Software allows interactive, simultaneous design sessions - Sandia Laboratories, Albuquerque, New Mexico, develops interactive concurrent engineering software

Sandia Science News, July, 1991

Design engineers in different locations could work together on a design that they all can see, manipulate, and change at the same time on their computer screens, using new prototype software developed at Sandia National Laboratories.

Sandia has developed prototype interactive concurrent engineering (ICE) software for this purpose. It allows high-resolution graphics output from a computer-aided design (or any other kind of) program to be simaltaneously viewed and manipulated by people in several locations. Each collaborator sees the design displayed on his or her screen and can have full control over it by using the keyboard and mouse.

The hope is that by sharing a design session, collaborators at different places can produce higher quality designs at less cost and in less time than if each were to work separately on the design.

Although the software was designed to link up engineers who use computer-aided design (CAD) packages, it could also be used in the same way with desktop publishing or many other computer-aided tools.

"Computer-supported collaboration will change the way that people do their jobs by increasing the quantity and quality of interactions between co-workers," says Sandia computer scientist Craig D. Dean, developer of the prototype. "The notion is applicable to any situation where co-workers need to work together, but find it more convenient to be at different locations." He says the concept is as general and applicable as a telephone, the fax, and voice/electronic mail.

Speeds designs, cuts travel

"This capability offers significant benefits in the product engineering process--reduced time for design iterations, improved technical understanding, and less need for travel and formal changes," says Dean.

In 1989, Sandia's Engineering Network Development Division was asked to assess how or if engineers separated by distance--at laboratory or manufacturing facilities in different state, for example--could simultaneously view and modify designs using computer and communications technology. The hope was to reduce the burden and cost of travel while increasing the amount and quality of interactions between co-workers.

Computer users have already been networked, but the desire, says Dean, was to take networking a step further: to find ways that engineers could simultaneously use their separate machines just as if there really was only one physical machine that they were sharing.

The prototype interactive concurrent engineering software he has developed and demonstrated in recent months allows that.

"Fundamentally," says Dean, "we believe that ICE will change our working relationship from, 'I'll make some changes then you can review them and let me know" to something like, "Let's look at the effect of changing this together and make a decision about such a change right now.'"

Should improve manufacturability

The method can also contribute to improved manufacturability of designs. A major problem facing high-tech manufacturers is that the designers and manufacturers usually work separately, and something about a particular design--something that might easily have been avoided--may make the product difficult to produce.

"We want to get the designers and the responsible people at the manufacturer sitting together at the design stage," says Dean.

Using interactive concurrent engineering early in the design process will allow the designer and manufacturer to go through many iterations in the design together before a design is formally agreed upon. As a result fewer changes will have to be made in formally released designs.

The ICE method links up high-resolution, window-oriented software environments now becoming commonplace in engineering. It can be implemented on any workstation supporting the so-called X Window[TM] environment. With X Windows, engineers can use multiple applications simultaneously in windows.

Dean's prototype ICE software proves the feasibility of simultaneously sharing applications with widely different workstations in different locations, as long as they are using X Window systems. "We leveraged the X Window up to another level," he says. A variety of different computationally intensive, graphics-oriented CAD packages have been used.

X Windows run on almost all workstation platforms. Workstations have substantially more computational power than personal computers (PCs), and they don't have PCs' limitations on communications bandwidth, remote mouse support, hardware platform independence, and operating system independence.

Dean points out that the ICE program remains prototypical in several ways. The code was never designed with production use in mind but only as a matter of proof-of-concept. He says several person-years of work will be needed to bring it to the point where it could be made generally available as a production version. Sandia is looking for an industrial partner to share the rewards and risks; several potential ones have already indicated interest.

"Although we have produced only a laboratory prototype," concludes Dean, "it is clear that the capability will be computer-platform independent, relatively inexpensive, and will not require application software modifications or elaborate database control mechanisms."