In an initiative to bring modern technology to the Stoke-based
ceramics industry, the Hothouse programme opted for a low-cost
NT-based workstation solution
Within the Midlands region, pottery has flourished over the last
250 years, spawning household names like Doulton, Portmeirion,
Spode and the Stoke-based Wedgwood Ltd. As global competition
pushes all companies to become more competitive, new technology has
stepped in to help revitalise Stoke's diminishing pottery
community.
In 1994, the European Union granted Stoke-on-Trent City Council a
substantial grant of £1.3m to help bring new technology to both
manufactures and retailers of ceramics in the Midlands area. The
Hothouse in Loughton, Stoke-on-Trent, has subsequently benefited
from a additional £1.14m upgrade of St James House, a local listed
building offering a huge number of services to all area of the
ceramics industry.The company makes use of an extensive range of
workstations and imaging and manufacturing tools. Initially
Hothouse chose a non-Microsoft/Intel solution instead of running a
Sun Solaris file and web server and separate Solaris-based
Firewall. Initially, CADCAM applications were run on a variety of
SPARC-based boxes with Apple Macs for 2D graphics and
printing.Hothouse general manger, Andy Briggs, explains the
reasoning. "Stability for us was a very important consideration -
Windows was not a stable enough environment for our needs back in
1995. Although more expensive, we choose SGI and Sun Workstations
as our primary hardware platform and they served us very well
indeed."The Hothouse has flowered into a truly extraordinary mix of
technologies with hardware and operating systems offering several
unique services to the 25 companies based at the site and the 60
others who regularly use their services.These services include
Visualisation, Rapid Prototyping, 3D scanning as well as extensive
CADCAM tools. The outputs from these creation tools are linked over
the company network to computer-controlled lathe's and colour
printers. It makes use of some of the most specialist pieces of
equipment available, including one of the UK's few 3D printers,
made by Z-Corp. It turns 3D designs into physical starch and
cellulose models, up to 25cm high. The Hothouse's computer systems
are based around a 100Mbit network connected by a 1.55Mbit ATM to
the Star-Line network, which is a collection of local colleges,
universities and training centres in the Staffordshire area. The
five design rooms are equipped with SGI Model 320 NT Workstations
running DeskArts-3D surface Modelling and Delcam's Powemill
software. The 320 is a Pentium III-based system, which scales from
a single 450MHz chip up to a dual 550MHz Intel Zeon processor. The
system has a proprietary graphics architecture that is
significantly faster than the more common AGP chipset and is
optimised for CADCAM applications. Desktop publishing is catered
for by several Apple Macintosh G3 suites and a few high-end imaging
systems from Intergraph that provide real-time virtual reality
rendering. The whole centre's network is managed centrally using
Hewlett-Packard's ProCurve range of switches and Top-Tools
management software. The network is maintained by Live Information
Systems.Technical manager, Darius Khadjenouri says: "When we set up
the Hothouse's network infrastructure the site was clean, so the
kit went smoothly allowing us more time to develop services. In
fact, we are currently setting up systems to allow companies
working at the Hothouse to use bandwidth segments on a 2Mbit data
stream connected to the Internet." Although Hothouse has extensive
in-house facilities, the centre often demonstrates CAD technology
to companies within their own environments. Briggs explains: "There
are over 250 companies involved with ceramics in the Stoke area and
over 40,000 jobs dependent on this industry. Unfortunately, the
growth and acceptance of new technology, especially in respect to
time to market issues has been pretty stagnant. We are trying to
offer these industries a way of dipping a toe into the waters of
cutting edge technology without having to take a financially risky
cold bath."Managing the Hothouse's network has been a challenge for
Briggs. Over the years, the number of support contracts and vendors
has mushroomed, especially as more software applications move over
to the Windows environment.Reducing costs generally motivates this
move to NT. The 24 SGI 340 NT Workstations cost the centre over
£100,000. Compared to equivalent non-Intel/Microsoft solutions this
figure is "less than the support costs of one solution we looked
at," according to Briggs.The Hothouse is not standing still. Next
year sees a new site opening across the road. The site will offer
CADCAM to more users, a 100-seater lecture hall and Internet
hosting services aimed at the ceramics industry. A Gigabit fibre
stream to the existing network will also link the new site.
Although initially funded by European money, Hothouse is now
self-sufficient and the additional site and facilities upgrades are
all being paid for by the revenue generated by the centre.
Will
Garside