by Gary Mintchell | Jun 6, 2024 | Design, Generative AI, News
My last post concerned using new technologies for specification development. Extending use cases of technology into other realms of administrative work, this release from Galorath announces their new product, SEERai, an advanced chat-based generative artificial intelligence (AI) built specifically to assist digital engineers and engineering professionals plan and estimate projects. (Something else I could have gladly used in my earlier career.)
Use cases for this GenerativeAI technology include information technology (IT), software, hardware, manufacturing, aerospace, military, space, and more.
SEER enables businesses to streamline cost and cost estimation and project planning with real-time insights into cost drivers, risk factors, and the potential impact of hundreds of project variables. With SEER, digital engineers are empowered with industry-leading methodologies in digital engineering and keen, unprecedented insight into actionable data. With the availability of SEERai, cost estimation professionals have easy, generative access to Galorath’s proprietary knowledge base assembled and validated over its forty-year legacy, allowing users to engage in chat-based strategic conversations with SEERai and gain action-oriented insights for their projects and initiatives.
SEERai is built upon the existing industry-leading capabilities of the SEER Cost Estimation Platform.
SEER’s features include:
- Predictive Analytics: Accurately forecast project costs, schedules, and potential risks.
- Machine Learning Algorithms: Improves predictions over time as project data is shared and easily adapts to new information and changing conditions.
- Data-Driven Decision Making: Provides insights into cost drivers, risk factors, and the impact of different variables on project outcomes to make informed decisions.
- Risk Analysis and Mitigation: Evaluates the probability/impact of various risk factors on a project, identifying potential issues before they occur and developing mitigation strategies, and planning for program uncertainty.
- Customization and Scalability: Adapts to projects of different sizes and complexities across various industries with a high degree of AI algorithm customization and scalability.
- Integration with Existing Systems: Integrates seamlessly with other project management and engineering software tools to facilitate the exchange of data and enhance analysis.
by Gary Mintchell | Jun 5, 2024 | Design, News
There exist many varieties of software platforms. Schneider Electric has introduced a new one on me—a “Specification Development Process” platform. I can think of many times in my career I could have used a tool such as this.
In brief:
- Industry’s first platform for Specifiers that provides complete, up-to-date information to increase accuracy for architectural, engineering, and construction specifications
- Developed in partnership with RIB Software, next-generation platform provides new levels of simplicity, transparency, and version control for modern design and engineering firms
- Intuitive, cloud-based workspace to easily manage project specifications, track progress, and seamlessly download data
- SpecLive Collaborate platform provides real time collaboration with Schneider Electric Experts and access to up-to-date specification content to increase accuracy and manage version control.
Schneider Electric launched SpecLive Collaborate May 22, 2024, a first-of-its-kind platform, to modernize and streamline product specification and content integration for professionals. SpecLive Collaborate provides specifiers and engineers with a simple, streamlined experience for evaluating Schneider Electric’s cutting-edge solutions. This platform keeps essential technical product data intact by providing real time access to cloud-hosted specification content, reducing coordination gaps for the duration of the specification process. By improving upon static document-based processes, SpecLive Collaborate empowers teams with a shared, cloud-based workspace to develop more accurate specifications more collaboratively and more efficiently.
SpecLive Collaborate is part of Schneider Electric’s Specifier toolkit, made available via the MySchneider portal and your local consulting application engineers to provide users with the information to easily generate accurate and comprehensive specifications. SpecLive Collaborate does not require new workflows, and if the specifier has questions about a product or other information in the tool, they can request help directly through the platform.
by Gary Mintchell | Jun 4, 2024 | Design, News
The IT world has many technologies called “ops” today. Simr, formerly called UberCloud, unveils “SimOps” hoping to “revolutionize product development by accelerating computer-based simulations. It also announced $20M in Series A funding from BMW i Ventures, Uncorrelated Ventures and Earlybird Venture Capital.
Simr gives engineers a single platform for using any compute resources with any leading simulation tool. The company is closely partnered with leading simulation platform providers including Ansys, Siemens, and Dassault Systèmes.
With the close of the new funding, Salil Deshpande, General Partner at Uncorrelated Ventures, and Baris Guzel, Partner at BMW i Ventures, join Ali Kutay, CEO and Chairman of Striim, and Roland Manger, Co-founder and Partner at Earlybird Venture Capital, on the Simr board of directors.
Benefits:
- Increased Product Innovation and Reduced Time-to-Market: Utilizing cloud HPC enables engineers to work with large models and detailed simulations that would be too complex and time-consuming for standard workstations. This leads to the rapid development of more accurate and effective designs, increasing innovation and helping speed the delivery of products to market.
- Uninterrupted Productivity: Simr ensures a no-compromise user experience by enabling engineers to use any and all of their existing simulation platforms and workflows – including those from Ansys, Dassault, and Siemens – without any additional onboarding or configuration. This eliminates reskilling and ensures that productivity is not only uninterrupted but accelerated.
- Unmatched Security: The Simr platform’s implementation in the customer’s own cloud account enables IT teams to keep all proprietary data behind their corporate firewall – under their complete and exclusive control – while maintaining direct access to their cloud provider’s full range of security and compliance mechanisms.
- Increased Cost-Efficiency: Unlike consumption-based pricing models, Simr’s fixed, per-user pricing promotes simulation use by enabling customers to maintain direct relationships with the engineering software vendors and cloud providers of their choice. This enables them to leverage their own negotiated pricing and enables these resources to be accessed on an as-needed basis.
by Gary Mintchell | Apr 16, 2024 | Design, Operations Management, Software
Develop a new product category, hire an analyst firm to conduct some market research, and show how your new product provides benefits to customers. We see it in some “scientific” studies and also studies broadcast on TV advertisements. Here is one by a company called Makersite who touts their new approach called product lifecycle intelligence (PLI).
