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Issue #620 |  October 27, 2009  |  English Edition

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In This Issue

1. The upFront.eZine Tour of Russia

      Part VI: Nanosoft last week)

      Part VII: NTP Truboprovod

      Part VIII: LEDAS (next week)

   

2. Out of the Inbox, and our other regular columns

 

[Disclosure: Some of the firms mentioned in the "The upFront.eZine Tour of Russia" provided assistance with the airfare, accommodation, ground transportation, and meals.]

The upFront.eZine Tour of Russia

Part VII: NTP Truboprovod  

 

Location: Moscow, Russia

Time stamp: Thu 10 Sep 2009 09:34:44 AM MSD

 

As my Russian minder Dmitry Slutsky and I hurried past a tree-lined pond leading from the subway station, we caught up with the cheery Leonid Korelstein. I had met him two days earlier at the "Future of MCAD" conference, and this morning we were meeting at the offices of NTP Truboprovod so that I can gain an understanding of this company -- the Intergraph of Russia.

 

We go through the usual security arrangement: I hand over my passport to be recorded by the front desk, and then we are allowed through the electronically controlled gate. Mr Korelstein leads me to the board room, dominated by an enormous LCD tv set. The walls are lined with project photos of oil refineries and tank farms.

 

As is custom, I am offered tea -- black or green -- but I beg for water to soothe the thirst from racing through the too-warm subway system. "With or without gas?" is the standard response. I always smile inwardly at that, but in Europe as in Russia "gas" means carbonated or sparkling water. After 50 years of traveling to Europe, I finally understand why water is served with gas: it makes lukewarm water palatable.

 

In Russian, Truboprovod means "piping systems." It is the larger of two divisions owned by PSRE: IPN [Engineering and Industrial Petrochemical Company] is shareholder owned, and does the design work; NTP [Piping Systems Research and Engineering Company] is privately owned, and does the rest, such as plant design, plant CAD and CAE software development, industrial safety reviews, and technical diagnostics of piping equipment. In short, they are a design-build company that also happens to write the CAD software specializing in design calculations for piping systems and vessels.

 

The two primary offerings of NTP Truboprovod are:

     - Passat program for strength and stability calculations of vessels and apparatuses. Passat Basic is r60,000 (about US$2,000); add-ons about $750 each.

     - Hydrosystem program for size selection, heat losses, and hydraulic calculation of pipeline systems. Hydrosystem Basic is r50,000 (about US$1,650); add-ons about $550 each.

 

The conference room fills up with members of upper management, including for the only time a woman. One more employee is brought in; he acts as the translator for Victor Magalif, the company's deputy director. Gravely he began to relate to me the company's history, which I knew by now was typical for a Russian company.

 

NTP Truboprovod was founded in 1992, but its software is much older, being developed in Soviet times by a variety of government research institutes for the petro chemical industry. Their START program that calculates the strength of pipes is now 40 years this year, from the age of mainframes through to today.

 

When political change occurred, the groups separated from the university, and created the independent company. As a result, many employees have more than 20 years experience in CAD and CAE. Because of its government heritage, this CAE software is the de facto for piping and equipment in Russia and CIS. The company develops standards and makes recommendations for the Russian Technical standard.

 

Connecting with the West

Early on, they began to cooperate with nearly all Western companies for plant design systems, including CADpipe, PDS, MicroStation, and Intergraph. He told me his company is interested in how Autodesk is developing Plant3D, and looking at integrating their software with Autodesk's. They provide Russian databases for Rebis, Intergraph, and Bentley. Their new software uses intelligent databases of Russian specs, and generate reports with 3D systems. They think this will be of interest to western vendors. Much to NTP's benefit, the weak point of Western software is that it does not support Russian standards.

 

The price is roughly half that of Western vendors, but subscription fees are much higher at 40-60% of purchase price. This is because it includes high-quality direct technical support and training, as well as the software updates. Training is crucial in this industry; it is not just pushing buttons. And so training is a requirement to understand the software and the standards of the industry.

 

In the West, Mr Maglif tells me, design firms design pipelines; in Russia, the builder designs them, therefore the software is different: it is designed to be used by less experienced people. Thus NTP's software does so much of the analysis and checking work. In the West, designers are more free to make decisions and take responsibility for items, such as should factor of safety be 1.5 or 2x? But Russian designers are  not given the opportunity to make independent decisions.

