ENGtechnica

Tag: ProductDevelopment

  • Sigmetrix Launches VariSight v1.0 for Mechanical Variation Management

    Sigmetrix Launches VariSight v1.0 for Mechanical Variation Management

    Sigmetrix CETOL Integrated 3D Tolerance Analysis Software (Source: Sigmetrix)

    MCKINNEY, TX, Feb 12, 2025 – Sigmetrix has announced that VariSight version 1.0 is available. VariSight is the latest addition to the suite of solutions that streamline and enhance the mechanical variation management process. Tolerance analysis and GD&T software provide users with controlling capabilities to help ensure consistency, optimize design functionality, minimize manufacturing errors, and improve their products’ overall quality and performance, all within an effective and user-friendly platform.

    VariSight is an enterprise-level solution for mechanical variation management that helps optimize product quality and facilitate informed decisions by connecting tolerance models to the MBD/MBE digital thread, capturing and transferring organizational knowledge, and accelerating the product development process.

     Below are some essential highlights from the initial release of VariSight:  

    • Management of CETOL data – Upload CETOL model data to VariSight directly from CETOL. Review the history of the CETOL data and visualize aggregated analysis results over time. Track user-specific contributions and improve collaboration efforts.
    • Track progress of system requirements – Create system requirements in VariSight and link individual CETOL measurements to these requirements. Report on requirements that are satisfied by measurements and their aggregated status (Pass/Fail) over time.
    • Compare CETOL models – Compare two revisions of a CETOL model to identify differences via a streamlined presentation of base model and comparison model. Identify geometric changes, tolerance chances, etc… between model iterations. Improve understanding of the root cause of changes that affect predicted quality.
    • Link to CAD data in Windchill PLM – Search Windchill PLM from within VariSight to find desired CAD models. Create links to the CAD model metadata including version history and assembly structure. Update the linked data when changes are made to the model in Windchill.

    VariSight v1.0 is available in English.  

    Raphael Nascimento, product manager for VariSight, commented, “The release of VariSight v1.0 marks the culmination of 3 years of development efforts, and it is the embodiment of the enterprise needs expressed by our customers for over 20 years. VariSight extends the value of our customers’ existing mechanical variation management efforts by expanding access beyond  the individual analyst’s workstation to other stakeholders within the organization, improving collaboration, shortening time to market, and supporting the digital thread.”

    Source: Sigmetrix

    About Sigmetrix

    Sigmetrix, established in 1999 and headquartered in McKinney, Texas, provides mechanical variation analysis and tolerance optimization software solutions. The company specializes in geometric dimensioning and tolerancing (GD&T), tolerance analysis, and model-based definition (MBD) tools for predicting, managing, and optimizing mechanical variations in product design and manufacturing processes. Sigmetrix serves various industries, including aerospace and defense, automotive, electronics and communications, energy generation and distribution, medical devices, HVAC and appliances, and pumps and compressors. Their software solutions, such as CETOL 6σ and EZtol, integrate directly with major computer-aided design (CAD) platforms, facilitating efficient tolerance analysis and variation management. With over 25 years in business, Sigmetrix has established a global presence, offering its products and services to clients worldwide. As of recent reports, Sigmetrix has an estimated annual revenue of $4.6 million.

  • Quarter20 Launches CAD-Connected Wiki for Hardware Documentation

    Quarter20 Launches CAD-Connected Wiki for Hardware Documentation

    REDWOOD CITY, CA, Jan 30, 2025 – Quarter20 has announced the availability of its first-generation platform to the public. It launches as the first-ever documentation tool purpose-built for the 3D and visual needs of hardware development. Its platform is optimized to increase engineering efficiency, reduce lead times, and eliminate opportunities for recalls caused by errors in miscommunication. During its private Beta, Quarter20 users generated work instructions and a manufacturing document 10x faster, leading to an average of 66% less time spent on documentation.

