Acting Locally
Updates from COE Regional User Groups. If you would like to start a new group in your area, please contact our RUG Management team.
Great Lakes Users' Group Collaborates with Oakland Community College to Provide Real Value!
By Dave Ballard
COE Board of Directors
GLACOe President
The Advanced Technology wing of the Oakland Community College was abound with activity on March 13, 2001, as over 100 members of the GLACOe organization descended upon this location to hold their bi-monthly user group meeting. GLACOe, which stands for the Great Lakes Area CATIA Operators exchange is a regional user group with a mission to share, network, and promote better understanding of the CATIA, ENOVIA, and DELMIA line of products.
The success of this group is credited to its focus on contemporary issues and solutions, and brings a significant repeat attendance. This meeting had nearly five percent newcomer attendance, and is expected to increase as more installations make the Leap to V5. A typical meeting is a half-day, and begins with strategy-oriented presentations, and tends to get progressively more technical through to the end. The agenda includes several fixed format items, such as the user roundtable forum and update presentations from Daimler/Chrysler. Today's meeting was well attended by a very diverse cross section of interests, from engineering and marketing, to manufacturing and inspection. Virtually all job classifications are represented at these meetings, as there is something for everyone from managers to terminal operators.
Attendees learned today about model quality, and the steps needed to improve the geometry generated by flawed software and construction process methods. Model quality appears to be a major consideration prior to migrating to CATIA Version 5, particularly those with legacy data. Tools, processes, methods, and solutions were covered in depth by briefings and demonstrations. An animated Q&A session followed.
Michael Zick of the CATIA/CADAM Product Management group in Poughkeepsie took time out of his busy schedule and stopped by the meeting for the purpose of discussing relevant packaging options, and how to plan for license migration from CATIA V4 to V5. Packaging content and a V5/V5 equivalence matrix were discussed, as well as the products that are available individually external to packaging.
GLACOe.org is COMING! Autoweb made the exciting announcement that they will be hosting our Website in the future. Meeting notes, minutes archival, announcements, email subscriptions, and meeting registrations will be all available on the web! Stay tuned for further details. AutoWeb also made some internal structural changes to their service lineup that should be of benefit to all users. Visit http://www.autoweb.net for details.
Every meeting also has a user roundtable forum, to discuss current events, concerns, provide feedback on past unanswered questions, and to assist the executive committee on the scheduling content for future meetings. As always, a variety of questions were asked, and answered by folks in attendance at the meeting. The COE national conference was discussed, providing an overview of the conference itself, dates, and location.
Dave Pallister of Daimler/Chrysler gave a status update about future events and time schedules for maintenance updates, check out our meeting minutes linked off of the http://www.coe.org Website under User Groups for additional details. Of special interest to many folks in attendance is when oh when is D/C going to migrate to V5. Well, according to information past meetings, that date is coming, and will be focused on the power train products first. In order to give a glimpse of the future, Gary Carnes of IBM provided the wrap up the meeting by showing CATIA V5 in action for power train applications.
Come and stop by to visit us in the future. I am confident once you come, you will be hooked and want to come again. The next meeting is May 15, 2001. We have yet to finalize the agenda, but it will be loaded with good things for all. See you then!
Arizona RUG
By David Gauther
Our first meeting went very well. We had about twenty-five attendees, mostly current V4 users. We also had a V5 demo by Dave Knoble, IBM CATIA AE, showing some Knowledge Ware usage.
I have delayed calling another meeting until the Spring COE Conference concluded. Dave Knoble has volunteered to give us his take on the Conference. I will also try to have one of our Motorola designers show us some of his accomplishments in V5 part modeling. We are proposing that we have the meeting Wednesday, May 9th, 6:30 PM to 8:00 PM at Motorola, 8201 E. McDowell Rd., Scottsdale, AZ.
For information, email me.
COW
By Peter Van de Bogart
The CATIA Operators of Wisconsin (COW) met recently in Milwaukee. 35 users from 11 different companies attended. Some of the agenda items & great presentations:
- Human Modeling with your CATIA design - Safework
- Portable Design Review & Visualizations Solutions with DMU Navigator - Pierce Manufacturing
- CATIA V5 DMU Fitting Simulator - John B Cearns
- Nominations for COW officers
- Template-based Design in CATIA - INCAT
- Concurrent engineering/manufacturing w/ DPM V5 from DELMIA - -DELMIA Corp
COW's next meeting will be in early June, so look for more information on the COE web page.
Chicago RUG
There is a Chicago RUG, CLCUG, was going to disband, but COE offered to build interest with a mailing, once again using IBM's help. We now have over a dozen names and we hope to be able to schedule a meeting in the near future. If you're in the Chicagoland area, please let us know if you are interested in joining this rejuvenated group!
Ohio RUG
The Ohio RUG is in the very beginning stages- Michelle Brozell received a call from someone in Ohio interested in starting a RUG- they've been playing phone tag for a couple weeks now, so he has yet to agree to start the mailing process. If it goes any further She'll let us know.
For more information on RUG groups or to start a new group, please e-mail coe@sba.com and state their RUG area of interest.
| 
