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Tradition maintained by full PLM
Tom Shelley reports on how every CAD and robotic aid is employed to maintain competitiveness and quality at Bentley Motors. |
10/08/2010
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Designing to win
Tom Shelley finds out what it takes to overcome complex design problems to build world beating products. |
13/05/2010
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Analysis pushes the envelope
Tom Shelley reports on how advanced analysis has turned projects that might otherwise not be feasible into business successes |
09/02/2010
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Bubble tracking
Tom Shelley reports on a development in wind tunnel monitoring with significant results |
13/03/2009
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Lightning goes electric
When an established gas-guzzling sports car goes electric, it involves more than simply putting a new engine under the bonnet. Lou Reade reports |
10/12/2008
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Fast lessons take to the air
There are big advantages to be gained from using PLM in motorsport. And now aerospace looks set to do the same, as Tom Shelley explains |
18/08/2008
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Essential differential
Some striking developments in one of the main types of differential used in motor sport have caught the eye of Tom Shelley |
12/03/2008
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Who grasps virtual space
Everybody who’s anybody is saying it: even in quite small organisations IT managers would be well advised to investigate the potential for savings and efficiencies through consolidation and virtualisation – of their servers, storage, operating systems and whole IT networks. Virtualisation meaning decoupling the physical infrastructure hardware from the software and data it runs by means of an abstraction layer that provides for policy-based management of shared resources. The business case involves everything from reduced server real estate and complexity to simplified admin, improved utilisation, possibly also resilience and certainly flexibility – including with archiving and back-up. It’s about making the infrastructure cheaper to buy, own, run and manage, as well as better able to respond to changing business requirements, even on the fly. |
26/01/2007
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Built on blueprints
Akzo Nobel’s Marine and Protective Coatings Business Unit – International Paint to most of us – is approaching its next major ERP upgrade as anything but an IT project. Like an increasing number of more enlightened global manufacturers, it sees this very much as a business project predicated on clear prospects for significant business economies and improvements, all the result of new IT capabilities that substantially change what’s feasible. But what’s particularly intriguing is that its expectations are so high and so compelling despite the company having already taken what those in the know would describe as a model business-centric approach to IT that dates right back to the late ‘90s. |
20/01/2007
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Make collaboration scream for SMEs
Whereas large manufacturers can manage how things are done and with which systems, engineering SMEs have to be more flexible and resourceful, finding ways of tapping into and integrating with suppliers and customers that benefit all parties. Again, large companies often have their own initiatives and big ticket PLM (product lifecycle management) systems to manage changing engineering data and to accelerate development, but smaller companies facing the same challenges need a more modest approach – and one capable of protecting their intellectual property. But it can and is being done: today many products are the result of collaborations between teams in different countries, often on different sides of the world. |
19/01/2007
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What can go wrong when you give IT the large
The news that the Airbus A380 is two years behind schedule because its German and Spanish offices were using Catia V4 CAD/CAM software, while its French and UK offices used V5, and the German engineers in Hamburg could not add their electrical wiring design changes to the common 3D digital mock-up in France, should serve as a warning to us all. |
18/12/2006
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IT keys to mouth watering benefits
If you’re after a vision of how an ERP system implementation can become both driver and foundation of a total business transformation, look no further than Yorkshire Water. This one is extreme, and although the ERP system happens to be SAP, it’s the business objectives and how they were met that matter most here. |
11/12/2006
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Data hub gets global bearings group rolling
When automotive bearings firms Glacier Industrial Bearings, Glacier Vandervell and Garlock Bearings came together as GGB, the group found itself with 13 sites around the world, some manufacturing, some distribution, some sales offices – but all with different ERP and legacy systems and incompatible business processes and parts data. It needed to consolidate its IT, but it also needed to cut costs, reduce inventories and improve customer service by getting slick and lean internally, inter-site and in its supply chains. |
04/12/2006
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Sharp on scheduling
More efficient scheduling, much faster response to customer enquiries, better management reporting and simplified business visibility: those are top benefits cited by US-based contract pharmaceutical packaging company Sharp Corp since it introduced twin Preactor APS (advanced planning and scheduling) systems. |
28/11/2006
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Rexam revisits quality package
A shop floor quality system implementation recently completed at packaging giant Rexam’s 21 factories across Europe is doing much more than QA. In fact, it’s doing everything from automatically generating conformance certificates and production audit trails, to providing operator assistance and information for process improvement and business decision-making. |
16/11/2006
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Visualisation speeds paths to production