    The Quarter20 platform helps engineers and engineering teams create essential CAD-based documents in less time and automatically. Its user-friendly technology allows users to produce content that updates itself, tags automatically, and supports collaboration across teams.

    Quarter20 was founded by Mai Bui, a mechanical engineer and hardware product lead who spent time at SpaceX, Tesla, and Carbon, and Addy First, former product and monetization strategist of Microsoft’s Industrial IoT portfolio.

    “Quarter20 is the tool I’ve always needed in my career as a mechanical engineer,” said CEO Mai Bui, “Documentation drives hardware collaboration, but has long been an overlooked part of the product development process. Relying on generic tools like PowerPoint to create your technical documentation is not only inefficient but leads to inaccuracies. With Quarter20, we optimize engineering efficiency, reduce time to market, and considerably diminish risk of downstream defects.”

    Quarter20’s Key Capabilities

    • Smart Screenshots and Self-Updating Metadata: By syncing with CAD, all visuals and data created in Quarter20 auto-update as designs change. Never re-take a screenshot again.
    • Quarter20 Toolkit for Advanced Search and Reuse: All Quarter20 content is tagged and can be linked across documents. Advanced search functionality enables easy data retrieval and reuse across projects.
    • Collaboration for All Technical Types: Quarter20 fosters collaboration across teams—from engineers to non-technical staff—so all stakeholders are kept up to date on design and process decisions.

    About Quarter20

    Founded in 2023, Quarter20 is a U.S.-based company specializing in automated documentation solutions for hardware engineering teams. Their platform restructures the creation of technical documents by auto-generating up-to-date engineering documentation, supporting teams to focus more on building and less on manual tasks. This service is beneficial for industries involved in hardware development and manufacturing, where precise and current documentation is crucial.

    Source: Quarter20

  • Blues to Use CELUS for IoT Module Design

    Blues to Use CELUS for IoT Module Design

    AUSTIN, TX, Jan 27, 2025 – CELUS has announced a partnership with embedded intelligence leader Blues that will enable engineers and designers to incorporate Blues’ technology into their electronic designs, enhancing functionality and connectivity while reducing development time and costs.

    Blues provides wireless products that enable developers to build connected, intelligent solutions. The company’s Notecard product line combines prepaid connectivity, low-power design and secure “off the internet” communication in a single System-on-Module (SoM). Under the agreement, Blues’ cutting-edge IoT connectivity will be accessible on the CELUS design platform providing a simplistic path to leveraging Notecard products into designs.

    Blues’ Notecard is a developer-friendly, production-ready embeddable communications module that delivers data from a device to your cloud service using simple web standards. Image and caption: Blues,

    “We are constantly looking for ways to make connectivity easier for our customers and partners so that they can gain insight into their businesses and improve the customer experience,” said Alistair Fulton, COO & VP of ecosystem at Blues. “By teaming up with CELUS, we’ve made it even easier to bring information-connected devices to life. With Notecard, customers can speed up their time to market and spend more time on the tasks that really move the needle.”

    The CELUS Design Platform streamlines the design process with AI-powered recommendations that analyze over 600 million components available to electronics engineers. The platform enables users to go from design requirements to schematic in less than an hour. Designers enter their technical requirements, including environmental or design constraints. Then the CELUS Design Platform’s exclusive AI algorithms analyse specs and features to suggest options. Electronic devices often have 200 to 1,000 components. CELUS speeds up the process of turning ideas into finished projects and getting them to market. This helps suppliers and manufacturers reach more customers, sell more components, and promote preferred parts more effectively.

    “The CELUS Design Platform connects component providers and engineers in a way that allows for enhanced efficiency, improved product development times and increased market penetration,” said Tobias Pohl, CEO of CELUS. “By partnering with Blues and adding Notecard to the CELUS Design Platform, engineers and designers gain access to production-ready embeddable communication modules as part of an ecosystem of components collected to enable better integration and improve innovation.”