Makersite, a software company pioneering a new approach to sustainable product design and sourcing, released research conducted by Forrester Consulting, titled “Transform Product Sustainability into Performance Initiatives with Product Lifecycle Intelligence,” that reveals over half of organizations’ sustainability efforts are driven by regulations despite the benefits from adopting more sustainable product lifecycle intelligence (PLI).
Once again we are eliminating data silos. After more than 15 years of writing about products doing just that, I cannot believe it’s still a problem. It’s like the companies relying on complex Microsoft Excel spreadsheets to manage production. Oops, many still do that, too.
Currently, manufacturers struggle to translate compliance initiatives into making informed decisions during the product design phase due to outdated data systems and data silos. The study, commissioned by Makersite, shows that by implementing PLI to integrate data held within their systems, product engineers in the design phase can create products that are more sustainable (30%), have faster time-to-market (28%), and reap higher profits (26%).
The 2024 study, which included insights from 493 respondents with product design and sourcing decision-makers in manufacturing, also pointed to several operational improvements including the ability to support product lifecycle decisions with better data quality (29%), improved visibility of materials and component supply chains (28%), and more efficient sustainability reporting (28%).
Engineers always have trouble translating their benefit calculations into language the C-suite understands—or even cares about.
Despite the benefits, however, respondents reported experiencing challenges while securing executive support for incorporating sustainability in PLI (53%), measuring and quantifying the environmental impact of their products (51%), and obtaining budget to gather material, component, and supplier intelligence integral to optimizing their product’s quality, cost, and sustainability (50%). These difficulties are a manifestation of poor maintenance of availability, cost, sustainability, and performance data in manufacturers’ material and component libraries – an issue for 49% of decision-makers.
For more insight into the impact of product lifecycle intelligence, download the full commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Makersite: “Transform Product Sustainability into Performance Initiatives with Product Lifecycle Intelligence.”
by Gary Mintchell | Jan 24, 2024 | Business, Design, Sustainability
Batteries have become the crucial constraint for many electrification advances. Especially for electric vehicles. I have an EV (Ioniq 6, which I recommend) with the main constraint centering on battery size and charging time. I’ve heard from a Israeli company called StoreDot who is moving towards commercialization of an “extreme fast charging” battery technology. Following are highlights of its 2023.
- This year saw it sign landmark agreements with strategic partners Volvo Cars, Polestar, VinFast and Flex|N|Gate
- 2023 also saw 15 leading global OEMs test its cells for six to nine months verifying outstanding performance and proceeding to B-sample projects with several OEMs
- StoreDot’s recent joint development project with Polestar yielded an announcement about the world’s first 10-minute EV charging demo for early 2024
- StoreDot proved it offers the first and only solution to enable EV fast charging with high cycle life during consecutive fast charging, showing no degradation of performance due to fast charging
- StoreDot expanded globally this year opening an innovation hub in California and appointed renowned automotive industry leader Carl-Peter Forster as its Chairman
- StoreDot remains firmly on track for the mass production readiness of extreme fast charging ‘100in5’ battery cells in 2024
Doron Myersdorf, StoreDot CEO said:
“In 2023, StoreDot has not only achieved all of its planned milestones, but we have also made significant strides towards commercialization and mass production of our extreme fast charging battery cells. We proudly declare ourselves as the world’s leading company in XFC battery technologies, a title we’ve earned through our dedication to innovation and unwavering commitment to pushing the boundaries of what’s possible. We are the first and only company to enable extreme fast charging with high cycle life of consecutive fast charging. Our focus for 2024 is scale up and commercialization, and we remain on course to achieve mass production readiness of our ‘100in5’ cells next year. No other company is making as much progress in this sector as we are, and the EV world is about to witness the revolution we’re bringing to drivers’ charging experience.”
Through its ‘100inX’ product roadmap, StoreDot’s battery technology is delivering ‘Range on DemandTM’: 100 miles charged in 5 minutes in 2024, 100 miles charged in 4 minutes in 2026 and 100 miles charged in 3 minutes by 2028. StoreDot’s strategic investors and partners include BP, Daimler, VinFast, Volvo Cars, Polestar, Ola Electric, Samsung, TDK and its manufacturing partner EVE Energy. StoreDot is on target for mass production readiness of 100in5 technology by 2024.
by Gary Mintchell | Jan 19, 2024 | Design, Leadership
I took a position as quality assurance manager at a manufacturing plant early in my career. I had been doing product development and had turned down a quality manager position a couple of times. But, this was open and seemed like it could be good.
It took only a few days for me to discover W. Edwards Deming.
I found myself battling:
- The chief designer who specified the minimum specifications possible for materials;
- The manufacturing engineer who bought tooling then washed his hands when they didn’t perform;
- The purchasing manager who bought components and raw materials from the cheapest source;
- The general manager who overrode me when products from his good friend failed to meet spec;
- People on the shop floor who wanted to do a good job versus a system that confounded them.
I lasted a year, then I found a position elsewhere in product development and engineering.
These memories came flooding back to me when I read that the official Boeing response to yet more problems with the 737 Max program was to do more inspections.
Oh, for crying out loud! From what I’ve read, the source of the problems with the system and program management was the CEO’s office. The board needs to begin fixing things at the root. And then bring in someone strong in a power position to change the system. It doesn’t take a genius to see where shortcuts were taken along the line in order to get production (and sales) ramped up.
You don’t achieve quality from inspection. At that point, it is too late. Fix the system. Advice from 45 years ago.
