PTC

RoboBee Could Be Used to Pollinate Plants

Nancy Pardo — Wed, 22 May 2013 19:12:34 +0000

Albert Einstein once predicated that without bees man would have only four years left on the planet. But mechanical engineer Robert Wood and graduate student Kevin Ma might disagree. The two engineers and their Harvard-based team have created a small robot no bigger than a house fly. The tiny robot, half the size of a paper clip and weighing only ...

Service Transformation: 5 Ways to Influence Positive Change

Michelle Duke Hopkins — Mon, 20 May 2013 04:00:05 +0000

Service transformation is top of mind for most manufacturers. Moving from a cost-based service strategy to one that is profit-based is critical to driving revenues and profitability. Getting ahead no longer rest solely on the features and functionality of a company’s products. Today’s market leaders are not only providing their customers with good products but they are helping them achieve ...

GoldieBlox Makes Engineering a Girl Thing!

Anita Berryman — Fri, 17 May 2013 04:00:10 +0000

Listen up, girls! Engineering is cool! That’s the message that GoldieBlox inventor Debbie Sterling, a Stanford University-educated engineer, is passionate about sharing. Designed for girls ages six and older, GoldieBlox is a storybook and construction set that challenges girls to help the inventor protagonist Goldie, build things. We can all remember reading childhood fairy tales about princesses in distress ultimately ...

Manufacturing Growth Holds Less Promise for Women

Nancy Pardo — Wed, 15 May 2013 04:00:59 +0000

Today in the United States more women graduate college, they make up nearly half of the working population, and one-third of women out-earn their spouse. So why are women losing their footing in the manufacturing sector? A report released this week by Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., vice chair of the U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee (JEC) seeks to answer this ...

World’s biggest 3D Printing Store Opens in London

Nancy Pardo — Mon, 13 May 2013 21:39:15 +0000

If you ever wondered what the next-generation FedEx or OfficeMax might look like then the new 2,500 square-foot iMakr store in Central London might be it. The bright loft space is filled with a variety of 3D printers, like the $1,000 Solidoodle and the Makerbot Replicator 2, costing close to $3000. There are hands-on workshops where curious shoppers can learn ...

Defining Value for PLM Solutions: What to Measure

Dr. Robert Graeb — Fri, 10 May 2013 04:00:32 +0000

While countless companies across industries have realized tremendous payback on their investments in Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) software, they often don’t reap the full value for years after the first phases of go-live. Part of the challenge is simply deciding what and how to measure, especially since PLM is often a multi-year, multi-phase initiative that strives to improve a set ...

SFO-BOS: The Geekiest Flight in the Air?

Jon Marcus — Thu, 09 May 2013 04:00:16 +0000

The guy in 28C works for a cutting-edge Boston-based energy company with California clients whose name is a collection of random-seeming consonants and vowels that sounds like a parody from Office Space. He flies this route only once a quarter, which makes him pretty much an interloper on the Boston-San Francisco nonstop. But somewhere over Colorado, he pulls out a ...

Stanford Builds Strong Innovators with New “Design Thinking” Curriculum

Jon Marcus — Wed, 08 May 2013 20:22:58 +0000

PALO ALTO, California—The skylit atrium that serves as the centerpiece of Stanford University’s d.school spans two of the campus’s stately old red-tile-roofed, Spanish Revival-style academic buildings. It’s a metaphor for the way the center, spun off by the School of Engineering, bridges other parts of the university to teach something that was once believed innate: how to think like an ...

Managing Product Parts for Better Field Service

Aly Pinder — Tue, 07 May 2013 04:00:02 +0000

When we think of field service our minds jump to trends around mobility, tablets, and BYOD (bring your own device). The topic of service parts is often overlooked, yet it’s absolutely vital to field service. According to Aberdeen Group’s recent Field Service 2013: Workforce Management Guide the number one reason organizations were unable to resolve an issue the first time ...

Quality Lifecycle Management: Striking a Balance between Product Reliability and Over-Design

Karen Bowman — Fri, 03 May 2013 04:00:25 +0000

When it comes to product design, companies must balance four competing goals: cost, time to market, feature set, and reliability. The key is to get the right mix and create the greatest customer satisfaction with the product. Too often, however, companies downplay the importance of reliability when weighed against the other three goals. They prioritize cost, time to market, or ...

Lockheed Martin Helps Tackle Global Water Crisis

Nancy Pardo — Wed, 01 May 2013 04:00:41 +0000

Earth, otherwise known as the blue planet, is 75 percent surface water, and yet only 2.5 percent of it is usable fresh water. Now add in over population and urban sprawl, deforestation, climate change, and unsustainable agricultural and manufacturing practices, and we’ll have, within the next few decades, a global water crisis. In fact, by 2050, one in five developing ...

Science-Minded Kids to Show Projects at MIT

Maria Doyle — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 04:00:44 +0000

The weather is finally turning to Spring… so what’s up for the weekend? At our house, the schedule is often packed with the kids’ sports and other activities and the weekends fly by too fast. But, maybe you can find time to squeeze in something different – the state science fair. The Massachusetts State Science & Engineering Fair (MSSEF) for ...

