December Newsletter 2023

Welcome to the December 2023 newsletter from 3SL!

This newsletter contains a mixture of news and technical information about us, and our requirements management and systems engineering tool “Cradle”. We would especially like to welcome everyone who has purchased Cradle in the past month and those who are currently evaluating Cradle for their projects and processes.

We hope that 3SL and Cradle can deliver real and measurable benefits that help you to improve the information flow within, the quality and timeliness of, and the traceability, compliance and governance for, all of your current and future projects.

If you have any questions about your use of Cradle, please do not hesitate to contact 3SL Support.

Public Training Course Calendar 2024

The courses available in 2024 are listed below. You can now see a list of the public courses available here within the Public Training Courses panel.

You can also book your place on one of the courses here.  For details of the modules in each course, please see here.

User Course

This course provides an overview of Cradle’s capabilities including best practices and includes demonstrations of the major Cradle features. This course is excellent for new users to familiarise themselves with Cradle.

The 2024 dates for this course are:

Requirements Management

This is a great opportunity for small teams, or just new team members to get started with requirements management in Cradle, including loading information from external sources, organising it, evolving it through your process, and then publishing the integrated information set that this creates.

The 2024 dates for this course are:

Document Publisher

Make your output shine with this course that explains how to create and publish document templates using Cradle’s Document Publisher tool. Once you have managed your requirements, models, risks and tests through your process, it is essential that you can deliver essential, accurate and consistent project documentation directly from this integrated set of information.

The 2024 dates for this course are:

Risk Management

Learn how to identify, analyse, treat and monitor your project’s risks, link them to your requirements, SBS and other information and manage these risks and their mitigations. This course ensures you can implement your risk management plan, manage your risk registers and publish your risk profiles.

The 2024 dates for this course are:

Test Management and Execution

Learn how to integrate a complete suite of test plans and test cases into your project data, and how to execute test runs of these test plans and cases so as to collect test results and associated data for each step in the test cases. Apply this mechanism at all module/unit, subsystem, system and higher levels to deliver the V&V, acceptance and governance of your project.

The 2024 dates for this course are:

Configuration Management

Learn how to use Cradle’s workflow and CM system to manage the creation and evolution of items of information, how to formally review these items into project baselines, and how to make formally controlled changes to new instances of these items.

The 2024 dates for this course are:

Project Administration Course

Learn how to configure Cradle to best support your project’s processes and to deliver that process support to your users. This is a great opportunity for project managers to understand their schemas and Cradle UI customisations.

The 2024 dates for this course are:

Latest Updates

The latest technical and related topics in our blog are:

Follow these links to see the latest blog updates and then use the blog’s search to find other topics of interest! With over 500 posts in the blog, we are sure that you will find lots to interest you in the details of Cradle and 3SL!

We would also like to thank all attendees on our Test Execution course which we provided in November and the attendees on the Configuration Management course which we provided at the start of December.

Social Media

Happy Christmas

May we take this opportunity to wish you, our wonderful customers, suppliers and distributors, season’s greetings and a peaceful and Happy Christmas. We wish you all the best in 2024.

Happy Christmas based on Photo by Giftpundits.com from Pexels

Lookback

Well 2023 seems to have gone so quickly, in writing our December 2023 newsletter, we take a look back at what happened:

  • Cyber Essentials re-assessment successful
  • Listed as a supplier in the Emergency Services Mobile Communication Programme (ESMCP)
  • ISO-9001 recertification
  • Continued our support of Circus Starr
  • Compliance information published using JOSCAR
  • Continuing support from our customers attending our public online training courses (again thank you to everyone who attended and who provided feedback)

During 2023 we have been working on the latest update to Cradle – Cradle-8.0. This update contains many enhancements, the main enhancement being the user interface. Cradle-8.0 comes with two themes (light and dark) – examples are shown below:

Example Light Theme
Example Light Theme
Example Dark Theme
Example Dark Theme

Once we have a release date for Cradle-8.0 we will let you know.

And Finally …

That’s all for the December 2023 newsletter, and indeed this year. If you would like to suggest a topic for next time, drop us a line social-customer@threesl.com.

