New Delhi : Siemens PLM Software, a business unit of the Siemens Industry Automation Division and a leading global provider of product lifecycle management (PLM) software and services, today announced Solid Edge® software ST3 (Solid Edge ST3). With this latest release, Solid Edge delivers new functionality – enabled by synchronous technology – that significantly accelerates product design, streamlines revisions, and makes importing and reusing third-party CAD data easier. The new release also includes a variety of enhancements related to simulation, design data management, and more than a thousand customer-driven improvements.

“We believe Solid Edge ST3 marks a major milestone in advancing the technology while still catering to customers’ specific needs,” said Dr. Ken Versprille, PLM Research Director, CPDA. “Synchronous technology has the capacity to perform a wide variety of design tasks in a fraction of the time it takes with a traditional approach. This could provide engineers with more time for creativity and innovation, resulting in better product designs produced faster.”

“With the levels of productivity improvement reported by customers all over the world, we are seeing real proof of the revolutionary breakthrough of synchronous technology,” said Karsten Newbury, senior vice president and general manager of the Velocity Series and Solid Edge business, Siemens PLM Software. “The time savings are significant, but even more importantly is the fact that Solid Edge with synchronous technology allows users to shift their focus to the actual design task versus thinking about how to use software.”

Fulfilling the vision of synchronous technology

Siemens PLM Software has extended the availability of synchronous technology by making it pervasive throughout the product. In addition to support for part modeling and sheet metal design delivered in earlier versions, synchronous-based models can now be used directly with all assembly applications – such as piping, frames, wiring, and assembly features. Also delivered is a first-ever synchronous-based part-to-part associativity that lets users establish and alter design intent before, during or after the assembly design process.

Solid Edge ST3 also provides a ground-breaking capability to work with both synchronous and non-synchronous (ordered) features in the same integrated design environment. Users can leverage synchronous features for accelerated design and flexible edits while adding ordered features for designing process-type parts, such as cast or machined parts. Ordered features in existing models can be selectively moved to the synchronous environment, providing designers with maximum flexibility and ease of use.

As more companies move from other 3D systems to Solid Edge to take advantage of synchronous technology, the new capability to merge 2D drawings with existing 3D models further expands opportunities for productivity. Manufacturing dimensions on 2D drawings can now be automatically transferred to the corresponding imported 3D model. The resulting “as-manufactured” 3D dimensions can be immediately edited, modifying the imported 3D model using synchronous technology.

“Solid Edge ST3 really fulfils the vision of synchronous technology by making this revolutionary capability available throughout all areas of the software and enhancing its versatility,” said Dan Staples, director of Solid Edge product development, Siemens PLM Software. “Our number one goal when adding functionality to Solid Edge is to create business value for our customers, and we believe this release definitely achieves that objective.”

Embedded Simulation

Building on its integrated simulation application, Solid Edge ST3 includes new torque and bearing loads, user defined constraints and new ways to connect assemblies such as bolt and sheet metal edge connectors. Faster results can be achieved with model simplification tools and better visualization capabilities that allow you to see inside the model. Refinements can be made using synchronous technology or ordered methods. Solid Edge allows design validation of parts and assemblies earlier in the product development process for quicker time to market and reduced physical prototyping costs.

“Once we added Solid Edge Simulation, the bill from our outsourced professional engineer went down,” says John Fillion, Mechanical Engineer at Modern Mechanical Fab, Inc.

Scalable data management

Continuing our long history of working with Microsoft SharePoint® products, Solid Edge ST3 with Insight™ data management solution now takes advantage of Microsoft SharePoint 2010 to further expand its scalable data management strategy. Leveraging the latest SharePoint platform extends collaboration to a wider range of CAD and non-CAD users by expanding project management, business analytics and social media capabilities. In addition, a standalone bill-of-materials (BOM) editor delivered with the embedded client in Solid Edge lets CAD and non-CAD users create product structures that can be opened in Solid Edge, Teamcenter® software or Teamcenter Express software. The result is an accelerated design process as initial BOMs can be established and refined before the product design begins.

“Inergi uses (Solid Edge with) Insight to manage over 105 thousand files for 30 different clients,” said James Bullington, Director of Engineering, Inergi. “Insight is very transparent to our users. They don’t know they are working on a remote sever anymore than their desktop. Insight is a key part of Inergi’s product development process and any design firm would benefit from its use.”

Listening to the voice of the customer

Delivering thousands of customer-driven improvements, Solid Edge ST3 provides even stronger business value throughout the product development process. New functionality was added in a wide variety of areas, including sheet metal, piping and frame design, assembly management, and drafting. Advances in sheet metal include new closed corner types, etching of part numbers and other geometry, and manufacturing-only features, such as tabs added for production or transportation purposes. Solid Edge continues to raise the bar in drawing creation, with the ability to embed all manufacturing dimensions and annotations, including item numbers, in the assembly, and even carry part colors through as line styles in the drawing. New multi-cultural drawings allow mixing of character sets from multiple languages on a single drawing or even in a single annotation. The streamlined user interface includes a fully customizable radial menu, drastically reducing mouse travel. Transparent feature and part management dialogs and reduced-size command interaction dialogs provide maximum graphics workspace area.

“We have been using Solid Edge for 10 years,” said Olivier Pellerin, IT R&D Manager for Group SEB. “Solid Edge ST3 is the best release we’ve seen. The big benefit for Solid Edge is to be able to create and modify models very fast.”

“Solid Edge ST3 advances our award winning synchronous technology and maintains a strong customer focus,” said Bill McClure, vice president of product development for Velocity Series, Siemens PLM Software. “We take great pride in our business philosophy of putting the customer first, and Solid Edge ST3 embraces this philosophy throughout all areas of the product. With several new capabilities and thousands of customer-driven enhancements, Solid Edge ST3 incorporates the voice of the customer and demonstrates our ability to quickly respond to their product development needs.”