MSCC Receives $23.1 million in High-Tech Software from Siemens

Mid-South Community College has been awarded $23,148,700 in high-tech engineering and design computer programs from Siemens PLM Software, a business unit of the Siemens Industry Automation Division. Siemens is a leading global provider of product lifecycle management (PLM) software which helps turns ideas into successful products by allowing users to digitally author, validate, and manage projects that support continuous innovation.

“We are extremely grateful to Siemens PLM Software for its commitment to advance educational opportunities for our students from Arkansas, Tennessee, and Mississippi,” said Dr. Kyle Wagner, MSCC Vice President for Workforce Technology. “This award is exceptionally valuable because it provides us with the tools to train our students for tomorrow’s jobs on one of the best engineering design software platforms available.”

“Advanced technology like the PLM software is critical to preparing our students for the challenges of our region, nation, and world. We are pleased to partner with Siemens PLM Software in providing Mid-South students with training opportunities that will make them attractive in a highly-competitive market place.”
 

The in-kind grant through Siemens PLM Software’s Global Opportunities in Product Lifecycle Management (GO PLM™) program provides MSCC with 20 copies each of Solid Edge (total commercial value $458,900), NX ($17,893,900), Nastran ($3,596,200) and CAM Express ($1,199,700). Solid Edge is an industry-leading mechanical design system with tools for creating and managing 3D digital prototypes. NX delivers a complete set of flexible shape creation, manipulation, and analysis tools and is an integrated part of a complete digital product development solution.
 

Nastran is a premium computer-aided engineering tool that major manufacturers rely on for critical engineering computing needs to produce safe, reliable, and optimized designs within increasingly shorter design cycle times. CAM Express is an in-depth, highly flexible system that allows users to maximize the value of their investments in the latest, most efficient, and most capable machine tools.
 

“Siemens engineers very valuable and exacting software that is among the best in the world,” said David Giordano, MSCC machining instructor who pursued the grant for the college. “All of the medical companies have adopted it as their premier software, and we focus a lot on training for the medical device field.”
 

“There are other easier packages out there to learn that do comparable things, but when you get to a certain level, this software just blows them out of the water because it does so much. It is engineering software where you can do human modeling, add weight factors to an airplane, and perform stress analyses.”
 

Giordano said the grant puts MSCC at the forefront of training opportunities in the region. “Most colleges can’t afford this software, not to this level,” he pointed out. “The University of Memphis has it, but they still don’t have all the packages and all the seat licenses. You have to take a course in it to get a mechanical engineering degree, but it’s just a small part of it.”
 

“And you don’t get to this software until your junior or senior year. Most people are not going to go through all of the math required to get that far. No community colleges in the region teach it, so we’re excited that Mid-South is the first.” The training is important, but the potential results of the training are even more important, Giordano said.
 

“There are jobs out there, but a lot of people need to get new skill sets,” Giordano explained. “It’s a great opportunity for our college to teach them what they need. Smith & Nephew and Wright Medical use this software exclusively, and many other companies use it and other similar softwares as well.”

“If you’re an adult and work at Smith & Nephew, you want to get to the next level,” Giordano continued. “Most of the time they’ll ask you, ‘Do you know NX?’ And the answer normally is, ‘No, I don’t.’ So where can you learn that? You can now learn it at Mid-South Community College. NX looks great on a job application because it’s one of those things that sets you apart. We want to be an industry-feeding institution, and this software will help us accomplish that.”
 

As part of the grant, Siemens also provides free training to MSCC employees. Giordano says he plans to take advantage of every opportunity to learn more about the software. “The next step for the college and me is to access continuing education so that I will feel comfortable with us serving as a training center,” he said. “Right now, Memphis engineers have to go to St. Louis or Boston or Texas when they want to learn different aspects of this software. We want to be able to provide that training in West Memphis, Arkansas.”

MSCC joins other leading institutions which have partnered with Siemens PLM Software on this innovative software program including Auburn University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the University of California at Berkeley, Virginia Tech, Oklahoma State University, Purdue, Arizona State University, Rutgers, Michigan State University, Brigham Young University, and Carnegie Mellon.
 

The first-of-its-kind program brings together industry and academia to define program requirements that will help meet the needs of the marketplace. The GO PLM initiative leads the industry in the commercial value of the in-kind grants it provides and brings together programs focused on academic partnership, regional productivity, youth and displaced worker development, and the Partners for the Advancement of Collaborative Engineering Education program.
 

GO PLM provides PLM technology to more than one million students yearly at nearly 10,500 global institutions, where it is used at every academic level, from grade schools to graduate engineering research programs.

For more information on high-tech training opportunities at Mid-South Community College, call (870) 733-6728, email admissions@midsouthcc.edu, visit MSCC at 2000 West Broadway, or see the website at www.midsouthcc.edu.