Return to RISA? 1

[JoshPlumSE]

Sorry for the misleading title. I am NOT going to be returning to RISA.

However, I have always kept an eye on the company, their social media posts. And, visited their booths when I was at a structural engineering conference. I noticed recently that one of their posts used a term like "It's time to Return to RISA".

Engineering Tomorrow: Hidden Costs of Manual Calculations

Discover the hidden costs of manual calculations and see how RISA boosts efficiency, accuracy, and profitability in structural design.

blog.risa.com

I'm genuinely curious if this post is indicative that a lot of people have moved away from RISA's Software? If you are one of those people, I'd be interested in hearing why you've lessened your RISA use?

In the interest of saving us from long explanations / rants, maybe we can categorize categorize reasons people have left RISA or dramatically reduced it's use:

a) Cost / Value: Meaning that the cost has been increasing and you no longer see the value with the software.

b) Changes in licensing: Meaning that you prefer to "own" your software and will continue to use your old hardware key and you don't want to have the type of yearly subscription / rental that software companies seem to like:

c) You don't like the newer RISA interface or find it hard to use.

d) The quality has gone down. This could be the quality of the software, the technical support staff. The quality of development (i.e. buggy software or an inability to develop features you want to see). Even just a general feeling that the company is going in the wrong direction.

e) Changes in industry or the type of projects you work on.

f) You never really liked it and you moved on just because you had an opportunity and you seized it.


Important Caveats:

• I worked for RISA for something like 17 years and was (essentially) the VP of Engineering, Tech Support & Training when I left RISA. That was more than 7 years ago when the original owner sold the company to some big European (German) conglomerate with a name that I refuse to remember or spell. My time ended with a some hard feelings between me and the current CEO (Amber Freund).... who is pretty close to the only employee still working for RISA from my time under the previous owner.
• I now work for one of RISA's biggest competitors (Computers and Structures Inc which writes the SAP, ETABS and numerous other programs). My employer doesn't know anything about this post and in no way encouraged me to write any of this.
• I would fully understand if people felt like this post isn't an honest attempt to connect with you all on social media about a company / software that we (who follow this forum) all care about in some form. However, that is my motivation.... To better understand where this company has gone wrong... or if they haven't gone wrong and I'm misinterpreting the "It's time to return to RISA" post.

 

[mferg318]

In my admittedly limited connections to engineers at other companies, I'm actually noticing an opposite trend...that is, people either going back to RISA after trying another software for some period, or trying RISA for the first time.

 

[JAE]

Always stuck with it. But still using the older interface (v 17) vs. the newer Revit-like interface.

 

[JoshPlumSE]

So, the general consensus would be that there really hasn't be a dramatic move away from RISA..... Perhaps this comment of theirs was just a reflection of users sticking with an older version and not paying for upgrades.

That would make A LOT of sense. When I worked there, we saw a large uptick in sales / revenue when Windows XP came out.... Why? Because there were a lot of users who never chose to upgrade to the Window's version of the program and just stuck with the older DOS version. And, when Windows XP came out those folks had a really hard time getting the old DOS version to work.

 

[TOLstryk]

I actually like the RISA licensing scheme and believe the price is fair. I am aware that nobody owns software anymore but allowing me to have a floating license that can be shared between users is great. Unlike Autodesk...

 

[JoshPlumSE]

TOLstryk: I actually like the RISA licensing scheme and believe the price is fair. I am aware that nobody owns software anymore but allowing me to have a floating license that can be shared between users is great. Unlike Autodesk...

That's an excellent point. I remember thinking that it gave even single license users the ability to give their whole office access to their one license. They just can't be using it at the same time.

 

[TOLstryk]

That's an excellent point. I remember thinking that it gave even single license users the ability to give their whole office access to their one license. They just can't be using it at the same time.

It's a cloud license now, so I can be in the program working, finish up and exit, and the license checks back into the cloud. When my other staff needs it, it'll pull it to them. It's nice because we don't use RISA all day long, it is usually a switch between that and drafting in Revit.

 

[StructuralCop]

The company is in trouble. Over the past two years, a substantial number of senior-level technical personnel have departed, leading to a significant loss of technical expertise. Many key figures are gone, leaving younger employees struggling without guidance. This brain drain has disrupted the company's ability to maintain a reasonable development schedule. The impact is evident in the lack of meaningful updates and improvements, with no significant releases produced in the past year.