    About Celus

    CELUS, founded in 2016 and headquartered in Munich, Germany, is a deep tech software company specializing in AI-driven automation for electronics engineering. The company’s flagship product, the CELUS Design Platform uses artificial intelligence and advanced algorithms to simplify electronics development. The platform helps engineers design faster and more effectively by automatically turning functional requirements into complete electronics designs, including schematics and bills of materials. CELUS serves industries involved in electronics design and manufacturing, aiming to simplify complex processes and drive innovation in circuit design. As of 2024, the company employs approximately 100 people. In June 2022, CELUS secured $26.6 million in a Series A funding round to further develop its automation platform.

    About Blues

    Blues Wireless, founded in 2018 and headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, specializes in simplifying wireless communication for Internet of Things (IoT) applications. Blues Wireless serves a diverse range of industries, including agriculture, automotive, construction, healthcare, industrial, manufacturing, retail, supply chain, cold chain, transportation, and logistics. As of 2023, the company employs approximately 50 people. In January 2023, Blues Wireless secured $32 million in a Series A1 funding round to further develop its IoT connectivity solutions.

    Source: CELUS

  • Sigmetrix Launches CETOL 6σ V12 3D Tolerance Analysis Software

    Sigmetrix Launches CETOL 6σ V12 3D Tolerance Analysis Software

    MICKINNEY, TX, Jan 23, 2025 – Sigmetrix has announced their latest release of CETOL 6σ tolerance analysis software, version 12.0, available for immediate download. Tolerance analysis offers several advantages for businesses. It supports higher profits by balancing product quality with production costs. Companies can speed up product launches by reducing the need for additional design or prototype stages. It also allows teams to make informed product and process decisions before making costly investments.

    CETOL 6σ enables product development teams to understand the often-complex impact of dimensional and assembly variation easily and fully on their designs. This knowledge enables them to make the proper adjustments before problems appear in manufacturing or, even worse, in their customers’ hands. Users of all expertise levels will appreciate the multiple levels of assistance available within the software. This new release of CETOL 6σ builds upon the features already in place and adds improvements, including:

    • A New Version of the Software Directly Integrated with Siemens NX– CETOL 6σ users will have the option of using CETOL 6σ as an add-in application within the NX environment, supporting the additional capabilities of saving the CETOL 6σ data embedded within the NX files as well as automatically pushing changes to linked tolerance values back to the PMI in NX. The standalone version of CETOL 6σ for NX is available as well to facilitate migration to the new solution, as data from the standalone version may be opened in the new, integrated version. 
    • Select Auxiliary Features for Other Conditions – Auxiliary Features, functionality first added in 3, may now be referenced to modify the location of measurement endpoints, to modify the location of a joint, or to modify the location of a feature origin.
    • Reset Joint DOFs – CETOL 6σ has applied an algorithm to automatically set degree-of-freedom controls for joints being imported or manually added based on the order in which they are added. Adjusting the setting when the order wasn’t correct, though, is now much faster with this new context menu option.
    • Add Geometric Tolerance Context Menu Option—This feature allows the user to add a geometric tolerance directly from the context menu for the feature in addition to the standard tool in the ribbon.
    • Upload to VariSight – Uploading data to VariSight, a new, enterprise-level product for managing CETOL 6σ data files schedule to be released later this year, is  supported directly within the application.

    As with prior releases, CETOL 6σ v12.0 is available in English, Japanese, and Simplified Chinese.

    Sigmetrix director of customer success and product strategy, Stephen Werst, commented, “CETOL 6σ v12. is a significant step forward for Sigmetrix as we strive to achieve feature parity across all supported CAD platforms, continue to make the software easier to use, and prepare for the upcoming release of our newest product, Varisight. This release, along with improvements in our entire product portfolio, continues our unrelenting efforts to help companies build better products through mechanical variation management via a robust combination of software, training, and consulting services.”

    Source: Sigmetrix