Siemens brings AI copilot, immersive design and integrated fluid and thermal simulation to NX

"Our work to bring together our product engineering solutions under the Designcenter brand is moving at an incredible pace," said Bob Haubrock, senior vice president, Siemens Digital Industries Software. "The latest updates to NX reaffirm that our commitment to not only introducing new AI-driven copilot capabilities and Characteristics led MBD for downstream quality and manufacturing, but to also explore new areas for innovation in our long established and industry leading product engineering toolset."

Design Copilot NX

Delivered with the latest update, the new Design Copilot NX leverages Siemens' robust learning resources and provides an AI-based natural language interface to enable users to accelerate their learning - whether new to the software or experienced users looking to extend their knowledge and explore new capabilities. By leveraging natural language input and querying, the NX copilot capabilities enable users to find answers to technical queries, best practices and documentation quickly and efficiently.

Immersive engineering

At CES in 2024, Siemens announced its intention to deliver immersive engineering capabilities, in partnership with Sony and its industry leading mixed reality headset. The latest updates to NX have delivered these capabilities across several product introductions. Alongside the capabilities of NX Immersive Designer which enable designers and engineers to create, view, and edit 3D CAD designs in virtual reality or augmented reality, most recent updates introduce NX Immersive Collaborator - enabling colleagues, partners and other stakeholders to collaborate in the same virtual reality space.

Collaborative sessions can be started directly from the NX interface without the need for extensive preparatory work typically associated with VR collaboration and provide a full range of design review tools to measure, assess and annotate individual parts or entire assemblies.

Design for Manufacturing and extending MBD with characteristics

Introduced in the latest updates, the new NX Inspector is capability that adds model-based characteristics to a digital twin to extend the use of Model-based Design (MBD) to define downstream quality and manufacturing processes. Based on the Digital Metrology Standards Consortium's Model-Based Characteristics standard, it enables designers and engineers to define manufacturing PMI that can be reused to drive creation of inspection and metrology processes based on real-time, management data through integration with Teamcenter and Teamcenter Quality.

The new Design for Manufacture (DFM) Advisor automates early manufacturability assessments by analysing part geometry and identifying potential challenges across multiple manufacturing processes (such as drilling, milling, assembly and molding) and providing actionable feedback directly in the interface. Visual reports can be generated and managed in Teamcenter to share with colleagues and partners, while using the insights to drive additional workflows.

Lastly for DFM enhancements the NX Mold Wizard has been extended to not only introduce standard parts that update in real-time with configuration changes, but also now features enhanced cooling channel simulation tools to enable iteration of cooling systems to achieve the best part quality while optimizing cycle time.

Simulation based on industry proven technology

With the latest updates, Siemens is also introducing NX CFD Designer software, a new CAD integrated design simulation tool, powered by technology from Siemens' Simcenter FLOEFD software. CFD Designer enables designers to access fluid flow and thermal capabilities directly within the NX CAD workspace to support simulation-driven decision making.

Designed to be easy to use for those without CFD experience, it uses robust automation to tackle complex tasks like fluid volume detection and meshing on the designers' behalf. It enables designers to quickly evaluate a range of operating scenarios, what-if studies and geometry variations and compare the results. Alongside the new CFD Designer, Siemens has also extended the capabilities of Performance Predictor to enable designers and engineers to run mechanical stress analyses across entire assemblies.

"Through our comprehensive Frost Radar analysis of the mechanical computer-aided design (MCAD) tools within the Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) industry for 2025, Frost and Sullivan has identified Siemens' NX software as the clear innovation leader. The Siemens MCAD solutions consistently demonstrate groundbreaking advancements, setting new benchmarks for the entire market. Their unwavering commitment to product innovation, coupled with a deep understanding of manufacturers' evolving needs, positions Siemens as the premier partner for companies seeking to harness the full power of MCAD technology to drive their business forward," said Francisco Dell'era, research analyst, Frost and Sullivan.