Engineering students at Fanshawe College now have state-of-the-art software at their fingertips thanks to a new partnership with Siemens Canada.
Through its Siemens PLM Software partnership, the company has provided the college with an in-kind software grant worth more than $248-million. The Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) software is used by 77,000 businesses and 29 of the worlds top 30 automakers.
"Fanshawe has a history of producing great engineering students and we want to give them the tools that will enable them to be as creative and as successful in their corporate lives when they graduate and become leaders in industry," said Brian Mori, president and CEO of Siemens Industry Software.
The grant was formally announced Wednesday but students at Fanshawe's School of Applied Science and Technology were given access to the software a few weeks ago.
"Each student has it installed on their own laptops so they have 24 hours, seven days a week access in their own homes to use this software while they are a student here at Fanshawe," said Dave Machacek, chair of Fanshawe’s School of Applied Science and Technology.
Machacek pointed out that working with leading edge technology in college gives students a leg up in the job market once they graduate.
"Often times there is a lag between coming out of school and being at the high end of production in industry. This allows us to eliminate that lag so that the students come out prepared to attack the problems that they are going to see when they get to their jobs," he said.
A similar grant from Siemens was announced last spring at Western University.
London-based Longterm Technology Services Inc., a Siemens distributor, worked closely with Fanshawe and Siemens on the partnership.