Welcome to the interested in MFG enhancements PAC-MEN thread.
What is a PAC-MEN?
They are a group of NC programmers, which work together, to do several things. We brainstorm, to make enhancements to Catia manufacturing software, we collaborate to help each other, along with the rest of the CATIA community, we voice our desires for the future direction of the software development, our frustrations, and of course, our appreciation for the new enhancements the MFG R&D team at Dassault Systems,
There are over two dozen of us, and growing. Many are managers, or technical leads, at large, medium and small shops. A few, have taken their own, hard earned money, and purchased CATIA and nc programming and consulting, as a service. Most have over ten years programming experience, and half have over 25 years, programming, and NC machining experience.
What makes a PAC-MAN?
What makes a PAC-MAN? Activism. Passion. Knowledge. Curiosity, Experience, creativity, teamwork, demanding, tenacity, and a touch… no, and overdose of impatience. They don’t sit by and let someone else take care of it, they get involved. When someone asks a question, it many times is a PAC-MAN. The best questions, are usually asked
The diversified backgrounds of the PAC-MAN,
Obviously, because of our years in the industry, just about all of us, have cut our teeth, on other systems. APT, Compact II, NCL, UG, Mastercam, CATIA V4, MFG prog, and a few V3
, to name a few. This diversified background, enables us to look at CATIA, from a viewpoint of “I can do this in brand X, how do I do it with CATIA or with some frustration
How to join the PAC-MAN,
Say the magic words, "IM IN". that's it.
You can say why you are joining
you can state what your concerns are
DS and the DPC, would optionally like to how who you are, how many seats, what you background is, etc. Take a look at what the others have done, then make you own entry
You do not need to be a COE member to contribute, but you should
Before I get into anything, let me first state that you do not need to be a PAC-MAN, to contribute or ask questions. You do not need to be a COE member, either, but I will outline why you should be a COE member, later in detail, but I can state the being a COE member, has returns on your small investment, for you company, your personal career growth, and you coworkers, managers, and if you are a manager the people you lead. If you chose to read the entire 200 plus posts on this thread, you will see how I personally was ignorant to the functionality of the COE organization, how the DPC functions, how enhancements are easily submitted here. I was also ignorant to some the functionality of CATIA itself.
Can you make a difference? Yes of course you can.
How, by adding your voice. Asking questions, answer others. If someone posts an idea, and you think this idea has merit, back it up. Say yes, I agree, with this idea, and a message will be delivered that someone’s brainstorm, is not just brilliant in that own persons mind, but something that can be accepted, across the industry. You can add your own polish, …. Say yes, this is a great idea and would be even better if……….
You can add your own justification. Obviously, we would not be making enhancement requests, if things are already in the product. Say why you want it, need it, cant live without it. State how new functionality, will increase market share. I will give one example of this later, so you can see what I mean. …. See text engraving.
What is the COE DPC?
The DPC is the Development Planning Council for the COE Manufacturing Division. The DPC Manager is Mark Chitjian, and cochairman of the NC DPC is Jim Barkelew),
The mission of the COE with regards to enhancements
In Mark Chitjians, words, somewhat condensed by me: It needs to be clearly understood the mission of the COE organization with regards to enhancements and the enhancement request process. COE has an established process in which to submit enhancement requests through the DPC . The NC DPC is at the forefront of the enhancement process within the COE community. There is nothing preventing anyone from contacting DS directly concerning enhancement requests, but if this type of activity or related activity is conducted on the COE Forum or any other COE "vehicle" or event, it is expected that the DPC chairs receive copies of all these enhancement requests to enter into the DS database. This database enables DS to track enhancement requests and to provide the DPC and themselves with metrics on the status of the requests. The DPC chairs also have developed tools to track all enhancement requests submitted.
The DPC has stated, … COE does not mind having a PACMEN group, but we have to ensure that any type of activities such as Webinars, etc. are COE sanctioned and events open to ALL COE members ( Member benefit).
