Mobile collaboration software unplugs designers from workstations
by Staff -- Manufacturing Business Technology, 2/1/2005 12:00:00 AM
Sometimes the easiest way to get a point across is to sit down with the other person and make sure you're both looking at the same sheet of music. But when the tune being played involves complex computer-aided design (CAD) drawings, and the design and production engineers are in different buildings—or even different cities—straightforward collaboration is not so straightforward anymore.
Now ImpactXoft has partnered with Hewlett-Packard (HP) and Intel—which has a 10-percent stake in the company—to come up with the IX SPeeD V5 Suite of design collaboration software on Centrino-enabled laptops. Centrino is an Intel computer chip optimized for wireless use.
The resulting setup for wireless collaboration is in pilot testing in a manufacturing environment using HP laptops.
The trick that enables laptops or tablet PCs to handle CAD files without choking on the file size is ImpactXoft's "share and merge" technology, which sends only the changes in the design to those who need to see them, letting product developers work in parallel on the same design while taking advantage of the flexibility and mobility that laptops and tablet PCs provide. Design engineers can send changes to remote locations or bring them to the factory floor on a laptop.
IX SPeeD V5 Suite is available in a stand-alone version, and embedded in Dassault Systemes' CATIA Version 5 MCAD system.
"The beauty of the system," says Martin Welch, COO of ImpactXoft, "is that it makes collaboration and data transfer easier. It cuts the lag time between iterations, and the chances for miscommunication. Most design engineers are hundreds of miles away from the shop floor, where decisions about production are made. This allows everyone to see the effects of changes at the same time."
