Tag: newsletter

Egging You On

We most likely understand this to mean encourage, provoke or urge. Unfortunately there is no underlying tasty treat associated with the phrase.
Eggs and Easter eggs may represent the start of a new life or regeneration and are often given at Easter after their consumption would have been prohibited during Lent.

Project

An egg holds the building instructions for a new life, and when fertilised can grow into something great. Like a new life, a  project needs to be nurtured in order to grow. However, it must be led in the correct direction, not allowed to grow too fast or out of control for the best success. There will be risks on the way and its progress needs to be monitored and checked.

Go-on

So we urge, cajole and encourage you to keep your projects safe, warm and cared for the only way we know how – in Cradle.
Now does anyone fancy taking up the Chicken and Egg debate???

Return

During April 3SL UK offices are making a phased return to the office. It’s been over 2 years since we’ve sat at our desks. It was a bit of a time capsule moment seeing diaries open on March 2020! You will still be able to email, use webinar, or snail-mail, but if you call us on +44 1229 838867 you may find different voices answer.

Training

The Project Administration 20th-21st April 2022 course is designed for project team leaders or managers who administer and manage Cradle projects. It will cover user and project administration. It will also include setting up project schemas helping your users to hit the ground running.

Social Media

Twitter

We marvelled at how a dock can float in this tweet from HII.

We reviewed the SpeedUpSolR^(TM) device, but apparently a number of people have reported difficulty buying it….. SpeedUpSolR^(TM) 😉

YouTube

Updating Item Properties. If you have a large number of items for which you need to change value(s) did you know you can set properties? Take a peek at this method on our YouTube Channel

Love, Reign and Stormy Weather

Love

February the month of Saint Valentine, according to Wikipedia a 3rd-century Roman saint. The tails of his beheading as a martyr and the distribution of his bones are quite horrific.  A far cry from the modern celebration. It wasn’t until around the 14th century that he became associated as the patron saint of lovers. Apparently this was greatly promoted by the writings of Chaucer. Quite an achievement in reuse and adaptation!

Reign

This month also saw Her Majesty The Queen celebrate 70 years on the throne. The first British Monarch to celebrate a Platinum Jubilee, she will have seen many technological advances and changes during her time on the throne.  To illustrate the pace of progress think about a camera. During her coronation she may have been photographed by one of the first Polaroid instant cameras. In the 70s one of the first point and shoot cameras would have been the order of the day. On engagements in the 80’s one of the first digital cameras or a disposable camera could have been used, and in the 00’s snaps on phones would be the norm.

Storm

Naming storms is apparently a way to make things more memorable. A number or identifier is easy to forget. However,  many people will remember whether it was Storm Dudley or Eunice that felled the tree in their garden.

In conclusion, with tortuous metaphor bending…..

• • We Love engineering, we actively promote the concept of reuse and Adaptation.
  • We would encourage you to support an iterative and baselined design process, building on and improving the previous version whilst retaining traceability.
  • Cradle supports IDs, Names, Groups, and Comments for all item types. Making sure you use all these nomenclatures will aid you finding, discussing or grouping your requirement and design assets. After all would you rather query on ID343 or “Surface finish” ?

Training

The 2022 Public training course calendar has now been released. This has courses covering the main functions of Cradle. It is ideal if you are on-boarding new staff, or  are just new to Cradle. These online courses are tutor led so there is full interactivity and ability to ask questions. You’ll also be able to benefit from the questions and experience of other candidates.

These public courses are in addition to our individual company offerings. If your company has a large number of trainees for instance, or wants on-site training we will put on a separate course. Additionally if you need a course tailoring to your industry/implementation you should contact salesdetails@threesl.com

INCOSE Systems Engineering Tools Database

3SL has registered as a SETDB vendor with INCOSE

INCOSE have updated their vendor tool listings with a new database, the Systems Engineering Tools Database (SETDB). We have fully updated our entry and system engineers can search the database with their INCOSE membership, or an SETDB membership through systemsengineeringtools.com.

We are listed under 3SL and Cradle and our competencies listed in all available categories within their database.  This will be added to as they further update their database capabilities.

