Enhanced Stability on RNZNs Ship in High Seas
Pave the Way to Cement your Construction Business Results
Gain Fast Business Advantage from your Product Data
G'day Australia - Check out Aras Innovator for SMEs
WEL Networks Saves Time with New EDMS Solution
FEA workshops plus other training courses at Matrix

Enhanced Stability on RNZNs Ship in High Seas



The Company
VT Fitzroy Limited is New Zealand's leading integrated mechanical, electrical and electronic engineering facility and through their Strategic Partnership with the Royal New Zealand Navy (RNZN) they undertake a vast range of marine engineering projects to ensure that the RNZN fleet is fully maintained and capable of undertaking the demanding missions required of a modern Navy.

The Challenge
The RNZN approached VT Fitzroy for a design solution to improve one of their ships sea keeping characteristics. The design solution resulted in particular areas of the vessel structure being subjected to potential forces far in excess of those catered for in the initial design calculations. Significant additional strengthening was required to take the additional load, and any stiffening structure was not allowed to interfere with the normal operation of the ship.  The modifications had to be passed by the verifying authority and there were tight time constraints to allow the modifications to be carried out during the already planned maintenance period.
Although some simple hand calculation and beam analysis solutions had been undertaken to assist with design concepts, the complex stress distribution experienced by the vessel moving in heavy seas needed to be calculated in a more accurate manner to allow checking by the verifying authority for code compliance.

The Solution
Matrix was commissioned to undertake a detailed FEA analysis of the two areas of the ship affected.  The proposed stiffening arrangement was provided as neutral CAD files to Matrix, who then converted the geometry into a suitable form for analysis.  It was infeasible to model the complete ship, so the area modelled was chosen so that assumed boundary conditions at the extents of the model made no difference to results in the area of interest.  The structure was modelled for a variety of load cases as specified by VT Fitzroy and RNZN, as well as checked for both stress and stability.
Several times during the project, Matrix was able to take the initiative and, working closely with VT Fitzroy engineers, suggested and tested several design modifications to refine proposed structure before a solution was arrived at to meet the deadline.

The Result
Due to the close co-operation between VT Fitzroy and Matrix engineers, the final proposed solution was deemed feasible from a construction perspective and met the requirements of the RNZN.  Ian MacLeod, VT Fitzroy’s Engineering Consultancy Services Manager, said: 

"I would like to convey my thanks for the excellent service we received during the recent structural analysis project that you undertook for VTF and the RNZN. The helpful and practical approach that was shown to us through all stages of the project was highly appreciated and the professional assistance received in carrying out the modifications required towards the end of the project, under great pressure of time, was excellent and exceeded our expectations. I look forward to working together on projects we have coming up in the future”.

For more information, contact Don Campbell on 09 623 1223 or don@matrix.co.nz.
To learn more about finite element analysis (FEA) solutions, click here.

Pave the Way to Cement your Construction Business Results





Prolog® Converge is a Web-based project management application powered by Prolog, the industry standard for successful construction project delivery. 

Today’s construction organisations face many collaboration challenges including how to bring extended project teams together across geographical locations, in online and offline environments, and across different technology systems and devices.

By providing a rich Web-based user interface on a powerful Web services platform, Prolog® Converge allows you and your project teams to collaborate more efficiently and gives you the flexibility to choose how you access critical project data.  Other benefits include: 

• Increasing user adoption within your organization through role-based user interfaces.
• Making decisions quickly using up-to-date project data from field workers using mobile solutions.
• Increasing efficiencies by enabling interoperability between Prolog construction project management and your other critical business applications.
• Creating end-to-end business solutions with an extensible, interoperable Web services platform that allows diverse systems and organizations to work together.
• Lowering your risk by integrating Building Information Modeling (BIM) data with your project management system.

For more information about Prolog Converge, contact Karl Buttenmiller karl.buttenmiller@matrix.co.nz at Matrix on 09-623-1223.

Gain Fast Business Advantage from your Product Data



Arena is a collaborative bill of materials (BOM) and change management system that helps manufacturers meet cost, quality and delivery targets.
 
Arena centralises bills of materials (BOMs) and related product information so manufacturers and their suppliers can capture, share, analyze and control the constantly changing product record.

