Review

From CAD User Mechanical Magazine  Vol 17 No 08 - AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2004

David Chadwick explains why NX3, the latest version of UGS’ Product Development suite, focuses on Managed Product Development,

David Chadwick explains why NX3, the latest version of UGS’ Product Development suite, focuses on Managed Product Development, underpinned by Lean Design, Six Sigma, and practical improvements to the development processes.

If it wasn’t for the many thousands of users of their products, I would say that the biggest problem Unigraphics, or UGS, has had over the last couple of years, has been the frequent changing of the company’s and its products name – what with the company going through a number of acquisitions and buy outs, and the relaunch of its product design and development product.

Now they are, thankfully, free of their relationship with EDS – a tarnished ship, if ever there was one, for anyone who follows the fortunes of Government IT expenditure in the pages of Private Eye – the next step they could profitably take, would be to change the name of its principal software – NX. Merging I-DEAS and Unigraphics has absorbed two well-known and respected names and replaced them with something that sounds like some non-descript Japanese Sports Coupe. Hardly descriptive of the software’s capabilities, and not quite guaranteed to free the creative juices of its users.

Its users, though, are aware of its capabilities and its value – and, so I am told, are proud of the name – and now they are due to receive the next version of the software which will incorporate some substantial upgrades. With due sensitivity to UGS nomenclature, I can tell you about the latest upgrades in NX3, but can’t yet, divulge the name of the principal features.

The focus of NX3 is all about Managing the Development Environment, improving the way in which products are developed, from conception to manufacture, and providing a framework that brings all of the many steps together in a simple coherent way.

Underpinning this is an emphasis on Lean Design – the elimination of waste in design (similar in concept to Lean manufacturing) and Design for Six Sigma – the application of standards of quality in the design process. It also includes the drive towards knowledge driven automation – the re-use of a company’s intellectual property – residing in the products it has already developed – in the development of new designs. And, in order to force compliance with the new standards – or, to make it easier for designers to work in a manner not inimical to the goal of increasing a company’s productivity, it includes the Process Studio tool that maps out the design process in a simple, practical and graphical manner.

Before we look at these in greater detail, I cannot ignore the enhanced design and styling tools that will be available in NX3, building on NX Sahpe Studio and providing industrial designers and automotive stylists with advanced curve and surface creation, analysis and modification tools. NX Styling allows users to work with whatever modelling approach is suitable for each job using NX’s flexible architecture, extending the designers capabilities throughout the complete design workflow.

Managed Development Environment

NX Managed Development Environment encompasses all of the product and process management tools available within NX. Using Teamcenter, UGS’ open PLM Foundation, every NX application is provided with core data management services, enabling crucial product definition information to be captured and made available to all within the development chain. MDE is a scaleable tool, and can be used as a simple data vaulting tool, right up to complete engineering process management, continuous data validation, multi-site integration, requirements management and manufacturing planning.

MDE has been geared towards the needs of the engineer, automating much of the workflow, such as file check in/out, release and sign off, making the system transparent and far less intrusive than other systems on the market. Because it stores product and process information, it can also be used to recycle that information, allowing engineers to re-use it in their designs. This ability to capture, classify, locate and re-apply information extends to product specifications, sketches and geometric models, as well as reviews, mark-ups, decision history and process details. It helps companies capitalise on their past experiences – and their mistakes! It is also a critical element of Lean Design.

Enabling users to re-use embedded knowledge speeds up the product development process, allows users to implement design changes more quickly and enables companies to respond to market conditions. It can also be used for the rapid production of model variations.

The Managed Development Environment is used to integrate and synchronise all of the software tools used to take a product through design, analysis and manufacturing, and through other development disciplines throughout the supply chain, enabling companies to effect a coherent standards policy, the backbone of Design for Six Sigma.

Lean Design

Lean Manufacturing has already proved that significant savings can be made in cost and time by focussing on process performance. The aim of Lean Design is to eradicate wasteful processes in the design of a product before it even reaches the factory, and complements lean manufacturing.

The problem lies, however, in identifying those areas that contribute to the waste in product development – far more elusive than those in manufacturing. A recent survey undertaken by UGS of Tier 1 automotive suppliers provided some areas where waste has been identified, besides those designs that are thrown into the bin before they are completed (a frighteningly large number, I would suspect). Documentation accounted for up to half the waste – the production of unnecessary documents and downtime while finding information and waiting for test results – amounting to a whopping 33-50%! Under-utilisation of design knowledge contributed 18% and designing in features customers didn’t need a further 8%. Validating manufacturing errors early on in the design process, and poor designs came to 17% and 15% respectively. All of these have corresponding areas of waste in manufacturing.

Whilst, obviously, stressing that the utilisation of a Managed Development Environment to capture and store data centrally, to implement more efficient working processes, and to re-utilise engineering knowledge, goes a long way towards providing a Lean Design solution, UGS suggest a short period of self-assessment of shortcomings in the areas listed above wouldn’t come amiss, prior to implementing a possible solution!

Design for Six Sigma

Six Sigma is all about quality. By understanding what customers value in a product, and by designing to those standards, a company can be relatively assured of success. Design for Six Sigma provides a systematic way of incorporating important customer requirements that can be measured, verified and optimised into the product development process, which can be tested against performance criteria.

The ideal product is one that manages to balance possibly conflicting attributes, such as cost, quality, performance and aesthetics, and the aim of DFSS is to manage the variability of each of these and to improve the predictability and capability of the design process to achieve that aim.

Recognising that all product development processes are inherently unpredictable, producing products that fall within a band of performance, Six Sigma has devised a method (DMAIC – Define, Measure, Analyse, Improve and Control) to improve a product or process that is not performing adequately.

Six Sigma is more of a methodology than an exact science, and starts out by using some hazy assumptions, which are gradually refined until a defineable set of customer requirements take shape. IT then focuses on these requirements, converting them into positive steps that can be undertaken to improve the development process.

Process Studio

All of the foregoing sounds wholly admirable, and critically important for any company bent on improving its productivity, but it invokes quite understandable fears about the effort and the costs needed to implement such a solution. Instead of hiring expensive consultants to programme and set up a system that will integrate all of the programs and processes, it would be preferable to have a simpler facility in-house that could accomplish the task.

This can be found in NX Process Studio, a set of Wizards that enables users with little or no specialist training, to automate standard processes. It combines UGS’software and best practice knowledge into a managed methodology, that captures and facilitates the use of repeatable tasks.

Process Studio uses NX Knowledge Fusion, a rules engine, to delve into UGS’ flexible product modelling tools, together with its CAE and CAM capabilities, leveraging the software to streamline the workflow, and reducing the effort and risks associated with repeatable processes.

Process Studio is supplemented by Simulation Process Studio, which performs a similar function for digital simulation, a process used to evaluate product performance during the design stage, enabling corrective design decisions to be made on a more informed basis, earlier on in the design process.

Both NX Process Studio and NX Simulation Process Studio are self-documenting, providing an effective means of implementing process standards and supporting best practice implementations – the key elements of Lean Design and Design for Six Sigma.

After all – this is what Managed Product Development is all about!
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