CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
16 April 2007
Product News
UGS Launches NX 5 CAD/CAM/CAE Software; New Technologies Provide Users with "Greater Powers" to Develop Innovative Products Faster and More Cost-Efficiently
UGS Corp. announced Version 5 of NX® software - the next-generation of its digital product development software designed to help companies develop innovative products faster and more cost-efficiently.
NX 5 delivers breakthrough technology innovations to the market, including the highest level of productivity improvements in NX software to date. UGS is supporting the launch with a series of "Greater Powers"- themed marketing events around the world.
"The CAD/CAM/CAE market is core to UGS' future growth, and NX 5 drives our vision to be the market leader in this strategic segment by setting new standards through key new technologies," said Tony Affuso, chairman, CEO and president of UGS. "The next generation of PLM solutions must facilitate better decisions across a global supply chain. The marriage of technologies inside NX 5 will dramatically increase the ability of companies to effectively leverage knowledge across their business. That's why it is core to our PLM vision."
Major product enhancements
NX 5 incorporates "Greater Powers" breakthrough innovations including:
More flexibility - NX 5 provides companies with "Design Freedom" to work effectively with all legacy data to maximize reuse without redesign. Benchmark results provided 50 percent greater efficiency than other competing systems. In addition, NX 5 cuts through the constraints of parametric models enabling compressed design times and reductions in costly errors.
More coordination - NX 5 introduces Active Mockup to the industry to enable engineers to work more efficiently in the context of a total product. Greater visibility and coordination in extended design reviews enable more design iterations in less time.
More productivity - NX 5 increases workflow productivity through a new user interface and NX "Your Way" customization. Customer benchmark results indicated productivity increases of 20 percent. In addition, a third-party benchmark indicated that NX 5 outperformed all leading competitors in workflow productivity tests.
More strength - NX 5 integrates CAD, CAM and CAE into a unified, open environment for increased product and process information efficiency. Customer benchmark results indicated 50 percent faster analysis workflows compared to a leading competitor. In addition, manufacturing machining time is reduced by 20 percent.
Design Freedom technology for more flexibility
NX 5 delivers key "Design Freedom" features to enable companies to develop complex products through an efficient design process. Flexible design tools eliminate constraints imposed by parametric systems. For example, Advanced Selection Intent automatically selects geometry and infers the correct relationship, which allows users to quickly make design changes. The ability to work on geometry without defined features or history adds an important new level of flexibility, enabling changes to be made in minutes that may require hours in other systems.
In addition to flexible design tools, NX 5 embeds the JTT data format - a widely used lightweight 3D data format for product visualization and collaboration - to support files from multiple CAD programs to speed the design process.
NX 5 also improves concurrent design by enabling companies to reduce rework and improve collaboration by creating interfaces to parts, then publishing and managing them in Teamcenter® software. By publishing part interfaces, companies can simplify impact analysis, streamline change notifications, and reduce change conflict in concurrent design scenarios by up to 60 percent based on beta customer feedback.
"NX 5's new assembly constraints capabilities and reuse library, accessed directly from the Teamcenter managed environment, will help us to design our products much faster," said Gyeongho Moon, C4 Group Manager, LG Electronics. "JT is already a part of our design review and therefore we have strong interest in the new NX 5 Active Mockup. It will save us time through reduced translation efforts and maintained associativity with the NX model."
Active Mockup for more coordination
NX 5 introduces the industry's first Active Mockup technology. Active Mockup enables engineers to use one product for instantaneous review of design changes in the full context of their total product.
Active Mockup rapidly modifies model data regardless of its origin and outperforms NX's nearest competitors. In addition, NX 5's embedded JT technology delivers five times the graphics performance and reduces memory usage by 70 percent. For Teamcenter/NX users, this enables true configuration-driven variant mockup.
NX "Your Way" and new user interface for more productivity
Workflow productivity is improved in all areas of NX. Customer tests indicate an overall 20 percent productivity improvement with the new innovative user interface. In addition, a third-party benchmark indicated that NX 5 outperformed all leading competitors in workflow productivity tests. Modern redesigned menus and dialogs adhere to the latest standards and they are implemented consistently throughout the software and clearly communicate required input and command steps.
"NX 5 looks cool," said Paul Philips, staff engineer, Global CAD/CAM Development, Kennametal. "I think UGS has done an excellent job on the new user interface. It's sure to win over new customers with its professional look and feel, and existing customers should be able to adapt extremely quickly. We're also looking forward to using the new assembly mating constraints."
NX's new user interface also includes enhanced role-specific interfaces, which enable companies to present NX commands appropriate to user function and expertise. This cuts initial training time by as much as 50 percent, based on an independent audit. In addition, increased integration with Teamcenter delivers productivity gains up to 90 percent in common functions such as inserting standard parts.
Open and unified solution for more strength
UGS continues to differentiate its products through an emphasis on openness that is integrated throughout its PLM portfolio. NX 5 unifies data from competitive systems as well as NX's own CAD/CAM/CAE technologies to speed and streamline product development. In CAE, NX 5 delivers more simulation power and performance than ever before. Recent customer benchmarks demonstrated 10 times faster process time improvements over the nearest competitor.
Web and worldwide launch activities
NX 5 is immediately available. UGS will launch NX 5 around the world, starting with:
EMEA: April 17 at Hannover Fair in Germany.
Americas: April 18 at SAE World Congress in Detroit.
Asia/Pacific: April 19 in Tokyo.
These events will be followed by launch seminars in all major countries. For online product videos and a complete what's new guide, visit http://www.ugs.com/nx5.
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