Your Highlights

If you have any company news or achievements that you would like 3SL to share in any of our newsletters then please let us know.

November Newsletter 2023

Welcome to the November 2023 newsletter from 3SL!

This newsletter contains a mixture of news and technical information about us, and our requirements management and systems engineering tool “Cradle”. We would especially like to welcome everyone who has purchased Cradle in the past month and those who are currently evaluating Cradle for their projects and processes.

We hope that 3SL and Cradle can deliver real and measurable benefits that help you to improve the information flow within, the quality and timeliness of, and the traceability, compliance and governance for, all of your current and future projects.

If you have any questions about your use of Cradle, please do not hesitate to contact 3SL Support.

Cradle Public Training Courses 2024

3SL have provided a number of Cradle public training courses in 2023. We are currently working on our 2024 training course calendar. Once this is available we will share this with you.

We still have courses available in 2023, please see our website for further information.

Critical Software and Software Bill of Material (SBOM)

The contract opportunities issued by the US Government and many US companies now include a requirement that suppliers provide a Software Bill of Material (SBOM) for all critical software – as defined by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) – that would be delivered as part of any contract fulfilment of that opportunity. This requirement is pursuant to executive order 14028 issued by the Biden administration in the US.

3SL can advise that Cradle does not fall within the definition of critical software as defined by NIST. The NIST definition and guidance can be found here.

Remember, Remember

static firework
Firework

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.

query on a date in a category with relative offset
Relative Date Query

Cradle provides several ways to track changes in your project. One of these is to query 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 then query on ‘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 items that are part of a work breakdown structure linked to a plan, there are some built-in ranges which can be accessed in the Progress tab in the Query Details dialog. For example, you can find all activities / tasks that are underway, those that are due to complete soon, or those that should have already completed. These provide a planning view of where your project stands.

Celebrations

We hope all our customers, suppliers and staff that celebrate Dewali, All Hallows Eve and All Saints day or remembered the defeating of the Gunpowder plot have a happy and safe celebration.

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.

Source Document Analyses

Cradle’s Document Loader tool can be used to parse source documents and capture them into a hierarchy of items, each corresponding to one of the sections, subsections, paragraphs, tables, table rows, table cells in the document. The structure of this hierarchy mirrors the structure of the document. Each item in the hierarchy is linked to its origin in a copy of the source document that is cached in the database. This allows Cradle to perform a variety of operations on source documents:

  1. Capture their contents into items that are typically the needs or user requirements to which other items are linked
  2. Coverage analysis, to show which parts of the document have been captured
  3. Use analysis, to show how parts of the document have been used in the database
  4. Integrity analysis, to confirm that the document has been parsed into multiple items each of which is identical to the original document, or (depending on the process) has been modified only as agreed
  5. Compare versions of source documents to find differences and see which database items were impacted by these differences
  6. Compare a potential new version of a source document against the latest version that has previously been loaded to find the changes and assess the impact of such changes on the database as a means to decide if the new document version will be accepted

Mapping Tables When Capturing Documents

Some source documents use tables for each piece of information. For example, each requirement or test case is contained in its own table and, therefore, a document with 500 requirements will have 500 tables.

When loading such documents, you define a mapping for the first of these tables. In this mapping you specify which cells (each a row and column) will have its contents loaded, and the attribute of the Cradle item that will receive that data.  You can then apply this mapping to all other tables in the document with the same structure, and then proceed to capture the document using all of these table mappings.

We have seen a problem whereby Document Loader would fail to map multiple tables. This problem only occurred with one specific document, and only when that document was being processed on a Windows Server 2019 + Office 2016 platform. Any other combination of O/S and Office worked as expected.

We are pleased to advise that a recent Microsoft Update to Office has corrected this problem. Therefore, please ensure that if you are using Office 2016 that you use Version 2310 Build 16924.20124.

For more information about How to Set Table Mappings click here.

Latest Updates

The latest technical and related topics in our blog are:

Follow these links to see the latest blog updates and then use the blog’s search to find other topics of interest! With over 500 posts in the blog, we are sure that you will find lots to interest you in the details of Cradle and 3SL!

