We hope you’ll agree that Cradle is already a great value package in any of its single user or enterprise versions. It combines a hugely powerful Requirements Management tool for massively scalable requirements engineering, with Model Based Systems Engineering capabilities (MBSE). From the initial inception of your project through the elicitation, analysis, design, testing and documentation phases of your project, Cradle is there to support you. With this great offer we’re giving you even better value, or offering to support a charity – see ‘Enterprise licences’.
Single User Product Discount
Use the special discount voucher code to get £50** off any single user product. If you’re not already on the latest version of Cradle, this is an ideal opportunity to upgrade.
All you need to do is enter the £50** discount voucher code in the “Discount Code” field at the bottom of the shop checkout page during the Friday to Monday flash deal.
Enterprise Licences
We will offer £50** off EACH licence purchased during the offer period. This may be taken as a discount from your invoice or you can nominate a registered charity of your choice and 3SL will make an equivalent donation. If you find your project is expanding and you add a single REQ licence for another engineer you can claim one £50** discount / donation. If you are buying a new set of licences for a project say 5-REQ, 2-SYS and 1-DASH that’s a total of 8*£50 = £400 off the licence cost, or a lovely donation to a charity of your choice.
INCOSE host the premier conference of systems engineering and related disciplines in Europe, Middle-East and Africa (EMEA). If you would like to find out more about Cradle come and say “Hello” or “Guten Morgen / Guten Tag” to us at booth 20.
This year’s conference is at the Mercure Hotel, Stephanstraße, Berlin.
There’s quite a bit to remember this month whether it’s the failed plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament, or the war fallen.
“Remember, remember, the fifth of November, Gunpowder Treason and Plot!” Might be a good way to cement a date in your mind we humans tend to like rhymes, songs, and mnemonics to help our brains ‘visualise’ an otherwise abstract date or fact. However, trying to remember what’s needed and when on a large project is really quite difficult. Especially when dates are not fixed.
Relative Date Query
Cradle offers a number of ways you can track your project one of which is querying on relative dates.
For example an item representing a ‘test’ that needs to be run could be set with a category of type date. You could thenqueryon ‘tests‘ that are due to occur (or should have occurred) before the end of next week. It is also possible to query on a range, say beginning of this month and end of next week.
For work breakdown items there are some built-in ranges which can be accessed on the Progress tab of query. This gives a planning view of where your project stands.
The Fallen
Remembrance
3SL join with our customers, friends and suppliers, on this armistice day, to take a moment to remember those who have fallen fighting for their countries. There is a special poignance this year, the 100th anniversary since the signing of the armistice treaty between first world war allies and Central Powers.
Cradle Subscriptions
Cradle SAAS subscription product
Last month saw the launch of an addition to the Cradle family.
Cradle Subscriptions option is a SaaS (Software as a Service) product that provides access to 3SL’s requirements management and systems engineering tool Cradle using remote servers. This means there is no need to install software on your own company systems.
Options
There are a number of bundles covering the most frequently requested configurations of Cradle. The choices reflect whether you are performing both Systems Engineering and RM, or just Requirements Management.
There are also different hosting options depending on the size/loads and locations of the servers. Choose between shared 3SL hosted or dedicated cloud environments. For further information see the product announcement.
Mini Poll
Please answer our Mini Poll, whether you prefer the:ownership, control and flexibility of software purchase,
simplified, outsourced benefits of a managed service.
don’t really mind, I just use it
there’s room for both…..
INCOSE
INCOSE
We’re at the INCOSE EMEASEC 2018 conference in Berlin Nov 05, 2018 – Nov 08, 2018. Come and say ‘Hello’ to us at booth 20.
Social Media
Twitter
British Engineering
We love keeping an eye on what’s new in the field of engineering. The shropshirestar.com brought British engineering into the spotlight
SaaS not SaaS, a rather confusing statement when you look at the use of acronyms. We can assure you that Cradle Software As A Service is what we mean. However, we’ve had a bit of fun looking at some of the other meanings.
SaaS not Southend Amateur Angling Society
Shared or dedicated servers and not the lifesaving work of South Australian Ambulance Service.
SaaS not Southern Association of Agricultural Scientists
Cradle SaaS from Barrow but not to be confused with the historic Barrow-in-Furness product – Marsh’s Sass
SaaS not Marsh’s Sass
There’s a Cradle SaaS collection suitable for you, but if you’ve got a yawny #FridayFeeling, then maybe you need to look at the work of the Sleep Assessment and Advisory Service instead.
