Over 100 committee members and 20 PTC product managers participated in the PTC/USER Technical Committee meetings in June. The facilities in Nashville were excellent and the PTC support showed tremendous commitment to the TC process.
The breakout story this year was the very rewarding attendance and feedback from our Windchill committees. While interest and participation have been building for some time, this year’s sessions were by far the most productive and well-attended. Special thanks to Windchill chairpersons Jeff Zemsky and Dominic Hand for their time and leadership, and to PTC for its management and development presence.
After serving as Director of Technical Committees, Evan Caille is now bringing his vast experience to the role of PTC/USER President. Congratulations to Evan and thanks for all of the hard work and great progress he has brought to the TC community. I know the information he passed along has been invaluable in helping me pick up the task.
In other committee leadership news, Howard Schimmoller has had to step down as the Core Modeling chair. Howard directed the committee through several initiatives, including a major white paper on model-centric design. Thank you, Howard, for your terrific service.
We welcome Ron Grabau back as he takes up the lead of Core Modeling. Ron has been active in the PTC/USER community for many years and has played several key roles, including a previous stint as Core Modeling TC chair.
Mark Crum has accepted full chairmanship of the Data Management Technical Committee. He has been doing an excellent job as acting chair since Ben Franklin’s departure.
Here are brief summaries of recent and planned activities prepared by several of the Technical Committee chairs.
Core Modeling. The Core Modeling TC had one of its best-attended meetings in June. While most of the subjects fall under nondisclosure agreements, the committee generally addressed updates to Wildfire 2.0 as well as future Pro/ENGINEER enhancements. The topics of discussion ranged from simple user enhancements to complex issues spanning multiple Technical Committees.
The Core Modeling TC is now looking at ways to organize better itself to address a wider range of topics. While still a work in progress, the reorganization should be finalized before the next conference. Although the Core Modeling committee is currently full, the group welcomes input from the entire user community. Contact any committee member to submit ideas and papers for consideration.
Customization. The Customization TC met with a number of new members. As interest in J-Link continues to grow, the committee plans to draft one of its new members to present on a J-Link topic for the January meeting. The committee is still open to new members.
The next release of Wildfire is at the end of the specification phase. PTC’s Scott Conover went over the planned enhancements. Customization committee members volunteered to review the specifications and offer feedback from the user point of view.
Data Exchange and Archiving. Members of the Data Exchange and Archiving Technical Committee reviewed improvements in Wildfire 2.0, enhancements to Wildfire 3.0, and white papers for future improvements. The TC will continue to meet via webcast every six weeks or so to comment on Wildfire 3.0 functionality before enhancements go into the software.
Drafting. Drafting conducted webcasts throughout the year. The June meeting was well-attended by member companies and PTC product management. Areas of discussion included implementation of Y14.41, user enhancements, symbols, future releases of PTC software, and white papers.
Manufacturing. Manufacturing met with 16 TC members and 4 PTC representatives. PTC’s Francois Lamy gave a presentation and demonstration of what’s new in Wildfire 2.0 for Manufacturing—the largest Manufacturing release ever. Francois then outlined the Funded Development Agreement PTC has with Toyota Motor Company, which has had a great impact on PTC's Manufacturing products. Some of the development done for Toyota will be exclusive for one year, but other enhancements will be available in Wildfire 3.0. In addition, Francois presented the projects planned for Wildfire 3.0.
Charles Farah of Sigmaxim's Smart Electrode also gave a presentation. The ability to automate the creation of electrodes has been kicking around the TC since 1997, and Charles demonstrated how far the development of this module has progressed.
With Manufacturing covering many modules—e.g., Production Milling, Turning, Mold Machining, Mold Design, and Wire EDM, the committee decided to create focused user groups to address specific topics. The Manufacturing TC will conduct a two-day workshop after the January 2005 meetings to test Wildfire 3.0 and provide some input to PTC before the final release, as well as address issues identified by the focused groups. The Manufacturing Technical Committee is open to new members
PDS. In June, the PDS Technical Committee announced the release of its Top Down Design and Change Management Process Guides. The TC is currently working on the Release to Manufacturing Guide and will begin on the Collaboration Guide and Project Management Guide in the next couple of months.
Routed Systems. The Routed Systems TC meetings drew a number of long-time committee members who have put a lot of time and effort into the group. It was great to see a lot of the old familiar faces, including some who have been using the Routed Systems package for over 10 years. In the room was the best of the best, with one user mentioning another user, who in turn mentored another. It was like looking at a family tree of cabling knowledge.
PTC has made a lot of great enhancements and improvements to the tool. Wildfire 4.0 should have a whole new look and feel for cabling. It's exciting to see that PTC is paying more attention to electrical/mechanical design than it did 10 years ago and that the Routed Systems TC will have a lot of influence in what this tool becomes.
