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People including Ferrari, Toyota, Audi, Volkswagen, Boeing,
the Raytheon Company, Lockheed Martin, Sony, Mi-
crosoft, Samsung, Dell, HP, and more. The company’s
Israeli development center was established in the ear-
ly nineties and is currently run by Technion graduates. Reebok have realized there’s no other way and adopt-
Ben Horin himself completed his PhD in robotics at
the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and is now part
of the strategic partnership between the Technion and
PTC. As part of this partnership, the latter intends to door with our customers, who were advanced and
establish a R&D center on the Technion’s campus in
Haifa, investing 15 million NIS over five years. Addi-
tionally, the company will assist with researching and
improving learning processes in a wide range of fields
related to advanced production technologies.
Ben Horin uses the jet engine as an example to
explain PTC’s part in the ongoing maintenance of
products. “Our job begins at the requirements stage,
before the product even exists,” he explains. “From
there we move to planning, simulations, develop-
ment, design, manufacturing and assembly. The
advantage of a digital thread is its ability to monitor keep up with the pace,” laughs Ben Horin. “Since the
the product even after it has been supplied to the
customer, because all the digital information about
the product is saved within it. For example, there are
many different conditions under which a flight will be
most effective, depending on the engine. The infor-
mation we collect looks at the conditions under which
the most effective flight took place. The engine then
transmits updates back to the mother company about
its condition at any given moment: shaking, turbines,
propellor blades, and the engine itself. The company
can then send back recommendations for the optimal
speed at which the engine should be flown in order to
extend its lifespan, and later a maintenance routine
adapted to the customer’s specific situation – not
something generic that all planes receive.”
The ability to transmit information about optimal
operation of the product in both directions became
especially significant during the pandemic. “Think
about the combine harvester: a very complex prod-
uct that costs millions and operates outdoors,” says
Ben Horin. “During the pandemic in the United States
(especially during peak harvesting season), there
weren’t always technicians available to come out and
see what the problem was if something broke down.
Our sensors made it possible to transmit the status of
the combine back to the service center, identity the
malfunction, and give the operator instructions about
how to disassemble and repair the combine.”
What other changes did the pandemic prompt? After
all, your software was already engaged in remote work.
32 | MEgazine | Faculty of Mechanical Engineering
“Our customers are giant companies working in
a vast range of fields and technologies. Without our
technology, they would have a hard time adapting to
the current reality. Even competitors such as Nike and
ed the technology, which allows them to both plan and
control their manufacturing process over time. In this
sense, the pandemic broke through an already open
ready for the digital transformation. Those who were
ready were unharmed and even thrived. Those who
were unprepared were greatly damaged, and now have
to invest a huge amount of resources to catch up.”
“Students today need to
gain experience working in
multidisciplinary teams.”
But the pandemic also changed the situation for
PTC itself: “The biggest changes and difficulties are
related to our ability to meet demand. We just can’t
entire market has been driven into this transforma-
tion, we are forced to release programs early to ad-
dress the ever-growing need. We really struggle to
find suitable personnel, because we need engineers
who are not only good, but also multidisciplinary,
with a deep understanding of engineering.”
The workforce crisis in the tech industry isn’t just a
problem for PTC; several of Israel’s largest companies
are now investing a fortune in employer branding in
an effort to snatch up the best engineers and devel-
opers. But according to Ben Horin, the trouble is not
only in the disparity between supply and demand,
but also in the disparity between the industry’s re-
quirements and the academic education that engi-
neering students receive in the various faculties. “I
see a dissonance between academia and industry,”
he explains. “In the past, basic research was conduct-
ed in academia, while applied research happened in
the industry. Today there is a bit of a role reversal,
and companies are sometimes better about adopting
and using new technologies than academia. In oth-
er words, we see a huge amount of groundbreaking
research and progress in industry, but in academia
these changes take much longer. Students obtain
first-rate analytical thinking skills, but they are quite
lacking in systematic engineering thinking skills. They
are unprepared to use new technologies such as ad-
vanced software, and they lack experience working in