For a pilot project, XPLM donated 30 CATIA V5, 30 Siemens NX and 30 SolidWorks to Aras integration licenses to the Department of Computer Graphics Technology at Purdue University in Indiana. This allows the university to make the integration of CAD with PDM an integral part of the curriculum.<\/p>\n
In addition to traditional CAD content, students receive basic instruction in the concepts of PDM and the Digital Thread. For this project, Purdue built a Course Management system (CMS) based on Aras Innovator to administer nearly all aspects of a freshman level CAD course, including weekly course content, assignment submission, group projects and grades.The implementation of a PDM system and its integration to CAD in an introductory level freshman course provides students with key competencies to succeed today in complex design engineering environments. With this PDM knowledge, students entering the workforce will have a firm understanding of the various stages and change a product goes through during its lifecycle and how PDM and CAD are not mutually exclusive, but complementary to each other. Additionally, by introducing PDM integrations into the college-level course administration, students will have an active involvement in PDM and their associated workflows and processes. From the preliminary results, observations, and user feedback, the XPLM integration platform seems to be an effective method for teaching PDM to students. This opinion is also shared by Travis J. Fuerst, Assistant Professor of Practice at Purdue University: \u201dWe have been extremely pleased with the XPLM Aras CAD Connectors. The connectors were pretty easy to install and configure for classroom purposes and our grad students were able to pick up the administration relatively quickly.\u201d In the future, we plan to equip 1600 engineering students in 5 different courses with 300 licenses.<\/p>\n