The repository for the product record, Arena sits at the epicenter of the broader product lifecycle management (PLM) landscape, connecting with systems like CAD, EDA, PDM and ERP and linking organizations with their supply chains. With its on-demand, software-as-a-service (SaaS) approach, Arena is a low-risk, rapid-return proposition that makes enterprise-class functionality available to companies that would otherwise have to contend with manual, time-consuming and error-prone product data management processes.

For more information about Arena, contact Karl Buttenmiller karl.buttenmiller@matrix.co.nz at Matrix on 09-623-1223.

G'day Australia - Check out Aras Innovator for SMEs


Australian SME’s today understand that competitive advantage can be achieved with the use of enterprise software. However, the obstacles of system complexity and onerous licensing schemes prevent companies from achieving the benefits.

To address this, Aras developed the Aras Innovator suite of solutions that delivers significantly easier deployments and upgrades even with extensive solution customisation. All of this is available through a no-cost open source format removing the licensing shackles associated with large and expensive named-user-based licensing schemes.

Aras Innovator® enterprise open source software solutions deploy quickly and adapt easily while maintaining upgradeability. The technology provides a modern Internet application framework based on the Microsoft .NET platform, a proven model-based service oriented architecture delivers unmatched flexibility without complex programming, and XML / SOAP Web services simplify integration. Browser-based screens provide a familiar Microsoft people-ready look and feel making Aras Innovator solutions easy to learn and simple to use.

Australian SME customers attain superior performance and achieve far greater adaptability to compete effectively. The result is unmatched customer value.

Performance driven Australian companies achieve greater innovation, collaboration, and coordination with advanced product life cycle management software solutions that deliver bottom line results. Businesses reduce product costs, attain greater profits, and shorten time to market with enterprise solutions for Product Lifecycle Management, Enterprise Quality Management, and Global Supplier Management.

For more information how your SME can deliver greater business performance through enterprise data management, please contact Phil Schunk phil.schunk@matrix.co.nz at Matrix on 09-623-1223.

WEL Networks Saves Time with New EDMS Solution



The Company
WEL Networks, along with its many predecessors, has a well established place in the local community having operated in the Waikato since approximately 1912. WEL manages, maintains and develops the network which has over 80,000 connections and an annual throughput of over 1100GWh. 

With five major points of supply into the national grid (Transpower) which provide a high level of system security for their consumers, they are continuing to invest significantly in the future development of their network with almost $339 million works planned for the next 11 year period.

The Challenge
WEL faced a common problem: an old document management system that housed thousands of drawings in folders that had little structure and no search capability.  The inability to find documents quickly and ensuring that it was the latest revision, resulted in wasted time and frustration.  All the new drawings were imported manually and the attributes had to be filled manually as well.

The Solution
A system that intelligently manages technical content and workflows was needed at WEL.  Huazhuo Lin and Max Wu headed the WEL Networks team and worked closely with the Matrix team to configure and deploy the solution offered.  A robust Engineering Document Management System (EDMS) was the answer!  

With the new EDMS solution, the improvements were immediate, especially in regards to time savings on searching for documents, importing and printing drawings, and allowing users to preview the CAD drawings easily. 

The Result
Engineers are now able to find the right document in 2-3 minutes, where previously it took 15-20 minutes – that’s about 900% faster!  And bulk loading of files has drastically cut the time from the old system of manually uploading one file at a time. 

For more information about EDMS, contact Karl Buttenmiller karl.buttenmiller@matrix.co.nz at Matrix on 09-623-1223.

FEA Workshops plus other Training Courses at Matrix

Matrix holds 2-Day FEA training course workshops focusing on practical aspects of developing and validating models to obtain sensible results - a must for all engineers wishing to use FEA in real life applications!  If you interested in attending the next workshop, please contact us so we can get in touch with you in due course.

Matrix offers other flexible training to best match the needs of our Customers, at our premises using our PCs and facilities, or at your office.  Standard training courses are sometimes developed by our software vendor partners and delivered by Matrix or our partners.  Customised training can also be developed and delivered to custom fit your needs.

Call the Team at Matrix on 09 623 1223 or training@matrix.co.nz for more information.