Competitive success of manufacturing firms is by and large determined by the success of the products they introduce to the market. This is why companies continuously try to improve the efficacy of their product realization process. Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) is a business solution which aims to streamline the flow of information about the product and related processes throughout the product's lifecycle such that the right information in the right context at the right time can be made available. Yet, few organizations are positioned to reap the true benefits of PLM. One major reason for this is a lack of clear understanding of what PLM is, its core features and functions, and its relationship to the myriad of current software tools. This paper aims to do that and also elaborates on the role of PLM as a knowledge management system.
This paper describes the new undergraduate program in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. The restructuring of the program was initiated by a comprehensive review in 1992 that included surveys of alumni, students, and industrial representatives, as well as faculty assessment of current trends and future needs. The program is intended to address the changing backgrounds of incoming students, to prepare the students for new and diverse challenges in the workplace, and to provide a structure for the curriculum to evolve with changing technology. The new curriculum consists of three integrated courses in Design and Manufacturing, two Laboratory courses, and several redesigned courses in the Engineering Sciences. The redesigned program provides students with extensive hands‐on experience, a comprehensive experience in teamwork and technical communication, and the opportunity to exercise and develop their creativity.
A homogenization method has been recently developed to optimize the topology of a structure. This method will suggest a structural topology, but the results will be in finite element form. Most engineering applications, however, require smooth structures, whether the faces of the structures be planar or curved. Given the topology of a three-dimensional structure as suggested by the homogenization method, an algorithm is developed to interpret the structure and generate a smooth, manufacturable surface representation of the structure. Structures designed by the homogenization method can be quite complex and traditional manufacturing technique may not be well suited for constructing them. Layered manufacturing is adopted for producing such structures and it is shown how to generate the necessary data for this novel manufacturing technique from the surface model of the structure. Some steps of the algorithm require designer inputs. Examples are given which demonstrates this algorithm.
The objective of this paper is to present a framework for quality software development in the Scientific Application area. In a scientific application area, the specification and configuration control phases of the development cycle generally do not pose a serious problem. In most cases, a compact and comprehensive specification can be arrived at solely from the field of application. However, support is expected in the development and maintenance phases of the software life cycle. With this assumption, an integrated Fortran Environment and Scientific CASE Tool (FE/SCT) was designed, developed, and implemented for the DOS operating system.
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