Collaborative design tools in engineering education: Insight to choose the appropriate PLM software

Abstract

The shift from sequential to concurrent engineering has led to changes in the way design projects are managed. In order to assist designers, many effective tools have been developed to support collaborative engineering. Nowadays, industrial scenarios encourage companies to adopt product lifecycle management solutions, even if they may not be able to understand their benefits. Indeed, product lifecycle management roadmap is quite difficult to implement and return on invest can take time. Moreover, many free solutions with comparable functionalities are developed, which have been increasingly successful. In this article, we test different configurations of software to make a comparison between free software and market solutions. In this experiment, 72 students in a Master’s degree course aimed to design mechanical products by using dedicated software to assist collaborative distributed design, using two different configurations: free and commercial solutions. The research question to be solved is: as engineering educators, what is the most efficient way to train our students to collaborative distributed design? This experiment allowed us to compare design functionalities between the two configurations, in order to determine ways to improve efficiency in a collaborative distributed design situation. Finally, the feedback generated in this experiment allowed us to adapt training practices in engineering education.

Cloud-Based Collaborative 3D Modeling to Train Engineers for the Industry 4.0

“…Furthermore, the variables of the PLM features factor obtained much lower results, except for the role-assignment as a teamwork facilitator, which agrees with the literature as a challenge to overcome since students need to know how to divide work in PLM environments [17]. These low results in PLM features are consistent with previous research that indicates that students prefer to use their asynchronous communication solutions such as SMS [9].…”

“…However, this system had the following limitation: students could not use simultaneously the same design file. A similar experience took place at the School of Engineering Arts et Metiers ParisTech by combining Catia V5 and Dropbox [17].…”

Remote Teaching of Building Information Modeling During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Case Study

“…We can think, for example, of the distance teaching of Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) in the manufacturing industry, which is often compared to BIM because of the multiple similarities between the two approaches [30,31]. In addition, the academic constraints and the educational context-as summarized by Maranzana et al [32] for PLM education-seem very similar to the issues identified in BIM education in construction [2]. Kakehi et al [33] demonstrated the importance of using practical teaching methods based on case studies in the distance learning environment of PLM.…”