SaaS not Sleep Assessment and Advisory Service
Whilst today Jan 30th 2019 we’ve seen the first heavy snow flakes in Barrow, we can assure you there snow time like the present to get Cradle Software as a Service not Snow and a Shovel
SaaS NOT Snow and a Shovel
Mini Poll
Please answer our Mini Poll, whether you prefer the:
ownership, control and flexibility of software purchase,
simplified, outsourced benefits of a managed service.
Cradle
Our Requirements Management and Systems Engineering software is available in a number of S a a S flavours. For information of the subscription products see Subscriptions on the Products menu.
3SL is pleased to announce the release of Cradle-7.4.1.
This is available for download from the 3SL website. This has some handy new features and fixes. Which are in place to improve your overall Cradle experience .
Cradle-7.4.1 is the latest patch release for Cradle-7.4, so is completely compatible with your 7.4 security code. Users with 7.4 do not need a new code and can download and install without charge. Users on older versions of Cradle, with maintenance, can move to this version at any time by requesting a new code from 3SL support.
Cradle 7.4.1
Some of the new features in this release are:
Non-model item symbols have now been added to non-SysML diagrams. Item types (requirements and system notes and cross references are represented as ) Item symbols, Link symbols and Context symbols.Non-model item symbols
Details on the new symbols are below;
The link symbol will be the obvious connector which can be drawn between any item symbol and any diagram object that has a description. For example a specification / system note. Link symbols can only be connected to item and context symbols.
The context symbol represents the system note in a diagram but is a container within which other object symbols can be attached. This will show the existence of cross references between the context symbols system note and the descriptions (system notes, data definitions and specifications) accordingly.
Fixes:
Memory leak when querying RTF frames has been removed.
Cradle help now opens in the default browser for Web Access.
SysML reports now run successfully within consistency checker.
To download the latest release please visit our website at www.threesl.com and login. Once you have logged in navigate to the Resources section to download this release.
Full details of the fixes in this release are in the Cradle help.
The formal application of scientific and or mathematical principles to achieve a required goal.
This is quite a broad definition, there are many topics that are derived from the ‘pure sciences’ of biology, chemistry, and physics and the mathematics behind them. Applying these sciences in different proportions gives us the terms we understand as engineering. There are few ‘pure scientists’. Most professions require a mix with, say biology and chemistry to produce medicine or foodstuffs. Combine biology with physics to develop a space suit. Physics and chemistry to produce batteries for your phone or car. Engineering is a mix of all these principles to solve problems and produce solutions.
Application of Science
As we, at 3SL, work (Software Engineers – application of logic and mathematical principles) there’s a construction site outside our windows. When you stop and think, there are a large number of principles being used in this civil engineering project. Definitely a lot of physics and mathematics, were used to calculate the safest ways to demolish the old building. A Police station, used to stand on this site. More science will have been used, by structural engineers, to calculate the forces and stresses in the new structure. A hotel and restaurant is to be built. Similarly the ‘Cast-In-Place’ 20m concrete piles that are being drilled into the ground will have chemical reactions occurring in the cement and ballast mix. These have been calculated and tested to produce the right strength pile to support the building.
You may not find much biology being applied on the site (save the organisms now living in the muddy puddles). However, the chemicals used in the building from water pipes to paints will have had biological studies to ensure they are human safe, or how to use them safely. Although, when we have watched the seemingly graceful ballet of the excavators, diggers and trucks we can’t help feeling that the movements and joints were based on mother nature. The human and the control systems they operate, produce movements and operations which make it hard not to anthropomorphise the JCB!
Civil Engineering Barrow-In-Furness
Discovery and Development
The principles used in engineering are or have been, observed empirically, calculated mathematically. They are then proven or developed by experimentation or modelling. The results are recorded and can be used in the next application. Therefore, that field of human endeavour moves forward. Whilst each engineering task will have a new goal, the principles that are applied will be based on the underlying sciences. The old building, that was removed, had different foundations from the new one. Development and testing move our engineering forward. We achieve more as knowledge and principles are built upon.
Application
Engineers need to understand the principles they are applying. Whilst these may be at very different levels, they still require planning and thought. No one would expect the building to be produced by pressing one button on an ‘app’, but neither would you expect the civil engineers and architects to start experimenting with concrete mixes for every building. That’s not to say that there isn’t a group of engineers experimenting with different carbon fibre additives to give the concrete more strength at a reduced weight; their results being fed upwards to the building design engineers of the future.
Process
The formal application of these scientific principles, is how problem solving engineers meet the requirements. We know this as a design process. The whole being a ‘system’, this is systems engineering. From the initial ideas and requirements management to the finished article, this engineering step is as crucial as the science principles upon which the solution relies. What ever engineering discipline you are in we hope you’ll agree, from concept to creation Cradle is the best tool you’ll see!