We would also like to thank all attendees on our Risk Management course which we provided in October.

Social Media

Still to Come this Month

This course is a 1 day course split over 2 half days. It provides the following modules:

  • Introduction to Test Execution
  • Setting up Supporting Item Types
  • Test Planning
  • Test Execution and Recording

Your Highlights

If you have any company news or achievements that you would like 3SL to share in any of our newsletters then please let us know.

May Newsletter 2023

Welcome to the May 2023 newsletter from 3SL!

This newsletter contains a mixture of news and technical information about us, and our requirements management and systems engineering tool “Cradle”. We would especially like to welcome everyone who has purchased Cradle in the past month and those who are currently evaluating Cradle for their projects and processes.

We hope that 3SL and Cradle can deliver real and measurable benefits that help you to improve the information flow within, the quality and timeliness of, and the traceability, compliance and governance for, all of your current and future projects.

If you have any questions about your use of Cradle, please do not hesitate to contact 3SL Support.

3SL SaaS

Deploying Cradle as SaaS (software as a service) is becoming an increasingly attractive option for many organisations. Using SaaS greatly simplifies the deployment of Cradle as there is nothing that you, or your corporate IT, need to do.

We ask for the names of the people who will use Cradle, and the IP addresses from where they will access Cradle, and then we do the rest.

You and your colleagues get access to the latest Cradle, backed by our internationally renown technical support, with no need to be concerned about IT services, data integrity, backups or any of the other details that can be a burden for an in-house installation.

For more information, please look here. If you would like to talk to us about SaaS deployments of Cradle, please click here.

Baselines and Snapshots

Cradle provides two mechanisms to protect sets of information and provide read-only access to information as it was in the past.

Baselines

Baselines is the mechanism in Cradle’s Configuration Management System (CMS) to protect information from changes. Each baseline is a named repository for the state of a project at a specific point in time. A succession of baselines can be created over the life of a project, each containing more and more information as the project completes its sprints, iterations or phases.

Items can be registered into an open baseline and are given a version number: 01, 02, 03 … The version number assigned to each item is either 01 if there are no baselined instances of that item, or it is 1 higher than the highest version already in the database.

When the baseline is closed:

  • Unchanged items from the previous baseline migrate into (become a part of) the new baseline
  • A copy of all current links (cross references) is saved with the baseline
  • A list of the latest items and their versions is saved for the baseline

Snapshots

A snapshot is a copy of all the information in a database. Its contents can be viewed, read-only, at any time in the future. A succession of snapshots can be created over the life of a project. In effect, a snapshot is simply an online backup, a copy of a database.

A snapshot is a copy of an entire database. When a snapshot is created, everything in a database, including all of its baselines and definitions (excluding Personal and System scope) are copied into a separate area. Every snapshot is separate from all other snapshots and is separate from the live database.

Creating a snapshot is similar to making a backup copy of the database, except that this backup is directly accessible from within Cradle.

Comparison

#CharacteristicBaselineSnapshot
1SummaryCreates a new approved set of items and links in a database that can be viewed RO.Copies an entire database and related definitions to create a new database that can be viewed RO.
2User BenefitRO view of previous baseline that can be used for queries, view data, run metrics, publish reports or documentsRO view of everything in the database as it was in the past, for queries, view data, run metrics, publish reports or documents
3Additional ItemsNoneNone
4Additional linksDuplicates all current linksNone
5Database SizeAdds some items and copies all linksNone
6Disk UsageSmall to medium increaseMedium to large increase

For more details, please see our blog post here.

Circus Starr

3SL are proud to announce that we are supporting Circus Starr!

Circus Starr
Circus Starr

The community interest circus company are dedicated to making a difference to the lives of vulnerable and disadvantaged children in Barrow-in-Furness and across England through the magical art of circus. We are pleased to support our community, and this accessible and inclusive event is such a worthy cause.

Circus Star
Circus Star

To find out more about how you can support the circus with a purpose visit www.circus-starr.org.uk or call +44 (0) 1260 288690.

