This is the second consecutive year Brown has placed in the competition. He took third place last year. Nathan Shipley, manager of NIAR’s CAD/CAM Lab, was the 2006 first place “Top Gun” award winner. He took second place in this year’s competition. Previous winners have come from companies such as Airbus, Hyundai Motors, Cessna Aircraft and Delphi Automotive. For winning the “Top Gun,” award Brown received a Dell Precision™ M90 Mobile Workstation and award plaque. Shipley received a digital camera.

Eighty six industry professionals competed in the competition, which challenges CATIA engineers and designers to test their skills at developing three-dimensional parts using CATIA software. Contestants are given an actual part and must replicate the part in a race against the clock to test speed and accuracy in part design.

Above: an image of the model that was
used in this year's Top Gun competition.

The purpose of the Top Gun Competition is to demonstrate variation in CATIA model quality and modeling techniques, and provide the opportunity for a COE attendee to earn the bragging rights to the "Best CATIA Modeler."

The theme of this year’s COE PLM conference was “Innovation & Collaboration.” More than one thousand attendees from various manufacturing companies and universities attended the conference, which provided more than 150 breakout sessions presented by executives from Dassault Systemes, IBM and various industry professionals.

For more information about the 2007 COE Top Gun competition, including scores and times of all competitors and instructions form this year's competition, visit the website.