PTC StillNASA Darling

The Associated Press reports on the continuing controversy over NASA giving PTC a long-term contract for design software without a competition -- and now the space agency's inspector general is asking what's going on. As well, a senator from Iowa wants to know why NASA isn't open to competitions. Anyone know which CAD vendor is located in Iowa?

NASA is two months overdue on reporting on the issue; the space agency is asking vendors to submit bids providing cost estimates for data conversions to new formats.

Which, of course, is the problem. NASA really must stick with Pro/E as its CAD program to preserve the integrity of the file formats. With all the problems NASA is experiencing, it surely does not need an Airbus-like data problem by introducing a different CAD system.

Comments

[Doug Vander Wilt]

The former EAI was headquartered in Ames, Iowa and remains as an UGS location, so there are other states that would stand to gain or lose more. The responsible use of USA government funds would benefit taxpayers and businesses in all states regardless of Senator Grassley's motives. While NASA may have good reasons to stick with PTC, there should be no shame in seeking a fair and open decision process and avoiding supplier lock-in.

[John Nolin]

This all assumes that NASA actually sticks to its own standards. Problem is that on smaller projects, SolidWorks and 2D AutoCAD are used because that is the experience base of the available staff at the time. Fortunately subassembly files are generally transfered in STEP file format so that it does not matter as much which software originally created it.
The whole situation does benefit PTC in that each subcontractor must buy at least a couple of Pro/E seats in addition to their own preferred design software so that they can read the few native files they might get from a NASA division.
Asking the other vendors to include file conversion costs puts them at a financial disadvantage, and assumes a unified design file library, which simply isn't the case.
Better yet, would be standardize the unit system for all new projects, so there would be fewer metric designed subsystems fastened to inch designed platforms with both mm and inch fasteners.