Social Media

Twitter

We wondered just how a seedling will function in space. Without gravity how will it grow up? Its leaves will be able to grow towards a light, but at the time of sprouting, which way will the root grow? All vital information, being worked on by @NorthropGrumman  if we are to grow crop resources in space.

Love is in the air we tweeted a Valentine message and reminded you that we use the hashtag #LoveEngineering to retweet and highlight stories from our customers and general engineering accomplishments. Why not join us in promoting good engineering stories?

We also noted that Samuel Plimsoll was to be congratulated on developing the simple safe load ship markings. This used the engineering principle of displacement in different salinity.  Mistakenly we thought this had nothing to do with the deck shoes of the same name, thanks to one eagle eyed reader. They pointed out “Plimsolls, the shoes, were named in his honour in 1876 (when his whistleblowing campaign for a loadline had made him a household name) by a sales rep for the Liverpool Rubber Company, because, being canvas above and rubber underneath, the shoes could only be safely immersed in water up to a certain point – like a merchant ship. ”

YouTube

You’ll have read that the new Public Training Calendar has been released.  Just to emphasise the benefits of training, for those that like something a little more visual (to send to their boss maybe), here’s our mini promo.

Happy New Year

We hope all those celebrating over Christmas had a safe and happy time, and were not too badly affected by Covid 19. Welcome to the January 2022 – Newsletter.

Into a new year and a time to reflect on both your company’s achievements and problems. Whilst the turn of a date is nothing magical, the psychological effect of a new term can really help enthuse and help us focus.

If a project wasn’t quite on track, a root cause analysis can help identify where things went astray. Use this as a positive for new projects and look out for the ‘gotcha’ next time round. It is also important to identify the successes, the team and company can lever the feel-good factor on jobs well done.

Training

We’re putting together this year’s public training course calendar.  These courses are open to all and are delivered online in a shared environment with a live instructor. The biggest benefit of live training is that you can ask questions as the course progresses.

If your company has a large number of trainees or wants the course tailoring contact salesdetails@threesl.com

Release

If you have not already don’t forget to grab the latest Cradle 7.6.1 release: see https://www.threesl.com/blog/cradle-7-6-1-released/

Social Media

Twitter

We looked how encryption technology now fits in our palm rather than a filing cabinet!  and how the early pointer telegraph has progressed.

We looked at how to lock users out of a Cradle project so you can administer backups for example.

YouTube

Whatever the scale of project you are starting in 2022 we can help with your Requirements Management.
That’s all for the January 2022 – Newsletter

Deciduous or Evergreen

Tree Types

“If you were a tree, what type would you be?” OK, we’re not attempting to delve into a mindfulness session, but drawing a comparison in terms of ongoing development.

Drop or Retain?

Each year deciduous trees protect themselves by shedding their leaves. The likelihood is the water will freeze and damage their leaves, or winter winds will apply a greater force to the trunk. Shedding them before the winter, allows them to renew with vigour the following year.  They may also have become damaged in the summer by bugs or ripped in the autumn by winds, the shed leaves will act as nutrients for the following year. Evergreens, however, protect their leaves with a waxy coating and forms of antifreeze. Their leaves are often smaller, so the tree needs more of them to absorb the sun’s energy.

Start Anew

In the following year after the shut down, deciduous trees still retain their main structure, and the knowledge of how to build new leaves. The evergreens have to be content with the quality of the leaves they have, or have to try and grow new ones while simultaneously shedding the old ones.  However, they have been able to continue absorbing energy through their leaves all year round.

Renewing Project Elements

Projects undergoing through lifecycle upgrades often have to decide which route to take. Do you remove the facility, rebuild (possibly including changes) and then deploy, or do you attempt to keep all the existing features in place while swapping out old functionality/parts and replacing them with new ones? Partly this will depend on the ‘down time’ that can be tolerated. A strip and replace is often more efficient, if allowed. The advantage projects have compared to trees, is all the new ‘leaves’ can be prepared in parallel, as long as they fit the trunk it’s a shorter operation to remove and replace the leaves. Whilst the ongoing partial replacement may allow continued operation, there are likely to be cases where parallel components/functions during the swap will have conflicts and interactions that will need to be managed. Of course in either case sometimes fiddling round with the leaves brings no new benefits, if the trunk or limbs are not where they are needed a completely fresh start is needed.

