Welcome to Granta Material News, our quarterly update for users of materials information in industry. In this edition:

• GRANTA MI 1.1
• Materials information management workshops
• Material Data Management Consortium - new phase; Honeywell, AWE, ORNL join
• Granta joins MMPDS steering group

GRANTA MI 1.1: A materials information milestone

Granta Design has delivered a new release of GRANTA MI™, the leading system for materials information management in engineering enterprises. This new version, the first since the software was launched, reinforces GRANTA MI’s position as a uniquely fast, robust, and functional enterprise system. Key advances include:

• Significant speed-ups in data searching, access, and analysis, particularly for large numbers of users.
• Improved user experience and reporting tools make it easier than ever to perform key tasks such as comparing materials.
• Better integration with third party tools such as the computer-aided engineering systems used by design engineers.
• New features in searching, enhanced control over corporate data, and extended and refined external reference databases.

GRANTA MI 1.1 is a significant milestone in enterprise materials information management. Visit our website for more information...

Workshops: "Impacting Risk, Cost and Quality with Materials Information Management"

Fifteen European aerospace organizations were represented at January's successful Material Data Management Consortium (MDMC) Workshop in Toulouse. The event was the first in a series explaining and discussing materials information management for senior managers, materials managers, and engineering managers from the aerospace, defense, and energy sectors.

Why not join a future event to find out how materials information technology can reduce cost and risk, and increase efficiency and quality, in the engineering process? You will hear presentations from leading aerospace organizations such as Rolls-Royce describing how they benefit from this approach. Granta will demonstrate the latest GRANTA MI technology. Upcoming workshops:

Report-back Toulouse workshop .

Details and registration for future events.

MDMC: New phase, new members

The latest meeting of the Material Data Management Consortium (MDMC) heralded the start of the second three-year phase of this collaborative software development project. It was held at the Largo, Florida facilities of Concurrent Technologies Corporation on January 18 and 19, 2006. Dr. Steven M. Arnold of NASA Glenn Research Center chaired the meeting and started by warmly welcoming AWE (Atomic Weapons Establishment), Honeywell Aerospace, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the three newly joined members, to the consortium. The meeting combined technical discussion sessions and practical demonstrations on subjects selected by members with the goals of validating advances in the GRANTA MI system, sharing experiences, and prioritizing future developments.

More information: MDMC website.

Granta Joins MMPDS Steering Group

Granta has joined the Industrial Steering Group (ISG) of the Metallic Materials Properties Development and Standardization organization, MMPDS (formerly MIL-HDBK-5). MMPDS is the preeminent source of allowable values for materials property data in aerospace component design. Granta already offers an electronic version of the MMPDS reference. This deeper involvement will enable Granta to maximize integration between its materials information management system, GRANTA MI, and future data and analysis tools from the MMPDS. Membership of the ISG also strengthens Granta's partnership with other member organizations, a group that offers an unrivalled pool of expertise in the use of materials data for aerospace and related fields.

Granta's data products.

MMPDS website.

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