Two Quality Issues Engineering Education Faces in India

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Oct14_qualityIndia produces more engineers than America. One statistics say that India churns out at least 5 times as many engineers as the U.S. But that does not mean that the skills imparted to our engineers and the ones to their American counterparts are the same.

According to a 2012 National Employability Report of Aspiring Minds, an employee assessment service provider, about 83% of engineering graduates are unfit for employment. There are about 14 lakh engineering seats available for admissions in colleges across the country. Though India has many engineering colleges that provide world class education, most of them face “quality” issues. Often two fixed notions about engineering come in the way of providing quality in engineering education.

Notion 1: Engineering is just about engineering

Engineering education is not only about engineering. In other words, a person who only has engineering skills will not make a good engineer. Usually, curriculum of engineering colleges does not give enough importance to communication and interpersonal skills. Students practically get no exposure to organizational skills like working in a multi-disciplinary team or collaborating with a geographically distributed team having members from different cultures.

Notion 2: Engineer’s job is to follow rules

Engineering education may be about memorising facts, passing tests, and regurgitating information, and of course following the rules of the science. But engineering job demands students to think critically, try new things, fail and learn from their mistakes.

Industry does not need engineers. They need innovators. Employing organisations may hire top scorers but reward only the creative and the innovative.However, what happens at colleges? Do we teach students to prototype and pitch their ideas with professors? Do we get industry experts to mentor students and help them turn their concepts into realities? Do we encourage students to use open courseware, made available by dotcoms like Coursera and EdX, so that they can learn arts? Do we have business incubators to offer knowledge in management, and learn how to do business?

Engineering colleges should ponder over these two quality issues, if they want to play a meaningful role in higher education and employment generation.

 

 

Siemens NX-A Smart Choice for Product Innovation

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Oct14_sieSiemens NX, formerly known as NX Unigraphics, is an end-to-end engineering software used for product design and manufacturing. The latest release of the software, NX9 offers new and enhanced capabilities for product design, from concept through detailed engineering and documentation. NX 9 introduces new 3D CAD modelling techniques, improved 2D design and drafting, a streamlined user interface, faster access to PLM information, and a robust platform for concurrent engineering of complex products.The popularity of the software can be gauged from the fact that it manages or creates more than 40 percent of the world’s 3D data today.Following are the three distinct features of Siemens NX:

Design and Analysis Integration

NX is CAD and CAE rolled into one. In the past, product design and product analysis have always evolved as two different technologies and processes pertaining to two different departments. Only now the CAD/CAE is getting integrated.

Siemens NX offers a comprehensive system that is fully integrated between NX CAD and NX CAE. This CAD/CAE integration enables engineers to collaborate and share information. This supports innovation, because there are more ideas readily available to implement and try.

Synchronous Technology

Siemens NX was the first product to introduce “synchronous technology”. It is considered one of the inflection points in the CAD industry, next to parametric-feature based modelling introduced by PTC with its Pro/E CAD software.

Simply put, the Synchronous Technology makes implementing new tweaks to designs fast and simple, which ultimately improves workflow. It allows you to edit native or imported CAD geometry in the model without understanding how the geometry was created originally (the model history or model tree).

High Definition PLM

Siemens has recently introduced what it calls High Definition PLM “to give everyone involved in making a product the information they need, when they need it, to make the smartest decision.” The HD approach is about understanding and breaking down customer requirements, and assigning them to specific functional groups that develop a product feature, while maintaining visibility of the product as a whole.

AutoCAD 2015: Taking Design a Step Ahead

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With AutoCAD 2015, Autodesk has released an improved version of its flagship product. The new version promises increased efficiency, and improved workflow, besides sporting a smoother user interface.

AutoCAD 2015: What’s New?

sep14_autoThe interface of AutoCAD 2015 marks a new approach to navigation. When you start AutoCAD 2015, instead of getting a welcome dialog, you are now greeted by a tab that helps you open new and existing drawings quickly and access a selection of content to get you up and running faster. The tab also gives you access to AutoCAD 360. The dark look of the interface improves functionality and productivity and reduces eye strain. You can switch back to traditional lighter interface, if you want. The buttons have been repositioned to improve its performance.

AutoCAD 2015 helps speed detailing and documentation work that you can confidently share using Trusted DWG technology.

