2. GM and Molex on enterprise materials information management
At a web seminar hosted by IHS Globalspec on January 27, speakers from General Motors and Molex joined Granta to discuss how and why they are implementing enterprise materials information management.
 Denise Massa, Global Process Lead for Materials Lifecycle Management at GM, described a substantial project to collate and manage harmonized definitions of materials, and to “author” these into PLM. The diverse consumers of this data include design and CAE engineers, purchasing staff, and lawyers. GM have begun by migrating information into the GRANTA MI software. Key goals are to save time and ensure consistency across the users of materials data. Measurable progress has been good: “after we finish each project, we go back and check that we have met our metrics. So far, we are about 50% of the way through and have met all of our metrics.”
Brett Rickett, Director of Material and Process Technology at Molex, a leading electrical and electronic connector manufacturer, explained how managing materials information has long been recognized as an important strategic topic at the company, with a system in place to support this activity for over 15 years. This legacy system, developed as a custom project, was both expensive to maintain and difficult to extend to integrate a wider range of materials data. Molex selected GRANTA MI for their new system and has completed initial deployment to 200 engineers. Legacy data has been transferred and roll-out to the remaining 1,200 engineers is approaching. Benefits come “by taking out a lot of inefficient work activities in the product engineering community through having Granta serve as the source of information that gets rolled up into our NX CAD system, and then into our PLM. Being able to take out all of the cost and effort there was a great way to show Return on Investment.”
3. Take our 2016 industry survey
Take part in our materials information technology survey and you could win Amazon Gift Cards.
- Contribute to global industry research—we’ll send you the benchmark results
- The report can help you to assess the business case for managing materials information in your company
- Help us to improve Granta’s products and services
- As a ‘thank you’ for helping us, you have the chance to win Amazon Gift Cards.
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4. Automotive meetings: AutoMatIC and SAE World Congress
 The fourth meeting of the Automotive Material Intelligence Consortium (AutoMatIC) takes place in Detroit in April. Member companies work together to define best practice in implementing materials information management and its integration with CAE, CAD, and PLM. The Consortium will be welcoming at least one new major automotive OEM member at the April meeting, who will join founder members General Motors, Honeywell Turbo Technologies, Jaguar Land Rover, KSPG AG, and PSA Peugeot Citroën.
The AutoMatIC meeting immediately follows the SAE World Congress in Detroit, on April 12-14. If you would like to find out more about materials information management in the Automotive sector, why not visit the Granta booth? Or contact us for an information pack about the work of the AutoMatIC project and how you can get involved.
5. New White Paper: Material Intelligence for Enterprise CAD and PLM
 As evidenced by the rapidly growing circulation of this Newsletter, an increasing number of manufacturing organizations recognize the importance of managing the vital IP they have developed relating to the engineering materials that they use—information that has its own lifecycle, evolving as new testing, service feedback, analyses, or supplier data become available.
These companies already have enterprise CAD and PLM tools in place, of course, enabling their product development process. But these key disciplines need to be connected. CAD and PLM users must have ready access to the best available representations of approved materials, and tools providing guidance in their use. This needs to be a primary deliverable of materials information management. In this new paper, we examine the trends and best practices in CAD, PLM, and materials information management, identify key requirements for integrating these technologies, and provide examples of addressing this challenge using the GRANTA MI product suite.
6. Latest Restricted Substances Data Module available
 The Granta Restricted Substances Data Module has been updated. Version 6.1 contains more than 8,300 records, each describing a specific restricted substance. This update focused on extending the Asian set of legislations. The folder structure has been overhauled and a total of 14 new legislation records have been added, together with more than 1,000 new substance records. This provides a comprehensive overview of the regulatory framework in China, South Korea, and Japan, of relevance to manufacturers making or selling products in those regions. The data is compiled and maintained by Granta, guided by the EMIT Consortium. It can be used as a stand-alone reference source or linked to your own materials and process data within the GRANTA MI system, creating a comprehensive information resource that enables users to rapidly answer questions such as "what regulations might impact my materials?" or "which substances of concern are contained in this specification?"