The Tail End
Whilst we agree that every job and every individual in our society plays an important role. There has been a bit of dilution of the ‘Engineering’ term in recent years. There’s a tendency for anything that is remotely technical to be labelled engineering. Anyone who understands which end of a screwdriver to hold gets called an engineer. Whilst I agree that there are chemical and physics principles afoot when I place the food in the pan for tea (dinner if you’re not from up North) and when I use the washing up liquid to clean the dishes, I don’t label myself a Domestic Engineer 😉
It’s Roald Dahl Day today 13/9/2018. A day to celebrate one of the best story tellers and writers of modern times with around 250 million books sold worldwide.
Stories
Stories tell a tale, something we can envisage and understand. They usually have a beginning introducing us to the situation, the main body describing the tale and an ending. (Whether a cliff hanger or tidy conclusion)
In business we often describe a process as a story. Sometimes formally (BPMN), or sometimes as a descriptive user story. This tells how the item, customer, (character or actor) interacts with their surroundings.
Often, as in the case with Dahl, the stories are further enhanced by pictures (often Blake) which bring the situation to life. Diagrams can be used to model your user stories and processes to encapsulate the current focus in that chapter of the system.
George’s Marvellous Medicine
Read and Enjoy
Whether you’re dreaming of revenge as George sought, cunfuddled as a Twit. If you are wishing you could jump into a chocolate stream with Charlie, or being spooked by the macabre story of ‘skin’, remember stories are good for all. Children, adults (including business managers and engineers) all benefit from a story, whether for relaxation, or to help explain the complex. Go find a copy of a Roald Dahl and keep reading.
As we head towards Q4, both businesses and governments will be looking at their costs to date and their costs for next year. As we mentioned in last September’s newsletter, one way of controlling your project costs is to use Work Breakdown Structures (WBS) with costings associated with each element. Those costs are for the actual implementation of the elements of the project, materials or labour. However, every business has base running costs associated staff, buildings, machines and software.
Running Costs
How do you plan your yearly costs? What does your jurisdiction count as capital investment and what as running costs? Need a fixed price for a fixed period of your project? Do you have an IT department that is more wrapped up in red tape than a red billiard ball in a tin of red paint within a red (reusable of course) red carrier bag? Don’t like the installation cost of keeping up to date with the latest versions of software.
If the answer is ‘yes’ to any of the above, then SaaS could be the way to go. 3SL is hard at work putting our hosted software service provision together. Watch out for further announcements.
Mini Poll
Please answer our Mini Poll, whether you prefer the:
ownership, control and flexibility of software purchase,
simplified, outsourced benefits of a managed service.
Cradle Latest Version
The latest version 7.4.0.2 has all the latest 7.4 patches. If you’ve not downloaded and installed it, please consider doing so to ensure you have the best Cradle experience. Anyone with a 7.4 licence code is entitled to this update.
Fixes include;
An issue setting names for requirements and notes in the Item Properties dialog.
A glitch showing some RTF frames.
Exact match query not returning all versions.
An issue with historic blank alerts, and item ownership changes.
Opening parent diagram or deleting symbol could hang.
Document Publisher failed when checking for existing processes.
Web Access bug with LOGIN_UI_SHOW parameter.
Improvement in queries on RTF frames now supporting <null> and !<null> searches.
Better detection for Microsoft® Office 365 during installation.
However, those buying Cradle Enterprise licences can choose to donate £30 per licence bought to a charity of their choice. Ts&Cs apply
Social Media
Twitter
Hyper Loop
We love keeping an eye on what’s new in the field of engineering. The prospect of an airline speed train caught our eye. The vacuum in here is neither hand-held, vortex, bagged nor available at any supermarket / electrical retailer! However it will be required to shift vast quantities of air.
Cat in Cradle
And on a lighter note we mused at International Cat Day placing a cat in the #Cradle as an illustration in the use of images in diagrams as part of the MBSE (Model Based Systems Engineering) representation of a system.
We’re all excited here in Barrow-in-Furness as the Tour of Britain bike race starts here today.
We’ve got a great view from 3SL towers and will add a couple of pictures throughout the day.
Win a Copy of Cradle SE Pro with #Cradle and Tour of Britain
Look for the TV/social media coverage. If you spot a 3SL logo in Barrow-in-Furness, follow us and send a tweet to @threesl with #Cradle and #TourofBritain telling us where the 3SL logo is physically displayed and win an SE Pro worth £399* (first 50 correct tweets). * Price valid as 07/09/2018.
Tour of Britain 2018 Pictures
Tour of Britain 2018 SetupSupport Bikes at the Ready
