Brayton Energy needed a design platform that would allow engineers to design, analyze, and show innovative gas turbine applications within compressed development cycles. The company required a CAD system that could take them from concept to production in a streamlined, highly visual way. They needed to test and simulate the performance of their systems in software before investing in actual production. Additionally, the CAD system had to be user-friendly to avoid wasting time on retraining with different software applications from various vendors.

Establish an efficient product development and manufacturing capability to create products and offer services that generate self-sustaining revenues to support its mission of providing educational, training, and job opportunities for people with disabilities.

NEXX Systems, Inc. faced challenges in managing the increasing volume of 3D assembly and component design data due to its growth. Traditional file management techniques were insufficient, leading to slow, error-prone processes and a backlog of engineering change orders (ECOs). The company needed improved efficiency, accuracy, and control in handling its design data and ECOs. They began researching available product data management (PDM) systems to address these issues.

Impact Footwear aimed to create customizable flip flop sandals that could be easily personalized by consumers and manufactured on-demand with minimal human intervention. The challenge was to develop a mass customization business model that could scale economically while keeping operational costs low. This required fully automating the design generation and order placement processes, developing foam-like lattice structures to mimic traditional footwear materials, and leveraging additive manufacturing to minimize inventory and stay flexible in product development.

The engineers of Puntozero faced the challenge of redesigning the cold plate of the power electronics in Dynamis PRC’s electric race car for additive manufacturing. The primary issues identified were the non-uniform flow near the curvatures of the duct and the insufficient heat transfer surface area. These problems needed to be addressed to optimize the cooling efficiency and overall performance of the race car's power electronics. The team aimed to create a more efficient cooling system that could handle the high-performance demands of the Formula SAE Electric competition.

Preziosa Francesco SRL faced a significant bottleneck in their automated press brake bending machine due to the long lead times of CNC machining new sets of custom robot grippers. This bottleneck threatened the efficiency and reliability of their robotic cell, which was a substantial investment. The challenge was to find a way to produce these grippers more quickly and reliably to ensure the smooth operation of their manufacturing process.

The engineers of the Irish Manufacturing Research (IMR) and Renishaw aimed to develop an additively manufactured Anterior Cervical Interbody Device (ACID) using nTopology. The goal was to create a device that could help restore intervertebral height in patients suffering from conditions such as degenerative intervertebral disc disease, vertebral fusion, spondylolisthesis, herniated disc, osteoporosis, and spinal stenosis. The challenge was to design a spinal implant with a porous lattice that promotes osseointegration and vascularization while matching the mechanical properties of bone. This required precise control over design variables and efficient design cycles to ensure the implant's effectiveness and safety.

Amphenol Fiber Optic Products, a leading provider of connectivity equipment, faced significant challenges in managing design changes for hundreds of products across its global engineering teams located in the United States, Mexico, China, and Vietnam. The company needed a robust Product Data Management (PDM) system to streamline collaboration and reduce communication delays. The existing CAD system was insufficient, leading to siloed work environments, version control issues, and significant IT overhead. The need for a more integrated and efficient solution was critical to support the rapid customization of fiber optic splitting boxes for major telecommunications clients.

Black Swift Technologies (BST) designs and manufactures unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) for scientific missions in extreme conditions. The BST product development team faced significant challenges with their previous on-premise CAD system, particularly with version management. The inability to revert to earlier iterations of drone designs led to wasted time and effort, as engineers were forced to recreate previous work. This inefficiency was a major hindrance, especially given the demanding environments in which their drones operate, such as the Arctic, wildfires, tornadoes, hurricanes, and volcanoes. The need for a more efficient and reliable CAD system became evident as BST sought to improve their design process and better support their research missions.

As a small military R&D firm with engineers fulfilling multiple roles, Delta Development was seeking to reduce its IT overhead, which was taking up 20% of the team’s product design time to manage. Delta Development switched from an on-premise CAD system to a cloud-native Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) product design platform, eliminating the downtime required for software installation, licensing and regular system upgrades. The military and the medical industry often rely on low-tech solutions for the safe transportation of blood, vaccines, virus samples, and temperature-controlled medications. Current methods, such as using beverage coolers filled with ice, are not reliable and do not follow FDA best practices. Delta Development was contracted by the U.S. Air Force to design and manufacture the Autonomous Portable Refrigeration Unit (APRU) to address these challenges.

Pennsylvania furniture manufacturer Premier Custom-Built makes custom cabinetry for luxury homes and yachts, designing every job from scratch. The engineering team was looking to create a paperless manufacturing floor, aiming to migrate the product specs currently in 3-ring binders to 3D CAD models. Premier was also seeking a way to automate repetitive design tasks to speed up time to market.

Forest Dickey, founder of Varian Designs, faced the challenge of transforming his passion for furniture design into a viable business. Initially, he struggled with the high costs and uneven quality of reclaimed materials, which led him to source certified, sustainable wood. Additionally, Dickey needed to find a way to balance his artistic vision with the practicalities of running a business, including managing production, marketing, and client relations. The competitive nature of the furniture design industry also posed a challenge, requiring Dickey to continuously innovate and maintain high standards of craftsmanship.