The DPC runs Webinars the DPC chairs moderate the sessions. The DPC is always seeking Webinar topics for the future, and encourages participation from not only aero, but automotive, consumer products, and any other types of manufacturing organizations.
"cross branding" Conference, Manufacturing Community and Synergy
27 Apr 2009 02:47 PM
In Mark Chitjians, words, somewhat condensed by me
The COE manufacturing community is doing a splendid job of exchanging experiences, information and wisdom on these forums and in person at the conferences, workshops and RUGs. You exemplify what the COE experience is supposed to be. Thanks to all of you, we have what I like to call an excellent example of "cross branding" (one learns this stuff in graduate school). What is happening is kind of a snowball effect.... people post here on the forum, people respond and sometimes rant, then DS jumps in and people realize that once they are being heard, even more people start participating. It keeps getting better and better. Bugs are getting fixed and people realize that they have a voice that is being listened to. The cross branding concept is where one type of activity/brand reinforces and encourages the other. Forum activity resulted in members going to the conference and possibly vice versa. Discussion and interaction at the conference foster even more activity in the form of webinars, RUGs, etc. Everything is intertwined
Guidance on submitting enhancements, from the Dassault director or research and development
When thinking of enhancements Patrick made an interesting point, one everyone should think about.....
"Give me a problem, not a requirement".
He wants us to think about what our problems are, what we want to be able to do, but are having a hard time doing it. It sort of forces us to focus on the actual problem and not a "wish" list.
Some Q & A
How quickly does Dassault act on your feedbacks?
That depends on each individual ER
The first thing that has to happen, is for the light bulb to go on, for DS to clearly understand the requirement. understand the need for change. So we need to be a clear as possible, in describing the issue, so pictures, and even small files will help to that end. A call to Mark Chitjian, the DPC chairman, helps to have a dialog, so things are clearly understood. Mark can also tell you if the item is already on the list, and in work, as many things are.
Then they need to come up with a method for implementation. It may be the exact functionality suggested by the user, or something different, that achieves the same goal.
How have they reacted so far?
I am very pleased.
No one gets everything they want.
Some people do get disappointed, when a new service pack comes in, and something important to them, is not enhanced or repaired. (COE does ER;s, not bug fixes)
Are they open to making changes?
Very, in most cases yes, in a few cases, ..well, ....we are working on them.
Sometimes, we ask for things that are not possible.
On the down side, things like text engraving, is something they have been asking for since I was in diapers, and I'm almost 50
Sometimes I make the mistake to ask an exaggerated need. For example, I asked for all things to be on the applications table, and let the user make filters, so select what we want. Well....... that is not possible, to many things, to add. So we need to come up with 4-6 things that we can no live without, and that I would expect to be implemented.
But no guarantees, as I have no control of DS, only make suggestions, and communicate ideas. I am more like a cheerleader.
What time frame are we looking at before a revision is made?
Sorry, I am not in the loop in this.
to see the original post including the list, click here
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*********** This is the original post except for the list ************ ************************************************************
As we all know, there are areas of Catia manufacturing that can be improved..
he mechanism are here for enhancement requests at COE.
We all want to contribute.
But I see a lot of frustrated programmers.
We are all, also very busy,
in fact too busy to use this forum as much as we would like.
I have a proactive plan to do something about it.
What I propose is that create a small private group, and we communicate thru e-mail, and phone, net conference, and than get together with our collective ideas.
I have already gotten positive response from the few users that I have contact info on, and spoken to.
Dassault will listen.
In December 2007, I discussed forming this small group with my Dassault regional sales manager. He assured me, that if I got this group of industry leaders formed, and created an agenda of enhancements needed in our humble opinions, that he would get us an audience with software developers from Dassault.
We are thinking, 8-12 programmers is all we need. We all see the same things
This is how I see starting the group
We can start with some conference calls. (we are all to busy to type in what a 30 minute phone session of ideas could yield ). . I see doing these teleconferences more than once a year. I think this would be more candid, than putting dirty laundry on the world wide web. (coe forum). I would be private.
