department shift to solidworks advice
department shift to solidworks advice
(OP)
I don't know if this is an appropriate thread for this forum but I can't really think of a better group to ask. My company uses autocad for the most part and has 2 seats of solid works. I'm trying to get them to upgrade all seats to solidworks and have to write a proposal consisting of cost benefits to the plant manager for approval. We will need around 8 more seats which equals a lot of money plus training cost. Has anyone done this before? My manager is on board it's just the cost vs value I have to sale the "plant manager" (none engineer) on like getting future products to market faster. I'm also putting together a photoworks presentation for marketing and catalog benefit. If anyone has can give some good advice?






RE: department shift to solidworks advice
Cole M
CSWP, CSWST, CSWI, CPDM
SW06
SW07
IBM T42p, 2g proc., 1g RAM,ATI Mobility Fire GL T2
HP XW4100, 3g proc., 3g RAM, Nvidia Quadro 980 XGL
HP XW4300, 3.4g proc, 2.5g RAM, ATI Fire GL 3100
RE: department shift to solidworks advice
RE: department shift to solidworks advice
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Also, some of these may help;
http
SW07-SP3
RE: department shift to solidworks advice
One of the biggest benefits is reduced time to make changes, but you will not see these reductions quickly untill your product data has been fully converted to SW format. Do you have ENC/ECO processes at your company now? If so you may be able to conduct time studies to get an average time for how long it takes to make a change.
Having two seats is a good start, and you could expand the seats slowly over time. I assume you have two users now. I would send them to classes first if they haven't been yet, then they could serve as trainers for the rest of the group. They know your products and culture, and their learning experiences can go a long way towards training the others in a manner that makes sense to them.
We were able to shave 3-6 months off of our development time, and reduce the need to make prototypes by about half. Our products range from 600-1000 components. Being primarily sheet metal manufacturers, we wee able to improve the rejection rate of parts by about 20% once we determined the correct k-factor that approximated our tooling and processes.
A little Haiku for you:
AutoDesk gray skies
Parametric is the way
SolidWorks sunshine
Good luck.
"Art without engineering is dreaming; Engineering without art is calculating."
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RE: department shift to solidworks advice
RE: department shift to solidworks advice
-Shaggy
RE: department shift to solidworks advice
Chris
SolidWorks 07 3.0/PDMWorks 07
AutoCAD 06
ctopher's home (updated 03-26-07)
RE: department shift to solidworks advice
There's lots of benefits like Photorendering your products, Animations, eDrawings, can better see if parts fit, CNC from the model, sheetmetal unfolding, FEA, Motion, etc.
Jason
UG NX2.02.2 on Win2000 SP3
UG NX4.01.0 on Win2000 SP3
SolidWorks 2007 SP2.2 on WinXP SP2
RE: department shift to solidworks advice
RE: department shift to solidworks advice
SW07-SP3
RE: department shift to solidworks advice
In assembly environments, consider the huge likelihood of error reduction in a true 3D environment. There's no such thing as updating individual views--there's only one model per part--if you change it, it's updated. This saves time and probability a view may have omitted edits.
Depending on the nature of your design, you should see a significant reduction of time per design. So tally up what the users' salaries are and see how well SolidWorks pays for itself.
Jeff Mowry
www.industrialdesignhaus.com
Reason trumps all. And awe transcends reason.
RE: department shift to solidworks advice
If it’s not too much to ask, I would really like to see your photoworks presentation for marketing and catalog benefit.
Marc
RE: department shift to solidworks advice
You might also investigate Autodesk Inventor as it includes AutoCAD(and MDT and AutoCAD Mechanical)for free to help during the transition phase.
Autodesk Inventor Certified Expert
Certified SolidWorks Professional
RE: department shift to solidworks advice
IMO, best to drop Autocad and just start modeling everything.....or they will always use Autocad as a crutch and have an excuse to not learn using a 3d modeler.
Jason
UG NX2.02.2 on Win2000 SP3
UG NX4.01.0 on Win2000 SP3
SolidWorks 2007 SP3.1 on WinXP SP2
RE: department shift to solidworks advice
SW07-SP3.1
SW06-SP5.1