The Coronation of King Charles III

Many people across the country and the Commonwealth will be celebrating the Coronation of His Majesty The King and Her Majesty the Queen Consort over a weekend of special events on 6th to 8th May 2023.

International Nurses Day

Every year International Nurses Day is celebrated on 12 May to commemorate the anniversary of Florence Nightingale’s birthday. This day also celebrates the contribution done by nurses to society around the world. On this day the International Council of Nurses organisation produces an International Nurses kit to educate and assist health workers globally with a different theme every year.

"Nurse" Photo by Laura James from Pexels
Nurse

World Multiple Sclerosis Day

On 30th May it is World Multiple Sclerosis Day. World MS day takes place on 30th May every year. Share stories, raise awareness and campaign with everyone affected by MS.

World MS Day
World MS Day

Social Media

We congratulated our customer ZF Group on the opening of their West Coast Mobility Hub which is a cutting edge facility dedicated to shaping the future of mobility.

Borg Warner were presenting how H2-ICE enables fast and efficient transportation at the World Hydrogen 2023 Summit & Exhibition.

Siemens Mobility demonstrated how their pioneering Vectron Dual Mode locomotives combined advantages of full featured diesel locomotive with those of electric ones.

We congratulated Horiba on obtaining UKAS accreditation against ISO17021-1.

Roche confirmed that the US FDA had granted approval to their new combination treatment for certain types of previously untreated diffuse large B cell lymphoma. This makes it the first therapy in nearly 20 years approved by the FDA for people with this aggressive disease.

Looking Back!

Last month we discussed:

We would also like to thank all attendees on our Risk Management course which we provided in April.

We also received a fantastic review from one of our customers:

“When there have been technical difficulties, the staff have been frequently quick, knowledgeable, and able to help restore normal operations. The level of service is above the levels of several large name companies, I struggle to think of what more I can ask for.”

We appreciate all feedback as this helps us to both assess and look to improve both the products and services we provide.

Still to Come this Month

January Newsletter 2023

Welcome to the January 2023 newsletter from 3SL!

This newsletter contains a mixture of news and technical information about us, and our requirements management and systems engineering tool “Cradle”. We would especially like to welcome everyone who has purchased Cradle in the past month and those who are currently evaluating Cradle for their projects and processes.

We hope that 3SL and Cradle can deliver real and measurable benefits that help you to improve the information flow within, the quality and timeliness of, and the traceability, compliance and governance for, all of your current and future projects.

If you have any problems in your use of Cradle, please do not hesitate to contact 3SL Support here.

Happy New Year

We hope all those celebrating over Christmas had a safe and happy time.

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.

3SL US Training Courses

Our US colleagues have scheduled the following public courses:

    • 3-Day User Course
      February 6-8 (3 days), $1395/attendee
    • Combined Administration Course
      February 9 (1 day), $465/attendee
    • 3-Day User Course
      April 17-19 (3 days), $1395/attendee
    • Combined Administration Course
      April 20 (1 day), $465/attendee

These courses are open to anyone from any organisation. If you register for one of these courses, it may mean that you will be joined by people from other organisations.

All of these public courses are limited to 8 attendees. For further information or to book your place on one of these courses please contact 3SL US.

Combined Administration Course

The Combined Administration Course course is designed for project team leaders or managers who administer and manage Cradle projects. It covers both user and project administration. It also includes setting up project schemas helping your users to hit the ground running.

3-Day User Course

The 3-Day User Course is designed to help new users become acquainted with Cradle. This course includes hands on demonstrations for both administration and requirements management tasks.

3SL Listed in ESMCP ESN Supplier Directory

The Home Office is leading a cross-government programme to deliver the new Emergency Services Network (ESN) critical communications system. ESN is being delivered through the Emergency Services Mobile Communication Programme (ESMCP) in the Home Office where 3SL and Cradle have provided requirements and test/evidence management and contract governance support since 2013.

Emergency Services Network
Emergency Services Network

ESN is being delivered through the Emergency Services Mobile Communication Programme (ESMCP) in the Home Office. ESMCP has many component projects, including the acquisition of MCX end user communication services.