7. Sharing experiences of knowledge management at MDMC
Boeing hosted the 27th six-monthly meeting of the Materials Data Management Consortium Meeting (MDMC) in Huntington Beach, California, on 12-15 January. Sixteen member organizations from across Europe and North America attended.
Additive manufacturing proved so popular that the subcommittee session was held with the whole consortium. Members shared pre-competitive information about how they are developing data schema to manage the complex information associated with this area.
Eight members gave presentations on progress with their implementation roadmaps, including lessons learned, so that the whole community benefited from shared experiences. A Knowledge Management presentation was one example. It focused on useful tools, use cases, and how the latest version of GRANTA MI can help to manage company knowledge, recording experience and consolidating it in one place.
Progress on ICME concentrated on building schema for managing the metadata associated with virtually-generated materials information. Details of a project integrating GRANTA MI with NASA GRC’s MAC/GMC code were presented and discussed. The meeting also included a tour of the USS Iowa!
8. Two decades of CES Selector—read our latest blog
 It is 22 years since Granta was founded as a Cambridge University spinout, and every year since has brought new features and enhancements to CES Selector. In our latest blog, Dr Charlie Bream, Product Manager for CES Selector, talks about the improvements and enhancements since he joined Granta in 2007 and first started to use the software. He also talks about ideas for future developments, which will focus on adding more ‘material intelligence’, outputting more information about the impact a material choice has on design.
9. Join the new CES EduPack Alumni group on LinkedIn
 Did you use the CES EduPack software while you were at University? If so, why not join the new CES EduPack Alumni Group to connect to others with an interest in materials in industry, and to network? The group will enable industrial organizations to interact with bright students and ex-students who have the transferable skills that CES EduPack helps to develop through its use in University-level teaching of materials. These skills include materials selection, design thinking, data handling, and making good decisions.
CES EduPack 2016 was launched last month—you can see what’s new in the latest version here.
10. Sign up for materials selection webinars
Webinars in English, French, and German over the next few months will explain how CES Selector helps with materials selection in areas including lightweighting, plastics, and simulation. Register for the webinars by following the links below:
11. Training and video tip
Upcoming CES Selector and GRANTA MI training
Please note that our regular GRANTA MI Training sessions will be held on a monthly basis from now on. We are also moving them to the second Tuesday of the month, starting on Tuesday, February 9.
CES Selector Training will continue to be held bi-monthly on the first Tuesday of the month.
The next free, online sessions are:
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Feb 9 |
GRANTA MI training: Making the most of Tabular Data |
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Mar 1 |
CES Selector training: Customizing CES Selector for your needs |
Video tip—capturing knowledge and experience in GRANTA MI
In each Granta Material News we link to information that helps users to get more from Granta software. In this extract from December’s online training session, Product Manager Dan Williams demonstrates two new features for capturing unstructured information in GRANTA MI. Forms for easy upload of notes and images, and the new ‘collections’ feature, all help you to retain and share corporate knowledge and experience through your company’s GRANTA MI database.
12. Come and meet us at upcoming events
Meet us at these events, conferences, and workshops, or sign up for our webinars:
February:
March:
April:
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5 |
Webinar: Advances in material intelligence for Automotive |
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7-8 |
8th International Materials Education Symposium, Cambridge, UK |
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10-13 |
COE Annual PLM Experience and TechniFair, San Antonio, TX, USA |
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12-13 |
EMIT Consortium Meeting, Cambridge, UK |
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12-13 |
Automotive CAE Grand Challenge, Hanau, Germany |
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12-14 |
SAE World Congress, Detroit, MI, USA |
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12-15 |
Second International Workshop on Software Solutions for Integrated Computational Materials Engineering, Barcelona, Spain |
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14-15 |
AutoMatIC Consortium Meeting, Detroit, MI, USA |
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25-29 |
Hannover Messe, Hannover, Germany |
May:
June:
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