In the words of Phil Sholl, managing director of AMTRI, formerly the Advanced Machine Tool Research Institute: “You cannot design a component without thinking about how you are going to make it.” At least you can, and engineers all too often do, but it’s extremely foolish. In short, it is not enough to design it, nor even to design it and then think about how it is going to be made. Engineers need to model the making of the part to see that it is feasible. Nothing new, and CAM (computer aided manufacturing) packages have had this facility for years, while wire frame simulation of machining has gradually given way to rendered solid models. However, such simulations all assume that everything is going to run perfectly, and there are many manufacturing processes that until now could not be modelled at all. |
07/11/2006
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Flexible ERP injects massive savings
Microsoft Dynamics AX ERP (Axapta as was) is doing sterling service at Danish food and cosmetics gums and pastes manufacturer Gumlink and its gum-based drugs business unit Fertin Pharma. The system proved flexible enough to link easily with its 100-plus other software packages across the company’s three production sites, and to enable rapid and economic essential custom code generation. And for its pharmaceuticals production site, the system was also developed and certified by Microsoft in accordance with GAMP (Good Automated Manufacturing Practice) and FDA (Food & Drug Agency) requirements. |
31/10/2006
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Scheduled for massive growth
A cool $70 million of additional annual revenues is being recorded by steel producer Companhia Siderúrgica de Tubarão (CST) in Espírito Santo, Brazil, thanks entirely to an advanced planning and scheduling system from Preactor, implemented by local reseller Tecmaran. Preactor schedules operations in line with several rules and strategies, using orders to be satisfied as the input. Some parameters are fixed while others can be modified – for example, availability of pig iron can modify speed of steel production. The rules adopted are primarily: balance orders to keep the casting machines working (with priorities); minimise WIP; and balance the converter machines with casting machines. |
31/10/2006
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Magellan speeds up on collaborative IT
Aircraft equipment builder Magellan Aerospace (UK) has developed a collaborative system that enables its designers to work with production and suppliers all through new product development. The result is not only faster, better, more joined-up processes and faster time to market, but risk mitigation all round. |
04/10/2006
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Cosworth makes team working world class
Northampton-based race engine developer Cosworth has created a common information window for engineering, purchasing and suppliers that’s transformed its business operations. The firm implemented Documentum’s eRoom, initially for exchanging CAD information but is now enabling collaboration with customers and suppliers way beyond design. According to Cosworth head of business systems Jeremy Hill, the system, which has about 200 users internally and 100 customers and suppliers, is delivering huge benefits. “Things are so much more organised and clear. It would be a shock to see how much we’ve saved: for example, it’s probably more than doubled the effectiveness of our processes.” |
04/10/2006
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CAD and PDM transform Mitsubishi MotorSports
Mitsubishi MotorSports (MMSP) has cut development times for its Lancer Evolution World Rally Championship (WRC) cars by a full 30% while also improving design accuracy, product quality and manufacturing consistency – it was a clear front runner, said the judges. It’s achievements have come since standardising on PTC’s Pro/Engineer 3D solid modelling, Wildfire collaboration tools and Pro/Intralink CAD data management system. Chief designer Paul Doe says the MMSP development team now works entirely collaboratively. It uses PTC tools for everything from development and modification of complete surface design and car components, to CAE tasks including structural and thermal simulation and FEA (finite element analysis) of highly stressed and safety-critical parts. |
04/10/2006
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Roaming access is right formula for mobile work
Polymer products and chemicals manufacturer Chemtura was highly commended for its noteworthy competitive advantage and productivity improvements achieved by providing its 300 mobile workers with context-sensitive access to real-time information and applications via Citrix systems. The company was already using centralised server-based computing on Citrix Presentation Server for Windows to deploy applications like SAP BW (business intelligence), but wanted to extend this to deliver role-based access to information and applications through a web browser. |
04/10/2006
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Network accelerators solve WAN latency problems
Precision Disc Castings’ use of compression technology to solve group-wide network traffic problems led the Best of British panel to award it a Highly Commended honour. The firm, one of Europe’s leading producers of automotive brake discs and drums, has two foundries, one in Poole, Dorset, another in the Czech republic, plus two further finishing plants, one in Dudley and the other in Germany, as well as remote branches. Two and a half years ago, it implemented a Foxpro ERP system across all sites, with multiple instances served in a Citrix environment from the Poole data centre, covering around 20 users. But when that grew to around 50, it soon hit problems. |
04/10/2006
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Disk-to-disk-to-tape takes 80% off back-up times
Critical data back-up times reduced by 80%, greatly enhanced data protection, much faster disaster recovery times and better business continuity protection earned electronic and industrial products firm Premier Farnell a ‘Highly Commended’ award from our independent panel of judges. The improvements came after implementing new disk-to-disk-to-tape technology. The company had been running short of storage capacity on its 200-plus servers, but also needed to cut disaster recovery times so that it could restore critical data systems within four hours. |
04/10/2006
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