Onshape, a PTC Technology recently held their Onshape Live 23 virtual event. It was a nice overview of progress over the last year, customer success stories, and previews of what’s coming.
Loretta Faluade kicked things off and then introduced David Katzman as the new General Manager of the Onshape business at PTC. David provided an update highlighting their 3 million users, 99.9% uptime, and 40+ Net Promoter Score (NPS).
Product Updates in Onshape
David also shared an overview of some of their key product releases over the last year, including:
PCB Studio: Supports concurrent ECAD and MCAD design.
- Render Studio: Offers photorealistic imagery
- Onshape Simulation: Gives design engineers easy access to structural analysis during design
- Frames: Enables quick design of structural frames
- Variables Studios: Provides a way to define and modify common variables across parts and assemblies
In one of the more exciting developments about what’s coming, he announced that a CAM Studio will be available in 2023.
Agile Product Development
Jon Hirschtick shared his perspective as well. He stressed that they see much interest from companies looking to apply the Agile Methodology they use for software development to hardware (see graphic below). He cited trends driving this interest include:
- Product development tools have evolved
- The new generation workforce wants to work in a more agile way
- The pace of change is so significant, companies need new methodologies to allow them to quickly adapt and pivot
Onshape’s cloud-based collaborative product development platform can be an enabler to support the sprints involved with the Agile Methodology.
Simulation in Onshape
I believe their approach to simulation could also be a key enabler for Agile. With it, design engineers do not have to worry about translating or meshing their model, and the software already understands assembly constraints. Consequently, design engineers, including those unfamiliar with simulation, can apply loads and view the results. Our research consistently shows that the activities involved with preprocessing, particularly defining the mesh, are one of the biggest bottlenecks for design engineers’ use of simulation. Onshape’s approach automates much of this, making it easier to adopt. Since Onshape Simulation is cloud-based, the processing is done on the cloud, without slowing down the engineer’s workstation. Another engineer can pull up the model and make changes, and the engineers can work together to evaluate the results. With this approach, the potential for supporting the Agile Methodology during short sprints of design, prototype, and test looks very powerful.
I look forward to seeing the new developments in 2023. Thanks to Coray Thibaut de Maisieres and the Onshape team for putting on a great event.
