What PLM technology can connect virtual and physical worlds?

March 11, 2009

We live in a physical world. Everything in this world seems to be created in a parallel, virtual space. This space is in our heads, in the computer systems we use to design this physical world, and in the global enterprise systems that manufacture, support, and dispose things in this physical world. Certainly, there is a connection between these worlds that we can discover and use. But how? I’m sure this is a long journey. In this post, I will think out loud about some possible technologies that are available or emerging today to help us to establish this connection.

Practically, to create links we need to establish two elements of connection – (1) stable identification system; (2) technology for keeping the identification of this information.

Identification system

Probably the best resource identification system today is the URI based system from which the Internet was founded. There is some interesting research that I found in the area of creation of persistent unified resource locators (PURL). Such a system can be potentially adopted to indentify virtual objects. This system eventually can be used to enhance identification of today’s virtual models created with CAD/PDM/PLM and other manufacturing systems. On the physical side, technologies like RFID cards, QR (Quick Response) codes and smartcards can be the most common.

 Proxy objects

These identification technologies can be connected together by proxy objects. Information on the virtual side can be organized in the various cloud services and locations as an organized network of virtual objects describing everything that has been designed, manufactured and has existed. Now, on the physical side, various technologies (cameras, RFID readers etc) can be used to scan information from physical devices. What is missing is a sufficient amount of cloud services that will allow us to store and keep track of this information online.

 This idea is a little futuristic, but considering some of the products already available, I can see that some already show ideas and prototypes for this futuristic future.  For example, an idea is the ability of created physical objects to react to their environment, –  is something I may be expand upon in  future posts.

 Below are some examples of existing development and applications that inspired me in writing this post.

 When Blobjects Rule the Earth

http://boingboing.net/images/blobjects.htm

(Bruce Sterling, SIGGRAPH 2004, August 2004.) Bruce Sterling’s speech at SIGGRAPH 2004 describes a vision of objects that are con­nected to information related to their design, creation, and use; end-user reviews, ideas, and improvements; and where they are at all times.

 UWTeam Researches a Future Filled with RFIDChips

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2004316708_rfid31.html

(Kristi Heim, The Seattle Times, 31 March 2008.) Researchers at the University of Washington are exploring the positive and negative aspects of using RFID tags to track the movements of people in a social setting — by tracking them­selves.

 Home-Based Health Platform

http://www.harris.cise.ufl.edu/projects_nih.htm

Researchers at the University of Florida are developing an ambient system to measure a person’s vital signs as he or she enters the house, transmitting the information to family or doctors, as a way of monitoring at-risk individuals or the elderly.

 And one more… The book (Shaping Things) by Bruce Sterling influenced me to  think differently about the  world in which we design, manufacture and live today. While Bruce is indeed a futuristic writer, a lot of good ideas in this world originated in futuristic writing. I hope you will enjoy the following interview with Bruce about his concept of SPIMES- virtual and physical objects:  


6 Comments | Daily PLM Think Tank, PLM and Social Environment, Technology | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by olegshilovitsky

3D Limits, or How to Avoid Killing 3D with 3D applications?

February 20, 2009

I’d like to discuss 3D. The following 3D Perspectives blog post “Do Designers Really Want to Communicate in 3D?” got me thinking about when and how 3D is efficient and how to apply these practices in our implementations. There is no debate – 3D inspires! We can see what we are going to design, visualize engineering analyses, present and explain problems in a way that we cannot do in plain English words. But are limits for 3D? How can we collaborate efficiently on 3D and non-3D information?

There are a few basic types of communication in the design world. You can communicate to:

1/ present the design of product;

2/ describe a problem;

3/ discuss a particular solution.

What are the key decision points designers need in order to communicate in 3D? I think that the main point is around productivity. If 3D helps them improve their productivity, they will definitely take the “3D story” seriously and use it as an instrument for their daily work. But even if sounds like 3D is appropriate for a regular designer’s life, is 3D-orientation really that obvious?

I will try to delve into a typical designer’s activities and will figure out where 3D could help as well as harm. In other words, where are the limits of 3D?. 

Designer Activity

:) :) :)

:( :( :(

1.     Search specific design assembly/part/…  

 

3D is good because you can see what you’re searching for

3D is bad because it might show you 150 visually similar parts? I’m not sure that’s so helpful…

2.     Collaborate – i.e. discover a specific problem together?

 

3D is good because you can see the problem in 3D visually… I really like being able to see this…

 

3D isn’t always good in this case because the problem can’t always be represented visually. Sometimes you need the right balance of 3D together with textual information

3.     Co-design

 

3D is great!  Collaborative design is only possible in 3D…

But 3D is not always ideal, as design requires a good combination of visual and non- visual capabilities in order to keep records of discussions (i.e. IM with SolidWorks; 3DLive with buddy-list)

 

4.     Demo product, communicate with customer

 

3D is good as a picture is worth a thousand words, however….

3D isn’t always ideal in this case, because if  customers are interested in particular non-visual aspects, they will need to get access to these characteristics as simply as possible.

 So, my conclusion is that 3D is very important in the way we can provide a context for discussion and communication, – the ability to visualize and actually co-design our work. In certain cases, using non-3D user experience is the only way to work for designer to make right decision. Also, presenting non-visual information can be easily understood – sometimes too much 3D information creates an information overload. And ultimately, Excel-like communication, in many cases, can be the only efficient way to present a problem or issue.

So, to measure user productivity and work on the user experience is the only real way to find 3D limits. I’d like to hear your feedback about your personal experience with 3D.

 

3 Comments | Collaboration, Daily PLM Think Tank, PLM User Experience | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by olegshilovitsky

Use Predictive Modeling to Decrease Product Cost during Product Design and Development?

January 28, 2009

We are all concerned about how to decrease product cost. This is a top priority of users in today’s economic situation. But it was also a priority before 2008/9. Our primary goal is to provide systems that allows control over the cost of products. Since 80% of product cost is already defined at the stage of design and early product development, predicting cost, in my opinion, should be on the short list of PLM product developers and implementers.

 “Predictive modeling is the process by which a model is created or chosen to try to best predict the probability of an outcome” (Wikipedia).  Sounds complex, right? But predictive modeling technologies based on statistical data analyses are widely used today. Many systems analyze historical data and predict future behavior. A similar example of predictive modeling usage in PLM systems is evident in Customer Relation Management (CRM) Systems are analyzing customer level models to predict customer behavior in the future. For example, health care systems analyze existing customers to predict high-risk members; telecom operators use predictive analyses for cross-sell opportunities (by analyzing product combination patterns purchased by other customers), as well as customer churn. 

Now, how do you implement this? In my view, this is all about connectivity between your systems. Today’s design and engineering are very localized and have a limited view on what is going on outside, how customers uses their products, what happens with service departments, etc. If systems are to establish a connection between particular design decision and customer defect reports, extra expenses by suppliers etc., this information can be potentially reused to predict future cost and product defects. Even if it sounds ahead of its time, I’m pretty sure our future is there. More practical examples of predictive engineering are in the areas of FEA and other engineering analyzes. Accumulating statistical data in this area can provide good prediction results for product design connected to customer experience.

 I’d be glad to discuss with you potential scenarios of predictive modeling usage and… may be you already have some of them implemented… who knows?

 

Leave a Comment » | Daily PLM Think Tank, Design, Technology | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by olegshilovitsky

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