Advanced Light Source, Berkeley Lab
Managing the Flow of Innovation

"A current project is modifying one of the beam lines I originally built 10 years ago. One of the scientists pulled up a copy of my design and showed me all of the modifications he made. I never even knew he was working on the model. It was a quite complex thing, and he basically redesigned it all. They are months ahead of the game right now."

Rob Duarte, ALS Mechanical Engineering Group Leader

Design on the fly

The Advanced Light Source (ALS) division of Berkeley Lab works at the molecular level to probe the structure of atoms and unlock the mysteries of materials. One of the experiments (or projects) they design and use in their work is a photo electron emission microscope, which uses x-rays to allow scientists to see items as small as the magnetic domains on a hard drive.

The ALS continues to push to see smaller and smaller parts of our world with a third generation electron microscope currently under development. When completed, it will offer 10 times finer resolution than previous generations in use today. This powerful capability to see at the nanoscale is why researchers and corporations seek out the ALS to help conduct advanced research and development.

At the ALS, scientists work side-by-side with engineers to develop products used for experimental science. Projects many times don't even start out with a scope – they start out with an idea.

"Often the scientists don't have a good definition of a project they just know where they want to start," says Nicholas Kelez, ALS Mechanical Engineering Deputy Group Leader. "The design evolves out of what they are shown and what the engineers are able to do. It is a very dynamic development process."

CoCreate's explicit approach supports this innovation process of exploring, learning, and adapting.

"An explicit-based 3D CAD system gives engineers freedom to easily explore new ideas without having to plan modeling steps in advance of designing," says Rob Duarte, ALS Mechanical Engineering Group Leader. "I like exploring options and easily changing designs, adding ideas, and removing what doesn't work to figure out where I'm going."

Design options are often explored in collaborative meetings in real-time.

The extra dimension of 3D

It's not just the engineers that benefit from the speed and flexibility to easily change a design.

With 2D, scientist would wait until they saw the physical product before they would give feedback on how to change it. With 3D, scientists are involved early on and understand tradeoffs and why things are done a certain way.

"The scientists here just love 3D modeling — sometimes to our detriment because it makes it easy for them to change their mind," said Duarte.

"It's resulted in a lot better products because the scientists are more involved in the design. The design changes frequently and is changing until the very end."

A streamlined way to reuse existing data

Throughout the years, ALS has built a vast database of engineering projects. Many times new projects start by borrowing bits and pieces from existing projects. Data management software manages and searches across existing designs, while the flexibility of an explicit approach allows easy repurposing of existing designs into new and different projects.

The data management system keeps track of the entire research facility. The ALS consists of three accelerators, 36 beam lines and a constantly changing number of end stations. Organized data management allows rapid switching between all the projects and the 110 different coordinate systems that are needed to track and control the critical alignment tolerances of the various beam line and end station projects.

"A current project is modifying one of the beam lines I originally built 10 years ago," says Duarte. "One of the scientists pulled up a copy of my design and showed me all of the modifications he made. I never even knew he was working on the model. It was a quite complex thing, and he basically redesigned it all. They are months ahead of the game right now."

Not only can any team member pick up and easily carry another's design forward, but he or she can do it with any design created by another 3D CAD system. Only an explicit-based 3D CAD system lets engineers work with and modify designs from other 3D CAD systems as if they were created natively.

When engineering releases drawings and models for procurement or manufacturing, CoCreate's data management product shares completed design information to the organization's system of record. An automated process systematically creates PDF documents for released drawings and transfers 2D and 3D design data to the document control center where the rest of the organization can reach the correct version of information.

ALS also recently deployed CoCreate OneSpace.net to support collaboration with outside vendors. "In the past vendors would come and visit here on design reviews," says Duarte. "But already, we've tried remote online meetings with optics vendors and the sessions were quite successful."

It was very productive and the vendors stated that they look forward to doing business this way in the future.

Company Profile

The Advanced Light Source, one of Berkeley Lab's 17 scientific divisions, is a national user facility that generates intense light for scientific and technological research. The x-rays produced here are a hundred million times brighter than those from the most powerful x-ray tube.

The ALS makes previously impossible studies at the molecular level possible. The facility welcomes every year over 1,900 researchers from universities, industries, and government laboratories around the world.

For more information, please visit: www-als.lbl.gov.

A photo electron emission microscope, which uses x-rays to allow scientists to see items as small as the magnetic domains on a hard drive.