Simcenter Testlab 2206: Scalable Data Management

Nowadays, data management is becoming an important topic in quite some companies. Here is a short list of possible challenges when dealing with data:

• Data is not readable due to the use of different platforms or missing metadata
• Data is lost when some people leave the company, and no clear context of that data is available
• Important information is dormant due to sleeping data on hard drives, servers,…
• Data can’t be compared because there is no standardized measurement or analysis process
• ….

Next to those, there is also a cost-related problem with data management systems, not only in infrastructure and deployment but also maintenance-wise. On top of that, some companies have to deal with the struggles of sharing and storing data via shared drives, data servers, or even through cloud storage.

So what to do?

Simcenter Testing Solutions offers users multiple solutions that can be scaled up depending on the need. These solutions are not orthogonal but complementary, with a mindset that not one single solution will answer the need of different user profiles:

1. The day-to-day engineering tool: Simcenter Testlab Desktop gathers consistently annotated data in the Simcenter Testlab project file and allows the extraction of some settings, reports, parts of data, and much more than single files.
2. Ad-hoc collaboration: There is an integration of Teamcenter Share into Simcenter Testlab, in such a way that ad-hoc collaboration via cloud technology is possible.
3. Centralized database tightly integrated into the day-to-day engineering tool: Simcenter Testlab Data Management works seamlessly together with Simcenter Testlab to store and manage data via the ASAM-ODS Standard. Data is not stored anymore as just a file but as datasets, allowing a performant retrieval and visualization of the data.
4. Manage the process: Teamcenter Simulation, as a solution fully embedded in Teamcenter, allows the creation of relationships between the process, model, data, and results created in the context of product life cycle and simulation. This tight integration with product life cycle integration, especially for the Simcenter product family, enables the true digital thread from product definition to evaluation.

Simcenter Testlab Desktop: The day-to-day engineering tool

Data measured or processed with Simcenter Testlab are firstly consistently annotated and afterward stored in the Simcenter Testlab project. Meaning that throughout the company, everyone can find back and understand which data is at hand. Plus, this enables a dynamic context-driven data organization and visualization, leading to efficient searching and performing A/B comparisons of past and future tests.

A wide range of 3rd party test and CAE file formats can also be directly read, and if needed, converted to the Simcenter Testlab data structure, making Simcenter Testlab the day-to-day engineering tool across all platforms and suppliers.

Even aligning processes or measurement settings can be accomplished throughout your whole organization by working with the Simcenter Testlab templates. Channel setups, measurement settings consistent annotation, process settings, interactive reports and much more can be set up upfront via the Simcenter Testlab templates.

Teamcenter Share: Ad-hoc collaboration integrated into Simcenter Testlab

Your Simcenter Testlab software also has the option to connect to Teamcenter Share, an engineering-centric cloud collaboration solution, which will allow your test teams to collaborate securely with key stakeholders including designers, managers, simulation engineers, suppliers, and even customers with appropriate access control.

By teaming up with Teamcenter Share, we unleash a powerful platform to ensure consistency of work by sharing the right test requirements, processes, raw measured data, and/or processed results. We enable fast decision-making by sharing Testlab Reports consisting of our state-of-the-art engineering displays.

Simcenter Testlab Data Management: Get more out of your data

Simcenter Testlab Data Management solution was first introduced in 2021. At that time, the solution was aimed at engineering team collaboration. Throughout the releases, we collected and validated the solution with our pilot customers. Several of our customers, the majority NVH engineers, are already confronted with not being able to understand and thus compare data provided by other colleagues. Misalignment of the naming convention is one of the typical issues in that context. Another problem is that sometimes the description is even missing. Like this, a lot of meaningful historical data is useless for comparison and insight gain. Due to missing this contextual information, there is also no easy way to find or locate that data.

The error-prone task of consistent data annotation is completely taken up in Simcenter Testlab.
And With the 2206 release, Simcenter Testlab Data Management simplifies the task of publishing and searching data based on this consistent annotation. Like this, the Simcenter Testlab Data Management capabilities lift the border between locally and centrally stored data. From a user point of view, there is no difference where the data is located, so data viewing, reporting, processing, and other functionalities can be done in full transparency.

Teamcenter Simulation: Manage your process across all domains

With Teamcenter Simulation, the Simulation Process and Data Management (SPDM) needs for 1D system simulation, 3D simulation and Physical test domains are tackled. This leads to the so-called Harmonized approach for simulation and test management across all domains.

Teamcenter Simulation is fully embedded in Teamcenter. With this tight integration, relationships can be created between the processes and data created in the context of the product lifecycle and simulation; hence creating a true digital thread from product definition to evaluation and back.

Simcenter Testlab projects, Simcenter Testlab templates, or Simcenter Testlab Reports can be uploaded to Teamcenter. In this way, the results of the Physical Testing phase can be considered in all processes and workflows, throughout the complete product lifecycle.

Want to know more about how Teamcenter Simulation is integrated with Simcenter Testlab, with the new capability for managing physical test results, check out What’s new in Teamcenter simulation spring release 2022.

So, which is the best solution to manage test data?

To be honest, there is no “golden” answer to this question. Some companies, mostly IT departments, might consider the centralized approach with all information in one single place as “the” solution.

However, the reality is more complex. For example, an engineering NVH team might need an efficient way to easily compare and benchmark data within an in-house solution. In this case, a central data management solution can support users in accessing the data traces without having to retrieve the complete file.

In another situation, the lead of the engineering team will need to report on the executed test, but not all the data are requested by the program manager. Since the latter just wants to know the progress of the test execution, check out some results, and sign off.

So, you can see that different roles would prefer to have a solution to fit their need. Implementing such a solution, considering all requirements, and keeping an eye on performance, efficiency, and productivity in mind, is not a walk in the park.

Meanwhile, Simcenter Testing Solutions offer a scalable data management solution: during the product development process, it is much more efficient for the engineering team to store test data in a centralized way within the same database, as offered by Simcenter Testlab Data Management. At the same time, a program manager can easily access reports and test results with Teamcenter Simulation. All integrated into Simcenter Testlab Desktop which enables consistent annotation and standardized processing and measurement throughout the company. Adding the support of Teamcenter Share in Simcenter Testlab Desktop even offers ad-hoc cloud collaboration on a platform where also the other Simcenter solutions are connected.

Do you want more?

Simcenter Testlab Desktop and Simcenter Teslab Data Management are part of the Simcenter Testlab – Analytics and Collaborations solutions. These solutions enable engineers to efficiently leverage the value of test and simulation data.