Delivering value with Augmented Reality

A conference room filled to the breaking point was the scenario when we hosted a breakfast seminar together with Prevas and LTH.

The topic was around the future of product development with a focus on augmented reality. Professor Günter Alce took the participants on a journey that gave insight into how this area has evolved and how both the academia and the organizations view AR and have adopted it.

Interesting to see and understand that something we phrased “the future of product development” goes as far back as to 90’s and even the 70’s. It puts things into perspective. Günter described and showcased a number of the projects he has been involved in and gave insight into the evolution.
Augmented Reality in Real Life
Augmented Reality can bring value to your business in many areas. In the industrial enterprise, there are use cases with rapid ROI, easy adoption, and a meaningful way to stand out from your competition. André Floreby, Prevas, and Roger Thyrell, PDSVISION, then provided their view relating to the dialogue and interaction they have with organizations on this topic.

In dialogues with the audience after the event, there were several important use cases brought to life relevant in the different organizations.
Augmented Reality Transforms Operations
The service use case was discussed based on the situation many organizations face today — an expertise shortage, triggered by retiring veterans and increasingly complex requirements. Traditional tactics for preserving expertise have diminishing returns.

When it comes to manufacturing and assembly, analytics and automation have changed the operations. AR is now transforming human processes by accelerating skills development and empowering guidance.

Companies moving big equipment from event to event for several hundreds of thousands of dollars have huge amounts to save and at the same time also generate the ability to be more informative, agile and modern. Using augmented reality to deliver digital product experiences to your customers, AR shortens sales cycles, reduces the cost of marketing and sales logistics, and immerses customers to set you apart from the competition.

I would encourage you to take a look at some of what real customers have done with AR:

Cannondale:

https://www.ptc.com/en/case-studies/cannondale

BAE:

https://www.ptc.com/en/resources/augmented-reality/video/bae-systems-mixed-reality-with-ptc

KTM:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7VyVOJBM4Q

Download Vuforia view from your favorite app store.
And please try this at home.

Sincerely,
Roger Thyrell

Getting started with PTC Creo Simulation Live now easier than ever!

PTC Creo Simulation Live is one of the first results to come form the partnership between PTC and Ansys. It brings real time simulation into the CAD environment. It aims to aid designers throughout the design phase with structural, thermal and model analyses.

It’s also super easy to use! 

There is no need to mesh or simplify models. No need to wait for results. Just set the constraints and you have the live results right in front of you.

By being able to analyze models early in the design phase, you can save lots of time and money on prototypes as well as time-consuming process in the analysis phase.

It will give you a head start in any project.
Try PTC Creo Simulation Live for free – 20 days!
Sounds intriguing? It is now also very easy to get started with an evaluation. In the later date codes of Creo Parametric 4, 5 and 6 – there is now a PTC Creo Simulation Live trial button. By clicking it you receive a temporary license for 20 days that also gets automatically installed.

Quick and easy! I have put together a short video of this process below. 

I encourage you to check out PTC Creo Simulation Live. It brings simple to use CAE tools to the designer.

For the record there are a lot of updates in terms of simulation scheduled the over next 12 months via PTC. For PTC Creo Simulation Live, this will include support for flow and participial analyses. CAE professionals working with the full Creo Simulate suite will be pleased to know that ANSYS AIM Solver will also be included within Creo Simulate, we envisage starting from PTC Creo Simulate 7.

Happy modelling guys!

Regards ,
Nils

BoM Transformation – Product Lifecycle Data is Created in Engineering

[caption id="attachment_7471" align="alignright" width="300"] BoM Management in PTC Windchill[/caption]

Product lifecycle data is created within in engineering, manufacturing, marketing, IT, service and sales. Imagine how diverse this data is and imagine how quickly it changes, grows and evolves.

This lifecycle data is in many organizations captured in a product’s BoM (Bill of Material). Since there are many different stakeholders it also means that the BOM is used and adapted by many different people throughout the product’s lifecycle. If you, as a stakeholder are not able to use your PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) system to conduct tasks like access upstream deliverables – the processes and data management become extremely fragmented and ineffective.
Efficient BoM Management
In order to secure that organizations do not become ineffective, or end up with fragmented data, they can optimize the use of the BoM in a way that enables organizations to realize a complete digital product definition. A digital product definition essentially configures, manages and stores all product-related content – from final assembly structures to individual components – into a single, central repository. As a result, everyone across the enterprise can easily and instantly access the same product information.

So how do you go about this, what prerequisites and the questions you need to ask yourself?

How do you look at a product and the product structure?
What information do you need to manage and maintain in your product model?
And, what information does your downstream consumers need to find and reuse from this product structure?

As described above, there are several stakeholders and your answer will depend on your role and function.

If you are a Design Engineer, your priority is on “What do we need to produce?”, and you then focus on Form, Fit and Function of the product.

On the other hand, if you are a Manufacturing Engineer. What’s important for you is “How do we produce this product”, in order to meet cost, time and quality requirements.

And if you are a Service Engineer. Your focus is on “How do we service this product”.

If you try to capture all of the above requirements that come out of the questions above into one single BoM, you know that this will eventually end up causing problems, and you will get a product structure that is not suitable for anybody.
Manage Multiple BoM´s
So, we need to be able to manage “Multiple BoM’s”. Disconnected systems and processes are still very common in many organizations. For example, the EBOM’s is managed in PLM systems, and the mBOM is managed in ERP or MPS systems, or even separately on spreadsheets
And with this we have challenges with:

Disconnected teams
Difficulties to control of planning information
Separate processes and standards
Lack of standards.

And eventually this will lead to product delays and errors. And poor product quality. Our advice after working, analyzing this area for several years, with several 100’s of customers is to:

Integrate your product data onto a single, integrated PLM system
Connect and associate your EBOM and MBOM
Evolve your Manufacturing Process Management capabilities
Leverage your design investment throughout your business

Do you miss your market window due to product delays? Do you have higher than needed development costs due to errors in the product? Or maybe you experience product recalls due to poor quality?

These challenges do not necessarily have to relate to the way you are managing your BOM’s, but we would encourage you to analyze it and see if fragmented data and ineffectiveness can be traced back to your BOM management.
BoM Management in PTC Windchill (PLM)
I have engaged in a multitude of PLM projects with many different customers with different BoM challenges. In my opinion I would say that with its depth, breadth and ease of use PTC Windchill is the leading PLM systems in the market today.

Best regards
Mikael Johansson, Senior PLM Consultant