AutoCAD 2015 for Windows is supported on Windows 7 and Windows 8/8.1 (No, Windows XP is not supported). Although it is difficult to estimate and even define, AutoCAD 2015 is believed to contain over 17,000,000 lines of code. The updated interface is better suited to modern hardware-accelerated 2D and 3D graphics. Its ribbon galleries save time and clicks by visually accessing drawing content directly from the ribbon.

A new system variable named LINESMOOTHING is now available to control anti-aliasing of most objects to give them a smoother look. Another exciting new feature in AutoCAD 2014 was a revamped set of tools for working with point clouds. With the inclusion of these new tools, Autodesk has dropped the ability to attach point clouds saved in the PCG and ISD format, but if you open a drawing to which those older point cloud files are attached, they will still display and you can still select them and modify their properties.

AutoCAD 2015: Enhancements

Rounding out the new AutoCAD 2015 release are enhanced customization tools, a new Autodesk Application Manager that helps you stay current with the latest updates for all Autodesk applications. Its performance reporting tool helps o analyze and troubleshoot any performance issues you encounter while using the software. Earlier AutoCAD versions had an issue with DGN line type bloat. This was solved with a hot fix for the earlier versions and the fix is built into AutoCAD 2015. PNG images that you use CUI commands are now officially supported.

AutoCAD 2015: Let’s upgrade

Autodesk continues to place increased emphasis on its suites, which provide some pretty good deals. With truly significant performance,graphic improvements, delivering a richer visual experience and a host of new features, most users will want to upgrade to AutoCAD 2015.

There are five reasons why you should upgrade:

  •  Document faster with a new interface and new productivity tools
  •  Connect more smoothly with Autodesk 360 cloud services
  •  Get started quicker with Geo-location and reality computing
  •  Communicate ideas with integrated rendering tools
  •  Customize more easily with Autodesk® Exchange apps

The new interface is consistent with other professional products. The depth and breadth of improvements and new features combine to make AutoCAD 2015 one of the most significant updates in years.

CCUBE Competency Certification : Gives a Cutting Edge to Your C.V

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sep14_ccubeDifferentiating oneself from others is a key strategy for winning. It holds true especially in any competitive job market, where the supply of talent is more but the demand for them is less.Passing out of a renowned institution can always help you stand out. But merely having a course completion certificate is not going to be enough. Obtaining a competency certificate from a vendor neutral testing agency can help employers spot you quickly.

In engineering and technical education, students undergo training in many Computer Aided Design (CAD) and project management software, usually from private institutes. In a typical interview scenario, employers would conduct tests to know how well students have learnt what modules of which software. If a competency certificate is in place, it eliminates this process, and makes clearing the technical interview a stress free exercise for candidates. Besides, employers are saved from expending time and effort to make sure that they are not miss-hiring.While a course completion certificate tells employers that you have completed a course successfully, a competency certificate assures them that you have mastered the subjects of the course expertly. With proper effort, obtaining a competency certification for a chosen domain, module of software can be easy. However, finding a vendor-neutral testing agency, whose certification is respected and recognized by the industry, is not. We do not have enough testing agencies in the first place. Competency certification is a new concept in India. In this context, CADD Centre, has launched CCube (short for CADD Centre Certification Program), a vendor-neutral testing and competency testing and certification services. The mission of CCube is to increase the reach of testing and competency certification services to students and professionals. CCube fills a crucial gap by being a vendor-neutral agency, testing competency of students on widely used engineering and project management software products.

CCube competency tests are conducted on all major software products that come from the stable of global companies such as AutoCAD, CREO, SolidWorks, Ansys, Revit Architecture, Staad.Pro, Microsoft Project, and Primavera. Applicable for job aspirants and professionals of all engineering streams including Civil, Mechanical, Electrical and Electronics, besides project management. You will have to choose your engineering software or software module or a project management concept/software, prepare well, and take a 60-minute online test in your nearest CCube authorized CADD Centre. Your certification is issued instantly. CCube certificates are highly valuable competency certificates which are a genuine testament to your expertise in a particular module. CCube certificates are awarded only after an extensive assessment of your deep insight and industry readiness which are true hallmarks of competency.

