a calculation, tweak a CAD model, alter something in the testing lab to give us what we want.

But yet, engineers are inherently resistant to change. Seems contradictory to me.

It never ceases to amaze me, when talking to engineers that this trait is extremely common. Albeit, mostly in the "older generation" of engineers. Before you take offense, let me shed a bit of light. I think the 45+ engineers simply didn't have as much choice as newbie engineers of today. So, they are reluctant to change because it isn't a part of their DNA. I think the generation before them was probably even worse.

There is a comfort level in doing what is known and trusting "the way we do it". This way has been tested and tweaked and "perfected" over the last 50 years. So, that is how we do it. Are you content with that? Ever feel like it could be improved? Ever question what "old guy Joe" set as the standard in the 1970s and no one has questioned it since? If so, do your homework, propose change- it's healthy. You will get push back, for sure. But in the end, if you feel strongly enough and your proposal is solid, you will be a hero.

Today's engineers are all about change, adapting, instant info, things moving at the speed of sound. So, they will come in with some way out ideas and super over excited about their ideas. But the facebook, twitter, google, web generation of engineers are bright. They are coming out of school in droves. They don't know enough to know it all, just yet. But give them time and listen to their ideas.

Typically, I tend to preach about CAD or CFD or some other specific area. But this plea can be in anything that you work on today. Don't make a massive project out of it, but look to improve and change and listen for the good of the company/project/team/product, whatever.

If you are sitting there shaking your head as a non-believer of change. I respectively, say, step aside there is a new generation of engineers out there that will pass you by in a matter of time.

Thursday, October 08, 2009

Are you settling for status-quo in your MCAD system?

Do you remember the days prior to having 3D MCAD? What drove you to making the 3D investment? Do the words-- parametric, feature-driven, top-down design, associativity ring a bell? How about the concept of "collision detection"? Imagine a 2D drawing updating on the fly as you changed a parameter in 3D. All of the above seemed fairly revolutionary 10-15 years ago. Now, simply, status quo.

Over the years, MCAD has evolved to way more than status quo. The question is -- have you? I am not talking about bells and whistle evolution. I am talking about serious productivity enhancements.

Do you make parts that are similar? Do you struggle "re-using" previous designs? Do you find yourself trying to fit a square peg into a round hole? Do you just accept "rebuild errors" as status quo?

I received an interesting email yesterday discussing whether or not the person was going to upgrade to the latest version of their CAD system. By the way, they were FOUR releases back. I doubt it was this particular engineer's idea not to upgrade. But, I am blown away by the reluctance of companies to not stay current or at least reasonably current with the latest and greatest coming from the vendor they CHOSE??? I am the first to recognize that upgrading takes some time, money etc. But, are you truly weighing the benefits of not upgrading?

Let's say you are a widget maker.

  1. Are you spending alot of time re-designing? Do you have to start from scratch or are your models built with lots of intelligence so changes are not an issue?
  2. Are you leveraging configurations, macros, design tables?
  3. Do you leverage CAD part attributes for material properties, mass property analysis etc?
  4. Is Upfront CAE just part of the daily process? Or are you spending the time ,it would take to implement this properly, physically testing your stuff because "that's what we do"?
  5. Are you communicating design ideas and intent via lightweight viewers (every CAD system has them) across your entire organization?
  6. Are you tracking and documenting the lifecycle of your products? Before we talk lifecycle- how about solid revision control and a bone-simple solid ECO system?
I could go on forever. I ask all that are content to stay "status quo", how long do you think you can hold out? My thought would be to push your engineers to strive to thrive!!! Get them to own it and push them to embrace the tools that you invested in. If you have wrong tool, don't be afraid to own up and make a plan to fix it.

Wednesday, October 07, 2009

Time for reflection


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Originally uploaded by derrekcooper
This year has been a fairly slow blogging year for me. Many reasons, many excuses. But, I am back in the saddle, I am more committed than ever.

I am in the process of migrating to Wordpress from Blogger. Why, not exactly sure why, but I am making the move regardless.

I have been fortunate enough to be spending this week at the beach with my family. I have no work computer with me, just my little netbook. The web surfing I have done is based on interest, not work.

I have spent many hours with my kids, many long walks with my dogs and a fair amount of time ---just relaxing.

Exciting few months we have ahead at blue ridge. Stay tunes, tons of really cool stuff coming.

Sunday, October 04, 2009

Where does "open source" fit in the CAE space?

As the market sits today, unfortunately, I don't see an immediate fit for free open source software (FOSS) having a huge impact on the CAE market. It could have some, but not huge. I think the reasons are due to the shear size of the market, complexity of the software, size of the developer community and the accountability of the developed code. Big claims, so let me provide a bit more.

The size of the CAE market is on the size of 10s of thousands to 100s of thousands at the absolute most. The size of those that actually have the time/skills to actively develop is a few % of that. Plus, the culture and expectations of the user community is one of dependence on the commercial vendors to handle everything. There hasn't been an outcry by the user community to provide "the source" or allow access to the internals. In fact, the outcry is usually the exact opposite. The expectations from the user community are immensely high in that they want to adopt a new way of product development (ie simulation), but.. they expect it...

  1. To be super simple to use and implement
  2. Extremely accurate with minimal user input
  3. Reasonably priced
  4. Fantastic support

Surely not claiming that the shear size and complexity of CAE software is the barrier to a FOSS model. I am claiming that the size of the market and the early stages of mass adoption are the limiting factors right now. There is simply not enough demand and resources out there to really make it work across the board.

The CAE space is very competitive and many people still view it as "nice to have". Until it is mainstream and on the critical path, it will be difficult to see a vendor making the big leap into the wide open world of FOSS.

I am a big fan of the FOSS model in mass adopted applications - firefox, thunderbird, ubuntu, banshee etc... Would love to hear an argument how to take a very competitive, "niche" product like FEA or CFD and make a business model that can survive as FOSS.

Would love to hear alternative arguments to this.

Friday, October 02, 2009

Why aren't you leveraging CFD?

Now is the time to vent!?! Ask yourself the following...

  1. Do I design products where fluid flow is a design variable?
  2. Do I design products that I have to worry about heating or cooling?
  3. Am I spending alot of time and $$$ in the physical prototyping phase?
  4. Have we traditionally over-engineered products and a change is needed?
  5. Are my products failing in the field? If so, how much $$ is this truly costing?
I realize that many have considered, investigated and even tried dabbling in the world of CFD. I am really interested to hear your thoughts on the barriers.

Like any technology, it can be a bit overwhelming at first. But there are people in the world that can help. Would like to see some comments from the heart on concerns/successes/failures...

I promise, its not as scary as you might think. No obligation whatsoever, but if you are interested in seeing what CFD can look like in today's world, check out.... CFdesign 2010