Commentary: December 2006

By Paul Brown, UGS Corp.

Innovative digital product development is like a puzzle. Consider Rubik’s Cube. One eighth of the world’s population has touched Erno Rubik’s brainchild.

There is only one correct answer and 43 quintillion wrong ones. Rubik knew there must be a method for the correct answer, but it took him a month to find the solution. Now the fastest recorded time in a championship is 12.11 seconds.
The method relies on seven moves applied (and reapplied) to solve the puzzle in a series of steps. Once you understand the theory and master the moves, solving any configuration is relatively easy.

Paul Brown, UGS Corp.

One of the challenges businesses face today is losing the collective knowledge of the workforce. Natural attrition through competitive hiring is one way companies lose that intellectual property. The greater imminent threat is an aging Baby Boomer workforce.

Product development is like Rubik’s cube. Each face representing IP, product, or process knowledge. All of which must come together in the right series of steps to develop a manufacturable product.

Solving the product development puzzle allows users to capture and reuse more knowledge. This includes knowledge throughout the product lifecycle. Examples include manufacturing intent such as surface finish and tolerance schemes, simple mechanical calculations like beam stress or torque, as well as fully automated approaches with embedded complex proprietary rules.

Knowledge capture and reuse need to be simple to be effective. Current CAx tools do a good job at capturing geometric relationships with parametric models allowing size and shape to be defined. Many also include the ability to define relationships between components in assemblies giving a level of intelligence to the 3D mockup. But that’s only part of the story. It’s similar to knowing the moves to solve the Rubik’s cube without their sequence.

For example, in structural simulation, the software should offer a simple structural analysis in a pre-packaged wizard, but also the ability to expand with company-specific wizard creation that captures and publishes corporate best practices

Companies need to approach capturing product development knowledge much like solving the Rubik’s cube—breaking the product and process problems down into repeatable steps, similar to matching up the faces of the cube. The approach has to be scalable so companies can begin on the face with the most value.  For example, start with knowledge-enabled feature modeling and move to automated applications that access external data to complete the entire product development process.

Bearing manufacturer Timken found that capturing and reusing knowledge enables new designers to be more productive quicker and ensures they use the company’s established best practices. (Click here to learn more about how Timken leverages knowledge reuse.)

Likewise, automating design through manufacture processes allows specialist wood tools manufacturer Iggesund Tools to speed up routine design tasks from weeks to days. This provides a faster turnaround to customers resulting in increased customer satisfaction and repeat orders. (Click here to learn more about how Iggesund Tools has automated design through manufacturing.)

Knowledge is the key to innovative digital product development. If an enterprise can capture and leverage its collective knowledge into repeatable processes, it can deliver more innovative products. This requires more than simple parametric modeling and niche solutions for design, manufacture, and analysis. It requires a unified solution that brings knowledge to bear throughout product development.

Paul Brown is the NX Digital Product Development marketing director for UGS Corp. Send your comments about this article through e-mail by clicking here. Please reference “Guest Commentary, December 2006” in your message.

Editor’s Note: Click here to download for a 16-page white paper (PDF) on knowledge reuse.