Mechanical engineering students at the Viterbi School of Engineering lost access to Siemens NX, a computer-aided design program, Sept. 1 due to a software licensing issue, forcing some professors to cancel class meetings and disrupting student design projects. 

CAD software, such as NX, is used to design and test 3D models and is commonly used in mechanical engineering courses and several student design projects.

Paul Ronney, the department chair of aerospace and mechanical mechanical engineering, said the Viterbi IT department planned to renew the NX’s license file, which authorizes access to a software, at the beginning of the month. However, changes in the file’s generation made the new license incompatible with Viterbi’s licensing server. As a result of the licensing issue, NX, which is provided to students by Viterbi, was inaccessible for nine days.

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“There have certainly been cases where it’s been difficult to get the license file to work,” Ronney said. “This is the first example that I know of, and hopefully the last, where class was disrupted for several days.”

In a statement released Sept. 11, the Viterbi IT department said students would have access to NX through a temporary license while the Siemens software engineering team worked toward a permanent solution. 

However, this license expired Sept. 17 before long-term access was restored. Ronney said Viterbi acquired an additional temporary license to allow classes to continue for another week before securing a long-term license that will last until August 2025.

Neysi Chegue, a junior majoring in mechanical engineering, said the access issues prevented her from working on assignments that required NX and led to the temporary cancellation of her computer-aided design class, which enrolls around 100 students. 

Although Chegue received a deadline extension for her work, she said she was frustrated by the disruption. 

“It’s kind of ridiculous,” Chegue said. “I like structure within my classes. I like to know when things are due. Especially as an engineering major, we can’t just spontaneously have assignments getting thrown at us and moved around.”

After acquiring the temporary license, Chegue’s computer-aided design class was able to meet for the second time since the start of the semester. Chegue said there were no performance issues with the temporary licenses, but the delays caused by access issues have had larger implications. 

“As a junior, I really want to get all these technical skills for internship applications for the summer because I want to be able to already say on my resume that I’m learning NX … so that was frustrating,” Chegue said. “At least I’m not a senior, though, because they have senior design projects, and a lot of people use NX.”

Classes that used CAD software other than NX, including Ronney’s Introduction to Mechanical Engineering course, were unaffected by the licensing issue. However, some student organizations that use NX could not gain access to a temporary license and are still experiencing issues with the software, despite the school acquiring a long-term license. 

Sophia Li, a sophomore majoring in mechanical engineering and the program chair for the USC Recumbent Vehicle Design Team, said the team has been unable to use the temporary licenses and has resorted to using a different CAD software for its projects. 

The ongoing access issues have prevented the Recumbent Vehicle Design Team from integrating and teaching new members how to use the NX.

Jake Hatakeyama, a junior majoring in aerospace engineering, is the structures lead for the USC AeroDesign Team, which uses NX to simulate its plane models. Despite Viterbi acquiring a long-term license, the AeroDesign Team has continued to deal with access issues.

Hatakeyama said the AeroDesign Team was able to gain access to NX’s modeling features but not its simulation features, forcing the team to learn a new simulation software to continue work.

“A lot of the work that we do now lays the foundation of how we work in the future, especially with the processes that we use now and the lessons we’re able to learn,” Hatakeyama said. “[It] can be frustrating because it’s just delaying all of the progress we could have gotten done.”

Hatakeyama said the AeroDesign Team has been communicating with the Viterbi IT department to resolve the issue.

“Most of the updates we’ve gotten were from having to email the IT department or their newsletter on their website,” Hatakeyama said. “They have some dates that they try to sort of get by, but it’s just a bit of a mess.”