3SL is pleased to announce that we have been listed as a supplier in this programme. Interest in 3SL and Cradle can be registered through the portal or directly to 3SL.

Interest in Cradle from HMG or 3ES can be sent directly to 3SL or through G-Cloud 13 in the Digital Marketplace here.

Still to come this month

    • Project Administration online course – January 17th to 18th
    • User online course – January 24th to 25th

To book your place on either of the Project Administration or User courses please see here.

October 2022 – Newsletter

Welcome to the October 2022 newsletter from 3SL that provides a mixture of news and technical information about us, and our requirements management and systems engineering tool “Cradle”. We would especially like to welcome everyone who has purchased Cradle in the past month and those who are currently evaluating Cradle for their projects and processes.

We hope that we, and Cradle, can deliver real and measurable benefits to all of the exciting development projects that we see every day through your regular contacts with our support team. If you have any problems, please do not hesitate to contact 3SL support here.

32-Bit vs 64-Bit

For our next major release – Cradle-8.0 we are considering stopping support for:

  • 32-bit Windows
  • 32-bit Microsoft Office
  • 32-bit Linux

We would like to understand if this affects any of our current customer’s and potential prospects.  If you can find the time, please provide your views/opinions to our Support Team at support@threesl.com.

Please note that Cradle-8.0 will not be released until mid 2023 at the earliest.

Upcoming Training Courses

We still have places left on our two remaining Cradle training courses this year.

The next scheduled course is the Cradle Document Publisher course. The dates are 17th to 20th October. Document Publisher is a Windows® based publishing tool that allows professional documentation to be produced directly from the data within your project’s database. Fully understanding how to configure templates and data manipulation will offer the best output for you to provide to your stakeholders, customers, regulators and other interested parties.

The last scheduled course of 2022 is the Cradle Requirements Management course. The dates of this course are 21st to 24th November. This is a great opportunity for small teams, or a couple of new team members to get started with RM and Cradle.

Both courses are conducted over four ½ days.

Don’t miss out! To book a place on one of our online courses please click here!

Training Course Calendar 2023

We are currently preparing our training course calendar for 2023. This will be available soon.

The courses available in 2023 are:

  • Project Administration:
    Public Online Training Course
    Cradle Training Courses
    • January and July
  • User:
    • January and July
  • Requirements Management:
    • February and August
  • Document Publisher:
    • March and September
  • Risk Management:
    • April and October
  • Test Management:
    • May and November
  • Configuration Management:
    • June and December

Dates to be confirmed.

Making SWIFT Payments

Recently we have noticed some minor issues with receiving swift payments. If payments are to be made by SWIFT using a MT103 instruction, please ensure Field 71A is set to OUR instead of SHA.

Social Media

Last month we discussed:

We also paid our respects to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

Thank You

3SL would also like to thank all of our customers/evaluators/prospects who have found the time to send feedback on our services, e.g. training courses, Cradle support etc. We understand how busy you are, but these responses help us to both monitor and look to improve the services we provide to you. Thank you.

Thank You
Thank you from 3SL

That’s all for our October 2022 newsletter.

July 2022 Newsletter

Sun, Sand and New Releases

July has come around again and we turn our thoughts to hot sunny days, (in the northern hemisphere), beach holidays perhaps and take time to relax. We look forward to sun, sand and new releases…

Sun, Sand and New Releases
Sun, Sand and New Releases

We can use this time to re-assess how we do things, how to do things better and make improvements in our personal and working lives.

On the topic of improvements, July marks the month in which 3SL releases our new 7.7 version of Cradle. There are many enhancements and improvements that will be beneficial to our users.

Cradle-7.7 Release

New features coming in this release:

Cradle 7.7
Cradle 7.7 coming soon
  • Pie charts
  • Metrics in graphs
  • Many small enhancements to documentation
  • New dial type in dashboards – anular percentage
  • Update to DEMO project
  • Enhancements to baseline reports
  • Snapshots
  • Test Mail button added to test mail settings
  • Test Execution UI in Project Setup enhanced
  • Added support for Windows 11
  • Added support for Office 2019 and Office 365

Training Courses

We now have a new training course available for all users of Cradle.  The User Training course will be taking place on October 5th – 6th 2022.

