Software donation creates new partnership for College of Technology
03/27/2009
If a company is going to spend $70,000 on a piece of software, they had better make sure their employees know how to use it.
Thanks to a new partnership with the German company MAGMA, metal casting students at Pittsburg State University will have the chance to learn how to use the company’s software before they graduate. Recently, PSU became the only university in North American identified as a certification site for the software, known as MAGMASOFT.
“It is quite an honor,” said Dr. Bruce Dallman, dean of the College of Technology. “What makes the software unique is that it does all the shrinkage computations and analysis of how metal flows through the mold.”
Dr. Russ Rosmait, university professor of engineering technology, said MAGMA came to PSU with the idea of a mutually beneficial certification program. PSU students will get to train on the latest version of the software for free, and their future employers will feel more comfortable buying the software.
“There are companies that buy their software, but the company will buy it and say, ‘Well how do I run it?’” Rosmait said. “So the software producer will say, ‘We’ve partnered with Pittsburg State University and they have a class in it and they’re going to have a certification program.”
Rosmait said PSU was using an older version before striking the new deal. The donation is worth over $600,000.
The software will be used in casting design and simulation classes.
“Those students selected for it can opt for a certification where they are tested on their skills in utilizing the software,” Rosmait said. “They’re given a real life situation for a product and they have to come up with a solution.”
Their work will be sent to MAGMA, which will approve or deny the student’s certification.
MAGMA is based in Aachen, Germany. For more information on the company or their products, visit http://www.magmasoft.de.
For more information on the College of Technology at PSU, call (620) 235-4365.
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