‘Tis the season for feasting, family, and reflecting on our favorite customer stories of the year, while asking ourselves, “Where did 2017 go?” Here’s a round-up from the past year. Enjoy!

The Summer of Design

Remember those warm, sunny, long summer nights? We digress. Over the summer we posted a roundup of some new Creo customers. Here’s who came on board: BRIGE GmbH engineers machine production solutions. IMS Messsysteme GmbH develops and produces isotope, x-ray, and optical measuring systems for the steel, aluminum, and metal industries, while MD Moldes is a solution provider for the entire mold production process. Last but not least, JCB manufactures construction equipment (including big yellow trucks). Welcome aboard.

Big yellow tractors – you can’t go wrong writing about them in a design blog. Source: JCB

But wait, there’s more

2017 saw even more companies jumping on the Creo CAD wagon. Bertrandt Group engineers and designs for international automotive and aviation industries. (We love the company’s savvy, sophisticated style.) Next up, HARMAN, designers and engineers of audio equipment and stylish headphones brought music to our ears (sorry for being so punny, cut us some slack, it’s the holidays), while HEIDENHAIN, producers of and measurement equipment, help ensures motors and other machinery operate perfectly. Rounding up the new list of customers was RATP Group, a company that designs, operates, and maintains metro, rail, bus, and tramway networks. We’re excited to see what they do with Creo in 2018.

Who knew a pair of headphones could look like they came from MoMa? Source:  HARMAN

RAAW gets into the groove

More recently, we stumbled upon a cool post from a German mountain bike magazine that featured RAAW’s new Madonna bike. Even better, the company creates 3D CAD models with Creo Parametric to get the most out of its aluminum frame construction. Modern forging, milling, and hydroforming technology creates a technical look with an independent design and an S-shaped lower tube. In other words, the bike looks savage. (Ask a teen what that means.)

How many parts does it take to create a stylish bike? Creo knows. Source: RAAW

Teens take over

Speaking of teens, back in the fall, we reported on high school kids who spent their summer rubbing elbows with engineers at Triumph Motorcycles via a design contest that challenged them design a product that solves a real-world problem. How real-world? Designs had to consider manufacturability, testing, materials, ease of use, and appropriately benchmarked and evaluated existing solutions. We were blown away with the projects. Ladies and gents: Meet your competition.

Eneh Alexandra-Ikwue won first place for her project, Eva. It’s an intelligent growth system that monitors temperature, humidity, and illuminance, responding appropriately to optimize growing conditions for plants and encourage people to grow food at home. Source: Triumph

The rise of mega-trucks
We love well-designed massive machines so when we got the chance to write about customer Austin Engineering, we jumped. The company recently upgraded its JEC LD, and the results are a simpler, more consumer friendly design. The latest model offers a “high-performance body with unique features that enhance efficiency and can be adapted to suit any chassis,” largely simplified with 25-30% fewer components. This means more efficient manufacturing and lower maintenance costs for customers.

How can something be so big and heavy and yet so light? (We think you know the answer.) Source: Austin Engineering

Getting (even) smaller
BQ designs and develops mobile phones and needs to do so quickly. Our profile of them focused on adding Creo’s combination of direct modeling and parametric software so they can quickly leverage the best of their previous designs, without compromising innovation. And that means new, cool designs get to market quickly. Watch the video to see how they do it.

Train kept a rollin’
Closing out the year, we covered SVI Engineering who design and make armor protection for locomotives. Recently, they were asked to increase armor on some of the trains. The challenge – they needed to be designed in such a way that the locomotive appears as standard as possible from both the inside and out. Using Creo, new armor “kits” were designed with required parameters (such as maximum ballistic coverage) along with cost effectiveness and a relative ease of installation. Full steam ahead.

A crew can install new locomotive armor of steel and glass within one day. That kind of awesomeness gets you included in year-end roundups. Source: SVI Engineering

We appreciate all of our customers and the amazing work you do with Creo to create new, innovate products. We look forward to 2018 and the breakthrough work you’ll undoubtedly perform. If you’re a Creo customer reading this, and you want to show off, send us your stories and new products you’ve engineered and designed with Creo! Have a great New Year.