 

Training is also available through a petro-chemical university. (Russia tends to have very specialized universities.) The skill quality of operators is not as high as should be, therefore training institutes are teaching how to use START and other programs. NTP's technical support includes theory, practical use of the program, standards, and so on.

 

Russia uses less 3D than abroad, because the pay for designers is  -- unfortunately -- lower than for foreign specialists. Although the situation is changing, but very slowly, unfortunately. That's why their prices are lower than that of "foreigners." For instance, the software for underground pipeline calculations cost about $20,000 in Europe, but their START software with all add-ons is about $5,000 -- 4x cheaper.

 

Spreading Beyond Russia

NTP is looking for new marketing areas outside of the former USSR region. While some European companies already use their software, they are working getting their software adapted to other Western markets. In addition, they are integrating standards with their own software, as well as with software from other vendors through open formats like txt and xml.

 

Their action plan is as follows:

Because the American and European markets are crowded with plant design software, NTP is looking for new markets, like China, as well as European firms doing business in Russia. For example, a Finnish company is building paper plants in Russia and bought NTP's Russian program. The design office is in St Petersburg, using Russian engineers and Russian software.

 

NTP Truboprovod

www.truboprovod.ru/en/about/truboprovod.shtml

 

 

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[622]

 

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[621]

 

Out of the Inbox

Allplan 2009 Allfa is Nemetschek Allplan's newest release of its facility management software, and features:

Allfa is available at the end of November 2009 in German, English and French. http://www.allplan.com  

 

 

VariCAD releases Version 2010 1.0 of its self-named 3D/2D mechanical CAD system, with:

30-day trial version from http://www.varicad.com.

 - - -

 

First Trace matches Autodesk's $300 price cut for AutoCAD LT by cutting $300 from the price of their Korrigo for AutoCAD LT engineering document management software. Price is now $499 until Jan 15, 2010. http://www.firsttrace.com/product-korrigo-autocad-lt.jsp  

 

CCE lets new customers get 2 licenses of Ensuite for the subscription cost of 1 license; existing customers can get the second license by paying an extra 50% of their current subscription cost. Available until Dec 24, 2009. EnSuite is a multi-CAD viewer, markup, BOM, and design checker. http://www.cadcam-e.com/products/EnSuite2

 

The Open Design Alliance implements a new enhancement request system for its members. http://www.opendesign.com

 

Schott Systeme's latest Pictures by PC v3.4 CAD/CAM software incorporated enhancements for 5-axis programming. http://www.schott-systeme.com  

 

PanzerCAD upgrades its CameraMatch ($100) plug-in for the Vectorworks 2010 line of CAD software. products. It aligns 3D views to photographs. http://www.panzercad.com

 

SmartCAMcnc field-test releases SmartCAM V16.5 with automated turning toolpath created directly from solid models, solid model verification, and more. http://www.SmartCAMcnc.com

 

Print Audit releases their Print Audit 6 software for the Macintosh operating system. http://www.printaudit.com  

 

And KeyCreator Version 9 fuses its direct modeling technology with newly added mating constraint capabilities. Until end of the year, get $700 off plus three months subscription for $2,995; get v8.5 today and v9 when it ships. http://info.kubotekusa.com/keycreator-version-9-special-offers

- - -

These were some of the news items posted during the last week at the WorldCAD Access blog <worldcadaccess.typepad.com>:

And at the Gizmos Grabowski weblog <worldcadaccess.typepad.com/gizmos>:

 

People/Companies on the Move

Autodesk reseller Hagerman & Company acquires AEC CAD Solutions, the oldest reseller in  Knoxville TN. Hagerman is inviting AEC CAD Solutions personnel for interviews.

 

Strata celebrates twenty years of 3D software at http://www.strata.com/2020. The Strata applications include Strata Foto 3D CX, Strata Enfold 3D CX, Strata Design 3D CX and Strata Live 3D CX.

 

WorthWhile Web

http://jamesriverbranch.net/detail_16.htm

"An N Scale Layout in Z Scale"

by David K. Smith

 

Spin Doctor of the Moment

"Should we have picked up on the trends a little sooner? It’s hard not to say we should have."

    - Robert J. Bach, president, entertainment and devices division, Microsoft

    http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/26/technology/26android.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss&pagewanted=print   

 

Notable Quotable

"The New York Public Library -- one of the library collections partnering with Google -- has digitally archived some 800,000 items, including 30,000 in the last nine months, but still has close to 50 million books and artifacts available only in print."

    - Alexandra Alter, in "The Next Age of Discovery"

    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124173896716198603.html

 

 

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