Release

Cradle 7.6.1 is now available for download. For details of the patch release fixes please see https://www.threesl.com/blog/cradle-7-6-1-released/

Social Media

Twitter

We looked at the power being built into ROVs for underwater repair and construction with Saab‘s eWROV

We looked at how Roles can speed up administration of Cradle users.

YouTube

For an insight into which industry sectors are spending on Requirements Management and Systems Engineering, checkout our mini presentation in this YouTube video

Finally

Drawing the November 2021 newsletter to a close, we hope all our customers, suppliers and staff that celebrated Dewali, All Hallows Eve and All Saints day or remembered the defeating of the Gunpowder plot had a happy and safe celebration. 3SL remembered those who fought and fallen on Remembrance day.

Eight?

As we’ve pointed out before, October was originally the eighth month, until King Numa Pompilius, inserted January and February. Until then ‘Winter’ was seen as monthless, with only 304 days belonging to named months. A bit of a design flaw. However, as with many systems, it was too onerous to start again, so the sticking plaster situation left us with October, November and December shifted two months from their name origins.

Eight In Life

• • In physics it is the second ‘magic’ number where either protons or neutrons, are arranged into a complete shell within the atomic  nucleus.
  • Electronics and computing eight  is the number of bit in a byte. 8 bits representing -128 to 127 or 0 to 255.  If the last three bits of a number (when represented in binary) are 0s then the number itself will be divisible by eight.
  • In maths, other than 1, it is the only perfect cube in the Fibonacci sequence.
  • Your wisdom tooth is the eighth tooth in each quadrant of your mouth.
  • Eight is seen as a lucky number in Asian countries.
  • It the number of notes in an octave, a note of a frequency and its double.
  • There are 8 vertices to a cuboid.

Eight is Agile

Consider the two loops of the figure of 8 as the design and implement areas. As you trace round the outside, you start designing and planning and then you sprint round to implement a phase, before returning once again to consider achievements and plan the next step. This Scrum style operation breaks the problem down into small manageable chunks with an ongoing evaluation and planning. If you’re planning or adjusting a process in a Kanban style this repeated return allows changes to be measured and new bottle necks to be identified and alleviated.

An agile approach is an alternative to the traditional waterfall model to design and implement. It has its strengths in development of new or innovative solutions, especially where a degree of trial and prove/reject is also required. However, it should not be seen as a hackers remit. It only works if you clearly break down the problem, set goals and measure achievements. It could be viewed as a series of small waterfall operations defining each iteration.

Don’t Get Caught In A Loop

If your project is analogous to walking round and round a circle, something is going wrong. Walking in a figure of 8 gives you the opportunity to look forward and backwards as you trace your steps. your aim is for a steadily increasing climb.

Training Course

Last chance to get booked onto the last public training course Document Publisher this year. Document Publisher Course 22nd – 25th November 2021
Following feedback this two day course has been spread over 4 * ½-day sessions to give candidates more time to practice what they have learned, and ask follow up questions at the next session. We’re busy putting together the 2022 schedule and would like to hear from you if there are any topics you would like to see covered, contact salesdetails@threesl.com

Features

When you loop round your design and implement cycle, testing is an important step to validate your efforts.

Cradle’s Test, Execution and Recording module allows a controlled, rigorous way to record, and link your tests, design and requirements. Watch here. For more information read our blog.

Social Media

Twitter

We noted that in very hazardous environments robots are needed to repair other robots in this tweet by Kuka UK.

We also liked the nifty electric boat highlighted by Integral Powertrain that ‘flies’ or floats on the water depending on the speed.

If you want to bring some colour to your text frames in #Cradle we reminded you that you can set the text colour based on a category value.

YouTube

Finally

Our October 2021 newsletter finishes by reminding you to put your clocks back and don’t arrive an hour early for work in November!

Article Updated 19/11/2021 – Spelling mistake