Dassault Systèmes Announces That It Will Adopt the New Microsoft.NET-based Application Customization Solution Visual Studio Tools for Applications (VSTA), Within its V5 PLM Solutions

Dassault Systèmes announced that it will adopt the new Microsoft .NET-based application customization solution, Visual Studio Tools for Applications (VSTA), within its V5 PLM (Product Lifecyle Management) solutions.

Support for VSTA is targeted at DS customers who have adopted .NET technologies. VSTA integration will help these customers to extend V5 solution capabilities in line with their specific needs by offering a significantly advanced environment to capture, store, enrich and reuse their in-house best practices and knowledge. Furthermore, because VSTA will run alongside existing VBA code, older and newer implementations of the V5 PLM solution will work side-by-side.

“Our customers have been capitalizing key, in-house best practices for years,” said Florence Hu-Aubigny, director, Research & Development, Open Architecture for Dassault Systèmes. “By adopting VSTA, we want to offer them the power to optimize the use of their corporate knowledge easily and cost-effectively within their V5 PLM environment.”

“Dassault Systèmes is a strategic partner and we are delighted to offer value to their customer-base by providing next generation application customization technologies,” said KD Hallman, general manager of Visual Studio Tools for Applications at Microsoft Corp. “By integrating VSTA with its V5 PLM solution set, Dassault Systèmes is meeting the needs of customers who have adopted .NET. These customers now have an optimized and managed code programming environment that takes application customization to the next level.”

HP xw9300 Workstation with AMD Opteron Processor is Certified for CATIA

CATIA users with the most demanding needs just got another high-performance solution from HP with the certification of the HP xw9300 Workstation for CATIA.

The HP xw9300 is HP’s new AMD Opteron-based workstation. This top-of-the-line workstation was designed, in conjunction with both hardware and software providers, to produce the ultimate 64-bit performance for the most demanding engineering, scientific and design applications. With up to two single or dual-core AMD Opteron processors running at up to 2.8 GHz, the HP xw9300 offers up to 4 separate processing cores with on-chip DDR memory controllers, room for up to 16 GB of memory and AMD Direct Connect architecture tying the I/O bus, memory and processors directly together to limit latency issues and improve memory performance.

Graphics performance is critical in an engineering workstation and with two PCI Express x16 graphics slots and a choice of NVIDIA Quadro FX graphics cards to fill them, the xw9300 supports up to four full-performance 3D displays. This is made possible by the NVIDIA nForce Professional chipset, the first such implementation in the industry. This combination of graphics power provides cost-effective, scalable visualization options for the most demanding graphics demands, including parallel rendering and compositing.

The HP xw9300 Workstation is built for 64-bit operating systems and offers a variety of pre-installed operating system options including Microsoft Windows XP Professional 64-bit Edition, Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 3, Update 5 or an HP Installer Kit for Linux to help you install the 64-bit Linux version of your choice. If 64-bit computing is not in your immediate future, the HP xw9300 is also available with Windows XP Professional 32-bit Edition installed, providing you with the operating system you need now as well as a clear upgrade path to 64-bit when you are ready.

All this power, flexibility, reliability and performance is now certified for CATIA V5. The HP Application Competency Center for CATIA has pushed the HP xw9300 Workstation through a grueling battery of tests designed to find and exceed the limitations of the machine, its processors, memory, and most importantly, its graphics cards and drivers. This certification testing is designed to ensure that you, the user, get a workstation that is completely reliable and free of “bugs,” “quirks,” and “undocumented features” that destroy your productivity.

HP goes beyond certification. When you buy from HP you are also buying more than a box. You are buying the security of the leading manufacturer of personal workstations in the world. You are buying the expertise built through decades long relationships with the best technology partners in the industry and a long, close relationship with Dassault Systemes. This expertise and these relationships allow HP to offer the HP Performance Tuning Framework, a free, pre-installed utility that helps you to optimize your workstation for your particular needs, manage your configuration and memory and get the greatest possible efficiency and reliability out of your workstation. No one else offers such a solution because no one else can.

Click here for more information about the HP xw9300 Workstation.

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Royal Canadian Mint Makes Better Coins Thanks To RAND Worldwide®

Headquartered in Ottawa, the Royal Canadian Mint (RCM) is recognized worldwide for its standards of quality and craftsmanship in the production of circulation and collector coins for Canada and for countries around the world. The RCM’s two facilities, Ottawa and Winnipeg, employ more than 450 people involved in all aspects of coin design, production and marketing.

The Challenge
The RCM has worked hard to reach the forefront of minting technology research and development and earn its reputation for delivering top-notch service to both its domestic and international customers. To stay on top and continue to provide a fair return on investment to its sole shareholder, the Government of Canada, the RCM needed to address a number of operational challenges specific to coin design and production. Improved design collaboration was needed to get new ideas and coins to market sooner, for example, and a new approach was required to reduce the enormous expenses often incurred in creating the tooling necessary to produce prototype coins. In addition, the RCM’s existing Product Data Management (PDM) system was proving to be inadequate for efficient document preparation, tracking and management; and they were experiencing difficulty controlling the process and documentation associated with making engineering changes. The RCM was also having trouble finding an effective way to proactively leverage vast amounts of experience and engineering information amassed from each project to help them design, produce, package and deliver better coins more quickly and cost effectively.

The Solution
After soliciting proposals from potential vendors, the RCM engaged the consulting and training services of RAND Worldwide to implement a new Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) solution based on IBM CATIA V5 and a new PDM solution using IBM SMARTEAM.
The new CATIA 3D CAD system was installed and the users, mainly designers, were trained via classroom sessions and desk-side mentoring days. Best-practice methods for developing coins, tooling and packaging were also created.

In parallel, a new Engineering Specifications repository was implemented based on SMARTEAM, and configured for the types of information the RCM wants to capture and track. Users – basically anyone needing to access engineering and production information – were trained using standard SMARTEAM resources plus materials custom developed by RAND relating to the RCM implementation.

The Results
Along with enhancing the design process and facilitating improved collaboration, the new system enables the RCM to create a totally digital or ‘virtual coin’. The digital coin can be used for customer approvals, for example, saving the time and cost previously required for prototyping new coins. It also provides a means for showcasing their designs and products internally and to prospective customers.

Perhaps the biggest gains, however, are provided by SMARTEAM, which gives the RCM a centralized Engineering Specifications database and supporting workflow common to the whole organization. Users are now better able to capture, store, organize and access comprehensive information on every aspect of the RCM’s products. This not only brings simplification and better control to the engineering change process, but also enhances productivity by enabling users to quickly and easily access existing data for re-use, which drives down engineering and manufacturing costs. Overall, the Royal Canadian Mint has taken a big step toward its vision of automating all product lifecycle processes associated with coins – from new coin conception, through design and production, to retirement – while managing and re-using the knowledge gained along the way.

About RAND Worldwide
RAND Worldwide is one of the world’s leading providers of professional services and technology to the engineering community and companies looking to improve their competitiveness, productivity and profitability by enhancing key aspects of their Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) and Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) capabilities, including planning, development, and management. As a leading technology independent systems integrator in the world, RAND Worldwide employs more than 380 people in over 70 sales and client service centers around the world.