Towards Intelligent FEA: ALGOR Launches Human Factors Initiative

    PITTSBURGH---June 20, 2001--ALGOR, Inc., a leading maker of software for mechanical engineers, today announced a human factors initiative to optimize its FEA software by further improving ease of use and substantially reducing the time it takes to perform FEA analyses.
    Now available, the first release resulting from this initiative provides even more guidance and support to users through automation, customized menu selections and by elimination of keystrokes or mouse clicks across its entire suite of software.
    The new release shaves several minutes off of setup time by automatically displaying the optimal window and tree expansions while reducing numerous keystrokes or mouse clicks. To guide engineers through an accurate and efficient workflow, menu commands only become active at the appropriate stages in the design process. The combination of enhanced presentation and customized menu selections means engineers can perform even more analyses in less time.
    "With a well-developed system of built-in data checking for reasonable input, integrated HTML help and automatic unit definitions and conversions, ALGOR has led the movement towards intuitive FEA," said Michael L. Bussler, president and CEO of ALGOR, Inc. "Now, ALGOR customers will be able to save time and significant keystrokes or mouse clicks when they engineer products," he added.
    As part of this initiative, ALGOR engineers conducted an internal review of their products, and then improved the viewing and data options to better mirror an engineer's logic and intuition. Objects on the screen are now automatically maximized and enclosed, and the tree view is initially expanded to enable quicker access to all parts of a model and its associated data, adding valuable perspective in the design process.
    "Each individual keystroke or mouse click is a fraction of a second, but overall these actions can add up to significant amounts of time throughout the workday," said Development Manager, Bob Williams. "This initiative is all about making the user interface faster and easier to use than any other software in the industry, providing for an efficient design environment."
    Future releases as part of the initiative will include keystroke support for tabbing more quickly through options, shortcut keys for new commands and data input screens and a complete review of default engineering parameters.
    ALGOR customers with current software upgrade subscriptions can get the new improvements at no charge by requesting this latest release. ALGOR software is available for PC workstations running Windows NT, ME, 95, 98 or 2000.
    ALGOR has been a leader in mechanical simulation software since introducing FEA for PCs in 1984 and interfacing with CAD systems in 1985. The company's software products have enabled over 20,000 engineers in over 60 countries to create safe, efficient, cost-effective designs. ALGOR also offers educational support and customer service that includes the use of Internet audio/video technology for distance learning Web Courses, which provide step-by-step software instruction, and free Webcasts for live software demonstrations.
    ALGOR's family of products features Mechanical Event Simulation software for FEA-based motion and stress analysis, InCAD technology for seamless CAD/CAE integration with virtually all popular CAD systems and full multiphysics capabilities. The company also offers structural, linear dynamic, thermal, fluid flow, electrostatic and piping analysis tools. ALGOR's software interchanges data with products from ANSYS, Inc. , Autodesk, Inc. , CADKEY Corporation, MSC.Software Corporation , Parametric Technology Corporation (PTC), Structural Dynamics Research Corporation, UGS , SolidWorks Corporation, a Dassault Systemes S.A. company, and others.
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