Taking the extra effort to obtaining a competency certification can go a long way in you realizing your goal of gaining employment or advancing your career in an industry of your choice. CCube certification helps you stand out from your peers as it is a true ratification of your competence and genuine expertise. The CCube certificates add recognition to your resume, highlights your dedication to continuous skill development, shows the clarity of purpose in your chosen career path and gives you a head-start in the highly competitive job market.

There are no eligibility criteria for taking up any of the examinations. If you want to evaluate yourself on the knowledge level of a particular software or module and test your competency, you can go ahead and take up the online CCube competency exam any time. In a way, competency certificate is democratizing education – that is, you do not have to have any degree or any other courses offered either by any formal or informal institutions.

All you need to have is a real exposure and expertise in the software. In other words, there are no qualifications whatsoever required for you to take the test and get certified. Still, a competency certification can take you to places where a course completion certificate may not.

CADD Centre’s CCube specifications map to several specific job roles and employers “WILL” be confident that you posses the right skill set they want. Although CCube certification might not be the only factor in your landing a job or a contract, it certainly gives you an edge over your competition as it has a brand advantage as a specialized wing of the CADD Centre, which is a pioneer and an industry leader.

Prove your high degree of specialization, sound knowledge and expertise in CAD/CAM/CAE and Project Management software with a third party competency certification offered by CCUBE. Exams are conducted on all days of the week except national holidays. There will be 6 sessions per day through from 9AM to 6PM. We use a modern and systematic grading system in order to evaluate the competency of the candidates with the highest grade being an “A” grade.

You will receive a free forum account were you can connect to various technical experts.

You will also be able to download a unique CCube logo that is attached to your registration number. This can be used in your resume, blog, profile etc.

Find more details and location of a CCUBE Authorized Testing Center nearest to you at www.ccube.asia / Contact : +91 89255 35550

CATIA V6 – An Overview

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august14_catCATIA V6 redefines CAD from the purely physical product definition and expands it from digital mock-up to functional mock-up, taking into account the multiple views that necessitate the product development (i.e. Requirement, Functional, Logical and Physical).

V6 technologies enables users to automate the design process through the safe use of advanced relational design techniques, by allowing users to create network and relationships between the parts designed. CATIA solutions have been widely deployed by customers worldwide in various industries.

CATIA V6 puts 3D collaborative innovation at the heart of the enterprise and helps companies accelerate companies’ transformation towards a full PLM 2.0 approach. Several companies in multiple industries worldwide have taken advantage of CATIA V6′ virtual design capabilities to ensure product success.

CATIA V6 is now marketed worldwide by IBM. V6 is a radical departure from other 3D CAD systems. Instead of storing geometry in files managed by a computer’s operating system, Catia V6 stores geometry, part attributes, and assembly relationships in a database managed by Dassault Systèmes’ Enovia V6 product data management software (a direct descendent of MatrixOne, a PDM system dating from the early 1990s).

For additional flexibility and mobility, travelling users who don’t have an internet connection can now continue to design with CATIA V6 even when they are not connected to the server. With CATIA Offline, “On –the-go”, users can access their current data even when it is not possible to connect to the enterprise ENOVIA V6 Server. Simply selecting “work offline” downloads the required data. CATIA function will then be available “on the go”, when working from home or when no network is available. Once back on site, un-checking the “work offline” switch reconnects to the ENOVIA V6 Server, and work can be re-synchronized and shared.

A new product, CATIA Composites Fiber Modeler (CFM), provides robust and accurate fiber simulation to optimize ply shapes and provide accurate manufacturing information. This proven and widely used technology from Simulayt, acquired by Dassault Systemes in October 2011, is now fully integrated into CATIA V6. CATIA Composite Solutions integrate the design, analysis and manufacture of structures made from fiber-reinforced materials.

CATIA V6 enables the full spectrum of next generation collaborative virtual design including systems engineering, shape design, mechanical and equipment engineering, and company knowledge capture and reuse, to power up design industry. In V6, CATIA expands 3D design to user communities outside of the design office, addressing each profile with the right modeler capabilities such as direct 3D modeling, geometrical surfaces handling, feature-based design and history-free functional modeling.

The principal benefits of V6 accrue to makers of complex products. Most of these companies already have some sort of CAD and PDM system, and few are inclined to switch brands. If Dassault Systèmes can demonstrate that V6 is much more efficient than Siemens NX or PTC’s Creo, it might entice some of these customers to join the CATIA family.