Sheetmetal. Because of either missed flights or timing conflicts, the Sheetmetal TC held two meetings on the Friday and Sunday nights prior to the international conference that covered the following topics:
- Wildfire 2.0. The discussions addressed mplementation planning within individual companies; testing procedures and findings; what was delivered compared with what was promised one-year prior; new functionality added to this release, and how it can be improved upon in future releases.
- Wildfire 3.0. PTC presented its plans for what the next release will involve, sparking several new discussions that will continue over the next few months and in our January meeting. Several new project specifications were divided among the TC members to review and provide feedback to PTC.
- Priorities review. TC members spent a lot of time reviewing previously established sheetmetal priorities and were able to remove several from the list because the requirements had been met. The TC is now reviewing Wildfire 2.0 to see if it can satisfy the other priorities on the list.
After one of the most successful and well-attended Product Update Briefings at the PTC/USER conference, the Sheetmetal TC is welcoming four new members. With these additions, the TC now boasts 17 members in North America that bring a range of experience and industry expertise to the table. The TC is still accepting members into our workgroup and has plenty of openings in the review group.
Going forward, the TC will focus on development of Wildfire 3.0 (and beyond) development to help enhance functionality and ease of use. Members will also continue to refine the TC’s list of priorities, which will then be combined with PTC’s. This will hopefully allow the Sheetmetal TC and PTC to develop a module that suits the user community as well as keeps PTC competitive in the marketplace.
The Sheetmetal TC would like to thank PTC, and especially Gilles Combette, for making the Wildfire 2.0 Sheetmetal module one of the most advanced and easy-to-use releases in some time. Thanks also to PTC management for their commitment to improving the Sheetmetal module with each release that follows Wildfire 2.0.
System Administration. The System Administration TC held its third meeting of the year in June, including two face-to-face and two web-based sessions. It was a very productive meeting, with great participation from both PTC product managers and committee members. Discussions centered on support of the Wildfire 2.0 release. Topics included OS support, FlexLM support/reporting, license simplification, digital rights management, and installation changes. Pro/INTRALINK administration and administrator training were also covered.
Usability and Training. The Usability and Training Technical Committee discussed areas of usability, training and ModelCHECK. CADTRAIN is updating its COACH content to support Wildfire 2.0 and a free Wildfire 2.0 Primer is already available.
PTC provided an update on PTC University, which brings together all areas associated with learning—from searching for training opportunities to tracking enrollments to accessing role-based communities. Discussions continued about ModelCHECK’s expanded functionality and user interface enhancements in Wildfire 2.0. Software Factory also presented information on its geometry-based checking tools, PE-CHECK and PE-WALLCHECK.
Visualization. Visualization presentations and discussions focused primarily on enhancements to large assembly publishing. While this function can now be done only manually, it will be automated in Windchill Visualization Services for the upcoming release.
The committee was also briefed on the new 3D annotation capabilities (available in Wildfire 2.0 Object Adapter), upcoming JT import capability, and the Graphics Server roadmap. PTC gave an update on the roadmap for dvMockup/Reality and DSU 5, which now allows the application to run in the latest Unix O/S. Windows XP support will be addressed in DSU 6. Over the coming year, the committee will focus on enhanced collaboration capabilities, drawingless manufacturing, digital rights, and enhanced scalability.
Windchill Infrastructure. The
Windchill Infrastructure TC reviewed the results of the work related to two primary areas—system performance and system management. On the topic of system performance, PTC presented the results of a survey conducted earlier this year to identify (1) appropriate database sizing information for future testing requirements and (2) performance bottlenecks experienced by various customers. One of the TC members then gave a presentation on his company’s customizations and requirements for system management.The committee selected three primary topics to focus on for the rest of the year: system performance, enterprise architecture, and customization. Webcasts will be held throughout this time to share lessons learned in each of these areas and provide feedback to PTC.
Windchill Solutions. The Windchill Solutions TC drew 31 attendees from North America, Europe and the Pacific Rim. The meeting started off with user presentations from John Deere, Pelco and Plug Power, followed by reviews and discussion of PTC's next-generation products. That presentation lead into four workgroup sessions focusing on PTC's new Business Process Guides. The breakout sessions covered:
- Enterprise Change Process
- Design Reviews
- Global Design Collaboration
- Search and Reuse
These topics, along with other related Business Process Guides, will receive additional attention over the coming year. A series of workgroups is covering reporting and configuration management topics for the next two product releases.
The committee also held further discussion on the need for better collaboration with other TCs on topics where there is overlap, such as Visualization, Windchill Infrastructure, PDS, and Data Management. Several webcasts are planned over the next few months to continue work on the above topics.
Get Involved!
To find out more about PTC/USER’s Technical Committee activities or to sign up for a particular committee, please visit the PTC/USER website at members.ptcuser.org/Resource.phx/techcommittee/america.htx or contact me at dan@ptcuser.org. 
Dan Glenn is Director of Technical Committees for PTC/USER. He is employed at Solar Turbines in San Diego, CA and can be reached via e-mail at dan@ptcuser.org.
