IEN: How much progress do you see toward tying together design with the overall enterprise (manufacturing, front office, back office, and all aspects of logistics)? What major hurdles remain? Does the Internet continue to increase its presence in design?
Christenson: When I was a project manager at Delphi, we used these types of systems, but there were so many rules and special requirements it became extremely complex to use them. It becomes constraining for engineers to do their jobs when they''re faced with these challenges. And I believe that it''s still a challenge today as some systems remain cumbersome and aren''t as flexible as they could be, especially since nearly every department tends to have its own policies surrounding this. The opportunity remains for agile systems.
IEN: How can/will collaborative manufacturing management strategies address problems related to integrating design with the industrial enterprise?
Christenson: One of our products recently launched in November, ANSYS 7.0, speaks to this question, as it includes ANSYS'' variational design technology. This is an aggressive area of development for us: studying the effects of design variation on performance. ANSYS software users can now very quickly take apart and study the parameters of a design and check the effects and changes on overall performance. What used to take days now takes a matter of hours.
Another area that collaborative manufacturing management touches upon for ANSYS is probabilistic design technology, which is geared toward managing product performance. Personally, it''s an area that''s very exciting to me and many engineers. With this type of technology, the process engineering and product engineers study how the effects of manufacturing and material property variations impact product performance. This is a natural selection for customers seeking a Six Sigma solution for their design process. Probabilistic design links product design and the manufacturing process.
IEN: Will Product Life Management play an increased role in design? Why/Why not?
Christenson: Yes, absolutely. Again going back to my experience at Delphi, we used to talk about the very same thing 15 years ago but used different acronyms. Everyone was very focused on developing the highest-quality products as quickly as possible. Today, much of this takes the same form as the competitive nature of how manufacturing drives companies to continually improve quality, reduce costs, etc. PLM has always played a role in design and always will.
IEN: What innovations are in store for users of CAD?
Christenson: From our perspective, our Workbench environment is certainly innovative and extremely attractive to CAD users. If they take a look at it, I think they''ll find that ANSYS'' new platform has an efficient and intuitive user interface, superior CAD integration, advanced simulation of multiple-physics and more. And what''s great is that it''s all within one environment. Also, as many companies are discovering, simulation can help to cut product development costs and the time required to perform testing. From the Workbench environment we have better integrated the design process. Also, on a wide scale, we are seeing more and more users embracing technologies and tools that only became available a few years ago, like our DesignSpace offering, which brings simulation early into the design process. Our challenge is to push the envelope to create tools and technologies that meet the needs of large companies adopting and adapting to new processes. But we''ve been able to overcome this. But we continue to evolve and improve our offerings to make this vision realized.
IEN: What advances do you see in collaborative design?
Christenson: We''re seeing advances in collaboration, though not necessarily with tools that are "real time." In the coming months, you''ll be hearing about a unique collaborative offering from ANSYS that will be a significant boost not only to designers, but other types of users as well. It''s an offering that is very atypical of a simulation company, but we are confident that it''s one in which the market will have great interest.
IEN: Where are the R & D hot spots in materials? Parts and components? Equipment?
Christenson: Our technology absolutely supports the continuous, rapid developments in these areas, particularly our nonlinear material modeling functionality, which allows simulation of new-generation materials that are so important to the manufacturing industry.