Cradle Online Training
Online Cradle Training

The contents of the course are available to see here and the course can be booked here

For more information on courses please see the blog post here

Create a New Database Based upon a Previous Database

The Problem

Create_Project
Create Project Dialog

I want to create a new database that is a copy of a pre-existing database minus the actual data.

Cradle Project Environment

The environment for the Cradle project will contain:

  • Project Setup
  • Supporting definition files (views, forms, queries, documents etc.)
  • Users*

*If you will have the same users in the new project that are in the existing project.

The Solution…

 

Social Media

Twitter

Nuclear added to European green taxonomy
Nuclear added to European green taxonomy

We retweeted our support for nuclear being added to the European green taxonomy

June 2022 – Newsletter

Pearls

Pearl
Pearls of Wisdom

Pearls are the birthstone for the month of June. Pearls are associated with purity, honesty, and wisdom, as in the term “Pearls of wisdom.”

Pearls of Wisdom

That is a description of wise advice, concise pieces of sagacity that are metaphorically as precious as pearls. Originally, pearls of wisdom referred to bits of information or advice that the receiver truly found precious. Today, referring to information or advice one receives as pearls of wisdom is often, but not always, sarcastic, as the phrase is now considered a terrible cliché. The term pearls of wisdom dates back at least to the early 1800s.

Wisdom in Systems Engineering

Wisdom can take various forms of thinking. Strategic wisdom; system wisdom; decision wisdom; creative wisdom and so on. All these forms of wisdom can be utilised if they are organised to work together in a single, integrated solution.  This will get the best results, as all the effort will guide that wisdom to be used systematically to reach the same required goals.

Cradle 7.7 Release

Cradle 7.7
Cradle 7.7 coming soon

We are pleased to announce that the Cradle 7.7 release will be ready at the end of July. We are now in the final testing stages of the new release – watch for news. Those under maintenance will receive this update including the new features for free. Those without maintenance or using single user products from earlier point releases will need to purchase an upgrade to 7.7.

New features coming in this release:

    • Pie charts
    • Metrics in graphs
    • Many small enhancements to documentation
    • New dial type in dashboards – anular percentage
    • Update to DEMO project
    • Enhancements to baseline reports
    • Snapshots
    • Test Mail button added to test mail settings
    • Test Execution UI in Project Setup enhanced
    • Added support for Windows 11
    • Added support for Office 2019 and Office 365

Look out for more information on these enhancements in the future.

Training Courses

Cradle Online Training
Online Cradle Training

We are pleased to announce that we shall be adding new training courses soon. We have a new one day User course and a Modelling course. These will be available on the website shortly.

Prices

Regrettably, the price for all variants of Cradle will be increasing by approximately 10% on the 1st of August 2022. All quotes given before then are still valid at the quoted price, even if the purchase takes place after 1st August 2022.

Dual Monitor Issues

Some issues have been detected when running our Toolsuite applications (Document Loader or Document Publisher), e.g. when running dual monitors, with certain scaling settings etc.

Please see this post for how to fix this issue

Social Media

Twitter

D-Day
D-Day

We remembered D-Day and the sacrifice and bravery exhibited on a scale unimaginable to most people today in this Tweet by the MOD Defence HQ

 

 

 

We look forward to more sustainable transport with Siemens Hydrogen Train

Finally

We hope that everyone has a prosperous and sunny June. Here’s to a great summer!

 

April 2022 – Newsletter

Egging You On

3SL Easter Egs
3SL Easter

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

shot from Barrow-in-Furness town square of 3SL Offices
3SL Offices

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

Cradle Online Training
Online Cradle 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

HII Tweet Mar2022
HII Tweet March 2022

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

Item Properties in Cradle
Properties

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

 

 

March 2022 – Newsletter

Cn yuo raed this sentnce?