Mastering Complex Product Development in a Global Economy

Ailbhe Coughlan — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 04:00:29 +0000

Manufacturing is entering a third industrial revolution and global product development is evolving at the speed of light. Today, we can design anywhere and build anywhere. But life isn’t always rosy – working as part of a global team can bring an array of challenges. Increased product complexity. In a global economy, customer demands increase and the need for a ...

World’s Greenest Building Opens Its Doors in Seattle

Nancy Pardo — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 04:00:22 +0000

The Bullitt Center in Seattle, WA opened its doors to the general public this week. The six-story, 50,000 square foot building—being touted as the greenest in the world—is designed to be completely self-sustaining in energy and water. It’s also free from toxic materials like PVC, cadmium, lead, mercury, and formaldehyde. It’s hoped that the 30 million dollar Bullitt Center, which ...

Art, Design Educational Needs Pushing STEM To STEAM

Admin — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 18:06:48 +0000

A push for better U.S. art and design education is changing STEM to STEAM. Science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) have long been the Holy Grail of a U.S. drive for improved education, producing students who can compete globally. But a growing chorus says art and design must be in the mix. The STEAM movement has wide-ranging support from academia, ...

Succeeding with Software Adoption: The Devil is in the Details

Jim Montgomery — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 04:00:58 +0000

Following a learning and adoption continuum is a proven way to achieve business goals faster and with less disruption when deploying PLM software. But when it comes to successfully pulling off this model, the devil is in the details. Along with starting the adoption process at the beginning of an implementation program instead of just doing training at the end, ...

How Global Manufacturers Can Better Manage Technical Information

Christa Prokos — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 04:00:37 +0000

Expanding operations around the world have opened vast new business arenas for many manufacturers. Each year, sales outside of their original domestic marketplaces may constitute ever-larger shares of these companies’ overall returns. Yet with globalized opportunities have come globalized challenges. And perhaps no one feels these challenges more sharply than the manufacturers’ technical information departments. It’s not uncommon for a ...

5 Ways to Effective Field Service Workforce Management

Aly Pinder — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 04:00:59 +0000

Injecting efficiency in field service is usually seen as a means to cut back on service cost and to drive greater productivity from field workers. Yet most organizations haven’t yet understood the link between a more effective and efficient field service organization and improved customer satisfaction and profitability results. In recently published Aberdeen research, organizations with an 80 percent level ...

After Boston: How Our Personal Devices are Changing Forensics

Jon Marcus — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 04:00:32 +0000

Alongside all of the other wrenching events associated with the Boston Marathon bombing is the indisputable reality that smartphone technology and social media have vastly changed the nature of forensics. And, with help from tech volunteers, the marathon tragedy is giving this field a huge leap forward. It wasn’t even an hour and a half after the blasts, while efforts ...

Keeping Pace with China’s Shifting Economy

Nancy Pardo — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 23:39:58 +0000

Ten years ago the United States had it made in China, literally and figuratively. Back then, manufacturing in China cost 25 to 30 percent less than it did in the U.S. But times are changing. By 2015, outsourcing manufacturing to China will be just as costly as manufacturing in the U.S., that according to consulting firm AlixPartners. Wage inflation, exchange-rate ...

Adding Review Cycles to Accelerate Product Development

Pär Möllberg — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 04:00:03 +0000

It seems counterintuitive, but putting more review cycles in the development process can actually help get products to market faster. A large consumer products manufacturer shows why this can work. Like many manufacturers trying to get more efficient in product development, the company had invested in multiple design centers around the world along with a large network of suppliers to ...

R&D Budget Cuts Could Leave US Trailing Behind

Jon Marcus — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 04:00:55 +0000

Remember the sequester? The $85 billion in federal budget cuts that were supposed to jolt Washington into figuring out a solution to the escalating debt? The ones that almost no one has ended up noticing against the backdrop of the usual political dysfunction? They’re about to take a big bite out of innovation. Federal agencies that pay for a third ...

A Different Beat: Transforming Used Products into New Ideas

Maria K. Regan — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 04:00:15 +0000

Even if you’ve never wondered what happens to all the dented, splintered and broken drumsticks of the world, it’s nice to know that two creative Japanese companies have come up with a way to re-use the detritus of drummers. Tokyo’s Noah Sound Studio, a chain of music studios used for rehearsal and recording, provides the cast-off sticks, and Miidori, a ...

Designing for Reliability: Why a Closed-Loop Process Works Best

Brad Cline — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 04:00:31 +0000

Product reliability goes a long way toward ensuring customer loyalty. When products fail we feel annoyed and inconvenienced – or worse. If failure results in injury or even loss of life, the response is outrage and the impact to the manufacturer can be incredibly damaging. Consider the lawsuit Toyota found itself dealing with after acceleration problems caused crashes, injuries and ...

4D Printing: Making Things That Make Themselves

Maria Doyle — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 04:00:07 +0000

Just as 3D printing is starting to be recognized by people outside of the engineering and design world, something new is on the scene – 4D printing. What is 4D printing and how does it work? I’ll explain, but first, a bit of background… Engineers and product designers have come to rely on 3D printing as a way to build ...