The Design Büro faced the challenge of transitioning to Building Information Modeling (BIM) to meet the UK government's mandate for all government buildings to be delivered using BIM by 2016. The firm needed to upgrade its software and adopt a BIM workflow to continue working on government-funded projects. The transition was crucial as The Design Büro specializes in creating health and social care facilities, and they needed to ensure their designs met the clinical goals of their clients while maintaining sustainability, practicality, and budget constraints. The firm tested Vectorworks Architect software with a traditional 2D process on The Tamarind Centre project before fully committing to BIM.

Reclaiming unused spaces for public use is not new, but a fresh twist, now referred to as “Pop-up Parks,” has been growing in popularity over the last five years and provides a way to be playful with the street, much like LRSLAstudio did with its recent installation of The Oval. Cities are adopting pop-up installations as a means to test interest in a place before they invest a lot of money turning around a great public space. They’re a way to put out a little money to see whether the investment is worthy or not. The plan for this temporary, contemporary project was to transform Eakins Oval into Philadelphia’s new “Park on the Parkway.” As lead designer for this transformation, LRSLAstudio collaborated with Philadelphia Parks & Recreation to create a fun-filled, summertime venue that would feature free games, educational programs, entertainment, and movies for all to enjoy. The project grew out of the Philadelphia Parks & Recreation’s report “More Park, Less Way,” which outlined a three-year plan to transform the Parkway into a livelier space; The Oval is the first project to emerge from the report.

Icebreaker, a leading company in the merino wool industry, faced the challenge of maintaining its competitive edge and ensuring sustainability in its operations. The company needed to streamline its design and data integration processes to enhance efficiency and support its mission of sustainability. With over 3,000 trading partners and a presence in 43 countries, Icebreaker required a robust solution to manage its retail spaces and merchandise effectively. The economic downturn added pressure to maintain growth and quality, making it crucial for Icebreaker to find innovative ways to optimize its operations and continue delivering high-quality products.

Around the middle of the 20th century, Morecambe was a vibrant and thriving seaside resort. With the rise of the cheap package holiday and the collapse of the manufacturing industry, the area suffered a serious slowdown. Morecambe still relies heavily on tourism, hospitality, and catering to buoy its sluggish economy. Starting in the spring of 2006, the town made great strides towards reclaiming its glorious past, most notably with the restoration of the art deco style Midland Hotel. And in 2007, Lancaster City Council and their regeneration team called “Winning Back Morecambe” sought a landmark design to fill the open space between the sea and the promenade. Entrants were encouraged to design a small café that could redefine an area alongside several weathered and worn seaside buildings. After considering several different firms for the job, the council selected Arca in the fall of 2007. Lee and his team met with local neighborhood representatives and discovered that these representatives were far from conservative in their views of the space. In fact, they even supported ideas for unorthodox designs with a commanding presence. This was historic, since the last building to be placed in the area between the promenade and the sea was the second Midland Hotel, built in 1933. Arca understood the great importance of what they were about to undertake.

During 2020, Coats faced an increase in advanced email attacks year over year. Coats had invested in Microsoft Defender for Office 365 which was effective in blocking common email attacks by leveraging rules and policies, and threat intelligence. However, for advanced attacks they needed a solution like Abnormal Security that leverages a behavioral approach to detect and block never-seen-before attacks with high efficacy. Coats was also finding messages in quarantine that didn’t belong there, and they didn’t understand why they were quarantined. The overall result was more risky messages getting through, more good messages stuck in quarantine, and more time assessing why their controls weren’t stopping potentially illegitimate messages and trying to fine-tune their safelist. The result was time and attention diverted from innovation and other security priorities.

When Corporate Security Operations Director Steve Tieland joined Pega, the company’s internal corporate email environment was flooded by VIP impersonation attacks bypassing the SEG and Microsoft Defender. Tieland made email reform a priority to improve security and relieve his team of the 60 hours per week they were spending on manual investigation and remediation. Employees and executives also spent hundreds of hours each month managing graymail. “We would change the filter settings, but one change would add more spam, and another would quarantine too many emails. The SEG offered new features to help, but they broke things in our email system,” said Tieland.

Advising clients worldwide on multibillion-dollar deals means Greenhill must comply with multiple data security regulations. Greenhill’s role also makes it a high-profile target for criminals seeking to steal sensitive data, intercept funds, or commit invoice fraud. Despite implementing an advanced security awareness program, Greenhill wanted to prevent employees from confronting email threats in the first place. Shaffer knew that the fewer decisions employees had to make about the legitimacy of emails, the more secure the company would be. To improve security, Greenhill adopted Defender for Office 365 and made gateway changes, but Shaffer’s team found that socially-engineered threats were still reaching mailboxes. It was clear that while their existing tools managed basic threats well, Greenhill needed a more strategic line of defense against sophisticated attacks.

As CALE recently prepared to convert 40,000 single-space meters to multi-space pay stations in downtown Chicago, the company realized it needed a more reliable way of keeping track of trouble tickets. The fast-growing company had tried using a Microsoft Outlook-based plug-in ticketing system, but was frustrated by the results. CALE needed a web-based system that did not require an MS Exchange server or software that had to be installed on every computer—a serious trouble ticket system that would allow their distributed team to collaborate when delivering customer support. Adding to the urgency, CALE had agreed to provide 24/7 support for the Chicago parking program and handle thousands of toll-free calls from end users in the city of Chicago. CALE faced a potential deluge of calls and needed an easy way to track and access support information quickly.