Most English native readers will understand the text above. Although we must admit it is fairly atrocious.  We are so used to reading context, that even when letters are missing or transposed we still understand. Sometimes [sic ]don’t even notice the errors. We have come acustomed [sic] to our browsers and text document processors telling us the spelling of a word is not recognised. However, unless there is some form of context processing too, a smelling [sic] mistake would get through even if a sbelling [sic] mistake was highlighted.

Proof

EV Charging point too low based on Photo by Ed Harvey from Pexels
1m not 1mm high

March the 8th recognised proof reading day, which may be a delight for the pedants among or is that amongst us. However, it does highlight the importance of peer review.  Proof reading is generally defined as “a process of finding and correcting textual mistakes before it is published” Elements that are easily overlooked when you read information back to yourself are often picked out faster by another. You “know” what you intended to write, and the human brain is very good at telling you that’s what is on the page.

Typos

It may be blatantly obvious you meant the EV socket was to be placed 1m from the floor but that extra ‘m‘ that remained in your text was a typo. Now no one can plug their car into the socket that is 1mm from the floor. You would hope the contractor would question this. However, not all errors are as obvious, incorrectly specifying a tolerance of 0.01mm or 0.1mm could either mean some costly but unnecessary machining, or components that don’t fit depending on the use case.   Language semantics can also get in the way of clear communication. Peers are likely to question whether you really wanted to separate those who may consider cannibalism;  “To avoid smells, the train buffet service should segregate eating passengers”. Whilst in reality it is unlikely to be misconstrued, it may show a less than professional approach to your stakeholders especially in a presentation  or final review.

Discussions

In Cradle we have covered the benefits of reviews and formal base-lining. However we also advocate the use of Discussions as a method of reviewing and recording comments and notes.

Checkers

Cradle supports a Conformance Checker to examine the correctness of requirements against a set of language / semantic checks. If you have ToolSuite you can also access a SpellChecker to examine your item’s text.

Training

Cradle Online Training
Online Cradle Training

Don’t forget to book to ensure your place on the courses in the 2022 Public training course calendar  . If you have questions or want tailored or on-site courses please contact salesdetails@threesl.com

ISO9001

UKAS ISO9001 Mark 3SL Certificate 16926 (Thumb)
3SL Certificate Number 16926 ISO 9001

3SL are proud to announce their third year recertification for ISO9001. The team working with the audit  said we passed with flying colours and there were no non-conformances. This is a testimony to all who have helped throughout the year improving and recording our processes.

The ISO says of the scheme

ISO 9001 sets out the criteria for a quality management system and is the only standard in the family that can be certified to (although this is not a requirement). It can be used by any organization, large or small, regardless of its field of activity. In fact, there are over one million companies and organizations in over 170 countries certified to ISO 9001.
This standard is based on a number of quality management principles including a strong customer focus, the motivation and implication of top management, the process approach and continual improvement. These principles are explained in more detail in ISO’s quality management principles. Using ISO 9001 helps ensure that customers get consistent, good-quality products and services, which in turn brings many business benefits.”[1]

Social Media

Twitter

ZF Group Tweet Feb 2022 Torque
ZF Group Tweet Feb 2022

We looked at the steep increase ZF Group have seen in torques that generation chains need to handle as wind turbines increase in size.

We also decided whilst there is a time for pancakes the time line of cooking them may not be suited to SysML modelling 😉

YouTube

Cradle Frame Storage mechanisms
Frame Data Storage

Did you know you can store your data in Cradle in several ways? In the database, in a file, as a reference or retrieve it by command? Why not take a peek at the possibilities.

 

 

 


[1]The ISO9000 scheme

Updated 31/03/2022 – UKAS Logo latest DESIGN

February 2022 – Newsletter

Love, Reign and Stormy Weather

Love

#LoveEngineering Valentine heartFebruary 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

Film Camera
Film Camera

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

Stormy Sea Walney 2014
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

Cradle Online Training
Online Cradle 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 SETDB Systems Engineering Tools Database
INCOSE SETDB

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

Northrop Grumman Tweet Feb 2022Hydroponics in space
Northrop Grumman Hydroponics

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?

Plimsoll Line Illustration
Plimsoll Line

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

Maximise your productivity with Cradle training
Maximise Productivity

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.