Before considering a return, it would be wise to assess whether the software of interest is actively being developed and updated. If you previously communicated with a specific technical expert, it's advisable to check whether they are still with the company. Given recent massive departures, it is likely they are no longer there.

Additionally, the parent company, "N," rarely mentions "R" in its social media posts, suggesting a shift in focus. Their posts generate a lot of buzz around AI, but so far, it hasn’t led to anything substantial. "N" appears to be prioritizing other brands, with a strong push toward the Indian and Asian markets. In the global strategy of "N", other players appear taking the front row, while "R" is placed in back seat. "N" is likely reallocating its resources to the brands that operate more efficiently and generate higher profits.

Cloud licensing itself is not inherently problematic. However, it cannot compensate for poor performance and a lack of recent updates—especially when the software is significantly overpriced.

It's a good idea to weigh the pros and cons before deciding to return instead of rushing into it.

 

[JAE]

For a first time poster here, StructuralCap, it might be good if you sourced this information. Otherwise one here might be inclined to see it as a competitor trying to poison the engineers who frequent Eng-Tips.

Not saying you are doing that - but jeesh - this is an abrupt diatribe against RISA coming out of the blue from a brand new member here.

 

[JoshPlumSE]

For a first time poster here, StructuralCap, it might be good if you sourced this information. Otherwise one here might be inclined to see it as a competitor trying to poison the engineers who frequent Eng-Tips.

Not saying you are doing that - but jeesh - this is an abrupt diatribe against RISA coming out of the blue from a brand new member here.

That's a really good point. Also, keep in mind that the reason why I frequently give caveats explaining my bias against RISA is because they have threatened me with a lawsuit in the past. Specifically for my posts on sites like this that were truthful, but which made the company look bad. Granted, this was an indirect threat through a 3rd party.

FWIW, I have no idea who StructuralCap is. But, I can vouch for a one thing that was said:

"Substantial number of senior-level technical personnel have departed, leading to a significant loss of technical expertise"

I can only think of one "senior" person who is still there from when I was there (the CEO). And, I can probably think of a dozen who have left.... executive level staff (me, Roger, Bruce, Christine, Debbie) and other very experienced staff (Winston, Adam, Mike, Caitlin, Rachelle, Javal). Maybe I'm not remembering all of them, but this is shocking for a company that had VERY little turnover in staff when Bruce was truly running things.

When I was employed by RISA (not "Nuchneck"), there was a big effort to move certain programming off shore (specifically to the Ukraine). This was a cost efficiency thing. Expanding new development to a cheaper location, but making sure it was overseen by experienced staff here at the US office. This was especially necessary because the Ukraine development team was mostly mathematician type of programmers. That's awesome when they're working of an advanced numerical solver.... But, not as good when they're doing code checks for steel or concrete design. And, downright awful for understanding how an engineer will want the user interface to look.

My fear is that there just isn't enough "senior staff" anymore to oversee the development and quality control.

 

[JAE]

JoshPlumSE - appreciate your input here. I'm sure you have access to facts we don't but sometimes after leaving a company, and learning about all your fellow coworkers who left soon after you did, there's always the possibility that the company added staff we weren't aware of later.

I like your insight into RISA of course - but sometimes get uncomfortable when posts by others appear - slamming an actual firm based on unknown sources or hearsay.

 

[JoshPlumSE]

JoshPlumSE - appreciate your input here. I'm sure you have access to facts we don't but sometimes after leaving a company, and learning about all your fellow coworkers who left soon after you did, there's always the possibility that the company added staff we weren't aware of later.

I like your insight into RISA of course - but sometimes get uncomfortable when posts by others appear - slamming an actual firm based on unknown sources or hearsay.

Oh, they have definitely added staff. Some of them are probably very good. The issue is really that they've lost a lot of institutional knowledge....

You have to think of a legacy program as an old building that was built for one purpose and has been re-modeled and re-purposed over and over again. When someone comes in to tear down a wall, it's really good to have someone come in and say...."No, probably don't want to do that, this is a load bearing wall and affects the framing for the 2nd, 3rd, and 5th floors, but not the 4th."

There are so many times when writing a specification for a new feature, I would warn a new developer about something. They always want to re-number display lists, without realizing that re-numbering it will cause all the old files to be read in incorrectly.... That sort of thing.