Then we could do a web meeting like the ask the expert. Start with an agenda, and people can press 1 than 4 to talk. every one listens. Or perhaps meet in a centrally located area. I have a free donated conference room in down town LA, thanks to my brothers firm.
to see the original post including the list, click here
I see no reason to stop at 10, or 20. There is interconnectivity between modules.
Lets each come up with additions to the list of issues, and use our voices to get them fixes.
I got to meet the managers of software development, for NC manufacturing, and Delmia, at the Delmia conference in Detroit. These are good smart people. We had a one hour meeting, where I showed them the kind of parts we are making, the kinds of machines we are using, and some of the complex tooling setups, with 90 degree heads on 5-axis machines. I gave lot of feedback on Catia VS Vericut, not just Machine simulation, but also gouge detection using Video. They told me that they were motivated to help, and discussed channeling ideas thru the partners. It was too short a meeting, but I learned some things, and opened the door.
Many of you are ahead of me with tube time. I spend last two years only 20% Catia.
So I admit I am a little green. I don't see that as a problem. The good ideas come from programmers, be it UG, Mastercam, NCL, V4, V5, whatever
I am fortunate that my manager supports training, and my COE and Vericut forum collaboration.
I invite anyone to check it out,
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********************** May 2009 update *********************
Well that’s the way it started, and at this point, there are over 230 replies to this initial post.
What happen next can be summarized in a few major events, and periods
1. People joined in , or made statements. There was skepticism, as there was never any real indication that anyone at Dassault was paying any attention to what happens on the forum. Actually they did. That was a misconception by me, because I was at the time I started, unaware of how COE and the DPC functioned. If you go thru the pages, you will see how the COE leadership advised me
2. The first and second postings, by Dassault Managers. Mark Teneyck, and The DELMIA Channel sales manager, KK…........ And. People started to take attention, and spurred more people joining PAC-MEN, and more Ideas being posted.
3. Organization, of the first 2 webinars, by the COE-DPC, with more to follow.
4. The 2008 annual conference, where 6 of the “TOP-TEN” enhancements priorities, came from PAC-MEN, this collective body of programmers.
5. The Coe members only MFG forum created, for uninhibited discussions.
6. Webinar, broadcast, from Dassault, updating COE members, on what’s new in R18, and then later R19.
7. Tooling Webinar, broadcast from COE, on a plethora of issues concerning cutters, shop docs, 90 heads, and more
8. The 2009 annual conference, where again, many new enhancements in the works, submitted by PAC-MEN.
9. ................. to be continued
10
Why I moved the list to the COE Members only area.
(1) Per Mark Chitjian, the COE DPC Chair: "COE has setup a Manufacturing Forum open to COE members only. The purpose of this forum is to allow more open discussion and dialogue of sensitive topics without the public visibility on the "open" forum. One of our goals in this forum is to encourage DS to participate in these discussions without the fear of the competition having any visibility" Any COE member can join the forum by making a request to Jim Barkelew or myself, we will grant you access. It is a great reason to become a COE member.
(2) I edited this list after the 2009 annual conference. This was after the 2nd COE annual conference I attended. We COE members, have experienced unprecedented access, and cooperation, from the Dassault Systems manufacturing software development team. I started out with a list of 16 original Enhancements requests, and the list grew to over 60, as people joined PAC-MAN, and voiced in with there ideas, and desires. I had also posted links to threads that discussed the items in detail.
I am not hiding anything. This list can be seen as it was before edited it, actually the entire original thread, by clicking this link in the COE members manufacturing forum.
It seems fair, to not picket after the strike is settled, or keep knocking after they open the door, or any other analogy that comes to mind. Sure there is work to be done, but may things on the list, have been fixed, or are in work.
I don’t want to give the wrong impression, that there is this huge list of unresolved issues. Anyone is free to voice a differing opinion,
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