Free software to understand analysis results

Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team Mar 7, 2006

Free software lets distributed product teams in the plastics injection moulding industry visualise, quantify and compare analysis results and understand the assumptions behind a given set of results.

Moldflow has introduced Moldflow Communicator v1.0, a free software product that allows distributed product teams to visualise, quantify and compare Moldflow analysis results.

Unlike static 3D viewers, Communicator lets users understand the assumptions behind a given set of analysis results, which is vital to gaining the insight required to make critical design decisions.

One of the greatest problems faced by CAE companies is ensuring their users properly communicate analysis results and the associated assumptions to members of more distributed product development teams.

All too often, painstaking design optimisation work done at the start of the design-to-manufacturing process is not taken advantage of due to poor communication between team members.

Furthermore, the experience level of the people performing analyses is decreasing due to hiring constraints, further exposing the need for tools that improve the validation and communication of results.

Communicator lets Moldflow users easily share the insight gained from analysis-driven design optimisation to any member of a product development team, many of whom are not dedicated Moldflow users.

Extended team members can view results dynamically and interactively on 3D models and use a set of tools to compare analysis results side-by-side from two iterations to understand better design improvements.

One of Communicator's benefits is the ability to understand the assumptions behind a given set of analysis results, which can help team members make informed decisions to reduce development times, improve part quality and speed time to market.

Ken Welch, Executive VP and General Manager of Moldflow's design analysis business, said: "The launch of Communicator brings the goal to analyse every plastic part and mould design closer to reality".

"By making it easy to share analysis results and criteria through Communicator, the assumptions, quality and applicability of the analyses can be better understood and accounted for, and the knowledge gained from performing analyses can be shared more effectively among all participants in the design-to-manufacturing process".

Communicator allows companies that either outsource or rely on their vendors or suppliers to perform analysis to have a means to quantify the quality of analyses.

This is achieved through user-specified analysis quality criteria.

"Criteria files not only provide a means to quantify analysis results against requirements for a single project, they facilitate communication of critical model quality, material selection and analysis process standards and best practices among globally distributed product teams", said Welch.

Keith Beattie, Senior Analyst at Fisher-Price in New York, said: "Communicator provides a means to transfer analysis results among our mould makers, manufacturing plants and engineers around the world".

"The ability to set analysis criteria helps to ensure the quality of analysis is maintained, while the visualisation capabilities convey information to both the experienced and novice alike".

"We expect to implement Communicator throughout our entire global team".

Communicator supports analysis results exported from Moldflow Plastics Insight v6.0 and runs on 32 and 64bit hardware running Windows.

Future versions will extend the support to include results from other Moldflow products, including Moldflow Plastics Advisers software.