After several years of being stuck in a financial quagmire, Computervision Corp has finally pulled itself out of the red. The company says its economic recovery has been mainly due to a swift but painful exit from the hardware market. Computervision now regards itself as a the world’s leader in CAD/CAM software. Certainly with a market share only second to IBM Corp’s at $487m, in a $3,100m European mechanical design market, it is up among the market leaders. In any event it landed the biggest software deal in history when Rolls Royce Plc’s Aerospace Group bought $21.4m worth of Computervision software, consultancy and technical support back in March. But the Bedford, Massachusetts-based company reckons its new CADDS CAD/CAM software will become a major lynchpin on which to build its economic recovery. Computervision’s CADDS line is an integrated software package used to design, analyse and manufacture complex components and assemblies. CADDS 5 takes advantage of the current trend towards concurrent engineering in the manufacturing industry whereby groups of draughtsmen, quality control experts and designers get together and develop products conconcurrently as opposed to synchronously as was past practice; the obvious advantage in using concurrent engineering is a reduction in the time it takes to get to mass production of a product.
Short Brothers
CADDS 5 takes the process one step further. Dubbed a Total Product Modeller, CADDS 5 enables users to design, build and test a product on screen while also providing a framework for manufacturers to link together all departmental functions. Computervision has developed a Windows-based desktop virtual reality software package, Project Visualisation System, to use with CADDS 5 Rev 5, that enables designers to walk interactively through the solid model that has been created on screen; the package will then capture frames from various different angles and then by downloading them into the memory, will set the sequence of captured frames in motion. Belfast-based avionics manufacturers Short Brothers Plc is currently using the software to build the fuselage of its new Learjet 45. According to Computervision the avionics company has found the software invaluable because it enables the Short Brothers design team to guage more accurately the effects of data changes to the Learjet model because a change can be viewed by various angles. Project Visualisation will also enable all departments involved in creating the jet to see what it will eventually look like. Short Brothers has 300 CADDS 5 users working on the design of the Learjet, which is due to take flight early next year. Computervision says it is the first time that a jet aircraft has been produced entirely using its total product modelling software package. Users of CADDS 5 also have the option to use Computervision Engineering Data Management database using Oracle. The Data Management system is designed to distribute, track, monitor and control data across distributed networks and thus ensure that access to data is both timely and relevant.
By Krishna Roy
CADDS 5 software has a certain degree of intelligence built into it; it will capture the data logic of the specific component being worked on to make it impossible to connect a coolant pipe with a fuel pipe in the fuselage of a jet, for example. Computervision’s latest offering CADDS 5 Rev 5, builds on the functionality of its predecessor most significantly in the area of data sharing. The latest version enables all parties involved in production from the design engineers to the marketing department to work in tandem with customer requirements thereby satisfying criteria laid down by all parties. Total product modelling also obviates the need to assemble and test a product at various stages of its development as was traditionally the case; using CADDS 5 engineers need only build one prototype, which if correct, can then be committed to production. When the Rover Group used CADDS 5 software to develop its new Land Rover 4×4, The Discovery, it was on the road in three years.
Computervision puts the Discovery’s speedy development entirely down to the use of its software, others may disagree, but even so its quite an impressive feat given the fact that the average car in Europe takes seven years or so to transform from a concept to a working model. Rev 5 has 70 new enhancements, one of the most significant of which is Managed Bi-directional Associativity. In previous production cycles a product was developed in linear stages; from concept to detailed design to drafting and then to testing stages with systematic and structural input at each stage; Uni-directional associativity enabled this process to occur from the management level downwards and users could automatically update detailed drawings to reflect dimensional changes in the master model. Rev 5’s Managed Bi-directional Associativity enables this to happen in both directions while the master is unaffected. This elimates the dangers connected with Bi-directional Associativity in other systems where a change to the model in production plays havoc with components in other assemblies. Supplier can then make changes to the components they are working on and the resulting changes appear in the master model within pre-defined limits. CADDS 5 Rev 5 also has various enhancements to its parametric and non-parametric design features. Computervision says it is unique in offering users a choice of geometric tools in wireframe, surface and solids that can be defined explicitily, parametrically or through a hybrid of the two. Computervision sees hybrid modelling as the new way forward for new product development methodology since its from the basis from which CADDS 5 geometry was conceived and created. The software’s Design Optimiser capability allows for the creation of many more what if scenarios; designers can thus carry out tests on the volume, surface area and density of the product before assembly actually takes place.
Labour-intensive
CADDS 5 Rev 5 is now available on Digital Equipment Corp Alpha AXP and Silicon Graphics Inc workstations in addition to existing support for Hewlett-Packard Co and Sun Microsystems Inc. Computervision reckons manufacturing companies in the UK will have to use total product modelling if they are to keep pace with the rate of technological advance seen in Japan, for example, purely because Japan can adopt a labour-intensive approach to industry because wages are low. European countries do not have this advantage and therefore the company sees CAD/CAM technology as the means by which Europeans can gain a competitive edge. Usage of CAD/CAM software is on the up, Rolls-Royce Aerospace, the Rover Group, Ford, Motorola Corp, GEC Plc’s Marconi are among a growing band of CADDS users. Ford Motor Co has produced the first complete CAD/CAM car, the Ford Mondeo. Computervision believes Ford now wants more than the simple geometry offered in a CAD/CAM package and are looking to use total product modelling with the eventual aim of designing a Ford in one day. Computervision’s future is looking rosier, but there is still insufficient proof that CADDS 5 Rev 5 will be the economic saviour the company hopes for.
