Optimized Product Creation from Engineous

Of particular importance to manufacturers is the speed with which iSight arrives at optimal solutions. The programs whips through design possibilities far faster and less expensively than could be done using traditional means, and so helps manufacturers fulfill the popular goal of reducing time to market.

Manually testing product designs for all possible conditions of use is "terribly tedious and time consuming," says Daratech vice president Bruce Jenkins. Using iSight, however, designers can subject a product design to "many more conditions of use than they could do manually with any kind of efficiency."

ISight 6.0, the latest version of the product, features a design module that is based on Six Sigma, an industry standard process designed to increase quality by decreasing performance variability. Incorporating this module, users can now simultaneously create reliable designs that are less sensitive to performance variation. Version 6 also features additional optimization algorithms; the ability for users to integrate Excel spreadsheet data directly into iSight; advanced data analysis based on an interface with S-Plus, a post processing tool from Insightful Corp. (formerly MathSoft); and a customizable tool bar.

ISight 6.0 runs on SGI Irix, HP-UX, IBM AIX, Sun Solaris, Win dows NT/2000, and Linux Red Hat platforms. Pricing starts at $7500. (Engineous Software; www.engineous.com) -JD