The biggest issue that keeps coming up is that management's focus moving away from customer experience into more of a pure sales / profit motivation. And, the technical staff getting the short end of the stick compared to the sales / marketing / management folks. It's almost as if the employees are now viewed as easily replaceable pieces of little value.... whereas the previous owner valued long term employee retention.

 

[ErikBjurSE]

I was a faithful RISA user for at least 15 years before switching. I've owned multiple structural engineering companies and I think we bought everything RISA sold. I'm retired now but stumbled on this post and thought I'd throw in my 2 cents.

RISA was the standard, no need to look elsewhere. Years back I worked on a very large project where I needed to work closely with a Canadian company to verify their work that was done in STAAD. When I couldn't get the same results as the Canadian engineers, I opted to use Autodesk Robot as a back check on my calculations. Robot was included in my Autodesk subscription at the time, so I didn't need to buy anything extra. I was blown away at the difference between Risa and Robot and not in a good way. I was incredibly frustrated with Robot initially. There's probably some brutal rants on the autodesk forums still floating around. The workflow was so different that I couldn't figure out how to get even simple results. It finally dawned on me that the RISA workflow was enabling me to miss critical errors on my part.

The issue was RISA had a simple "Click calculate, and I'll do everything" button. This included running the analysis and also checking all of the members. What was missing was the pause necessary to validate if the results you got, were the ones you expected...before designing the members. Robot, and I believe SAP2000, ETABS...etc all include this extra step between running the analysis and checking the members. This gave the engineer a forced pause to verify if the results they just got were garbage before moving on. I think it's far too tempting for most engineers to see passing members and move on...including me. Risa was not only running the FEA calcs, but also assigning unbraced lengths and other properties that drastically affected the viability of the member design and distribution of loads in the structure, all with a single button press. I thought I was pretty knowledgable at the time, but the devil is in the details.

Now please understand, nothing is stopping an engineer using Risa from taking this pause and really checking the results, but I think in my younger days, it was just far to tempting to trust the results...especially when deadlines were pressing.

The other fault I had with Risa was when dealing with plate elements. The generation of thousands of nodes right along side my inputed nodes were unwieldy and really cluttered up my models. I figured that was just the way it was, until I saw the way Robot handled it. Robot generated the FEA model behind the scenes, and kept all those thousands of nodes in their own place. If I adjusted the overall shape of the larger plate element, I would re-mesh in seconds without having to manually delete thousands of nodes or risking nodes being accidentally left in the model. I had complete control over this process. It was much more of a step by step work flow vs "do everything in one shot" workflow. Robot also had a much more unique way of dealing and assigning unbraced lengths. It also let me run the analysis in one step, and then run code checks against a single member if I wanted, instead of trying to design every member each time.

I honestly don't remember if Risa had non-linear features, but I now don't know how I lived without it all those years. Robot has this area nailed.

So the switch for me was a no-brainer. I already owned Robot, as part of my autodesk subscription, and the work flow forced me to take the time to verify my results until it was habit. It gave me much more control over all aspects of the calculations. It forced me to dig in and look under the hood at what this software was really doing, which gave me much more confidence in using tools like this. Robot is still a clunky program that looks and feels like it was designed in the 90's, but its a solid power tool for the structural engineer.

 

[JoshPlumSE]

ErikBjurSE: The other fault I had with Risa was when dealing with plate elements. The generation of thousands of nodes right along side my inputed nodes were unwieldy and really cluttered up my models. I figured that was just the way it was, until I saw the way Robot handled it. Robot generated the FEA model behind the scenes, and kept all those thousands of nodes in their own place. If I adjusted the overall shape of the larger plate element, I would re-mesh in seconds without having to manually delete thousands of nodes or risking nodes being accidentally left in the model.

This is a really good point. I'm not sure if the industry has standardized on a term. But, I tend to call these "super elements" where the meshing is handled internally, meaning that the user doesn't have to worry much about the mesh itself. I know the CSI programs (the company I work for) have "mesh criteria" that can be assigned to various elements to accomplish this as well. I suspect most programs have features like this now.

RISA has this with their "physical members" for frame elements, especially for tapered members. At the time, I believe RISA was probably an industry leader with this feature. But, they failed to follow this up all that quickly.... That being said, I believe they have added that a good amount in recent years. Certainly with their wall elements and any slabs that come over from RISAFloor.... Not sure if you can manually create slabs (or larger solid elements) are treated this way or not.