Colo. firm creates lean software
How does a team of developers and engineers keep track of a complicated product it is working on? A Fort Collins company called CoCreate, which makes software for 3-D modeling, has an upcoming software suite, OneSpace 2006, that focuses on “lean product development.”
Cutting out unnecessary and repetitive steps is key in lean product development, says Todd Black, marketing manager for CoCreate.
“(OneSpace) allows people to work in teams more easily. Anyone can work on anyone else’s models,” he said. “The software is doing the very complex task of trying to manage hundreds of documents and designs for you in an intuitive way. Data isn’t overwritten or lost.”
OneSpace will be released early next year.
CoCreate was founded as a spinoff of Hewlett-Packard in 1982 and employs 300 people worldwide, with 75 in Colorado. Annual revenues are $75 million, according to Black. CoCreate’s software can help manage projects for companies of any size. One client – Panasonic Communications – had 65 people building a printing product, in which 35,000 parts needed to be designed. Another customer – a mechanical designer in California – uses the software to track models he’s been building for years.
Blender has recipe for success
The high-technology kitchen of the future, ballyhooed a decade ago, has yet to arrive. But if the kitchen has not gotten “smart,” many gadgets used around the house are becoming smarter, from irons that go cold if they accidentally fall to vacuum cleaners that remember when to clean up the living room.
Blenders have had brains creeping in for several years. Although the Westinghouse Intelliblend ($70, manufacturer’s suggested price) keeps its functions simple, offering the usual blend, chop, puree, mix and ice-crush settings, there is a small brain in the base holding more than 400 recipes, all accessible on the liquid-crystal display. Type in an ingredient or the concoction you want, and the blender suggests a panoply of drinks, dressings and sauces.
