The CAD Insider

Kenesto Nominated for Best of Solid Edge University

ATLANTA, GA (Solid Edge University 2014) - Kenesto was at the Solid Edge annual user conference to show its cloud-based project and workflow management application. It attracted the attention of TenLinks show judge, Jeffrey Heimgartner, whose company had recently abandoned their company’s FTP site due to a myriad of problems, most having to do with what Internet browser clients were using, and was seeking a cloud-based solution. They had started using Dropbox, which allows online document sharing, and promised a much more viable solution. But here was Kenesto, which Steve Bodnar, Sr VP at Kenesto, refers to as a "Dropbox on steroids for engineers.”

 

"Kenesto is an affordable, accessible, robust, flexible and secure cloud-based engineering project collaboration platform," adds Jeffrey. "You can manage and share documents, as well as assign, manage & track tasks, & much more. And, best of all, it’s designed for ease-of-use & collaboration also works with non-Kenesto users."

Check them out at www.kenesto.com

TenLinks Judge

Jeffrey Heimgartner manages the Advanced Technical Services of CapStone’s CAD division. Jeffrey’s main responsibilities include managing the CAD team, training, scheduling and coordinating projects, drafting and design, assisting the CapStone project managers as well as sales, marketing and all IT functions. More...

Zuken - E3.series Nominated for Best of Solid Edge University 2014

ATLANTA, GA (Solid Edge University 2014) - Zuken's E3.series bridges the gap between the electrical engineer and the mechanical designer.  Most companies use the following work process  - the EE designs the boards, exports the board data out for the mechanical designer/engineer.  The nechanical person then has to design the enclosures and the wire harnesses.  Zuken's E3 offering imports the EE's data, creates the raw data needed to develop the wire harnesses and then imports into SOLIDWORKS or Solid Edge.  Then SOLIDWORKS/Solid Edge uses the imported data to translate over to the routing and harness module to build up the correct harness cable. Right now, I translate data over directly from the EE into SolidWorks, but I can see this tool as really shortening my design cycle as I wouldn't have to trouble-shoot connections and input/outputs as much. One thing I would like to have is the ability for E3 software to be able to calculate proper wire lengths based on the 3D geometry, but I was told that is not available. The other downside is it is pretty pricey with one seat at $18K.

For more information see http://www.zuken.com/en/products/electrical-wire-harness-design/e3-series

TenLinks Judge

Elise Moss has been teaching Autodesk and SolidWorks software for the past decade. She is an Autodesk Certified Instructor and teaches at an Autodesk Authorized Training Center in San Francisco. She speaks regularly at SolidWorks World and leads the Oakland SolidWorks user group. Elise has a mechanical engineering degree. More...

Everybody Wants Hardi at the Party

ATLANTA, GA (Solid Edge University 2014) - Hardi Meybaum, CEO of GrabCAD, takes the stage at the Solid Edge annual conference to announce that he will be licensing Parasolid for use with his Workbench. It has nothing to do with Solid Edge, though Hardi ingratiates himself with the Siemens staff and Solid Edge users when he reveals Solid Edge was his first CAD tool when he was a mechanical engineer in Estonia.

Photo from Giacom article.
Hardi Maybaum announces GrabCAD will be using Parasolid at Solid Edge University 2014

Since Hardi arrived in America, with the proverbial shirt on his back and a few dollars (his own story), he has become the golden boy of the CAD world and his presence, endorsement or partnership is much sought after. Carl Bass, CEO of Autodesk, no stranger to deal making, took the extraordinary step to video their GrabCAD partnership last November. In a industry of aging practitioners (I include myself) looking for the next wave of more youthful customers, a blond and boyish success story (GrabCAD is billed as the largest community of engineers with over a million subscribers), Hardi is almost too good to be true.

Having Hardi announced licensing the Parasolid geometry kernel is enough to start a storm of speculation by CAD insiders, no doubt including all of GrabCAD's previously announced CAD partners. This leads to GrabCAD issuing a public denial of any such intention. Left on the website, however, is Hardi's bio which states "GrabCAD aiming to be the biggest software Company in the Manufacturing industry."

Best of Show

At this years Solid Edge University, TenLinks itself shamelessly connects to GrabCAD by nominating it for a Best of Show. TenLinks judge Elise Moss, recognizes GrabCAD Workbench as a valuable collaboration tool for users. "GrabCAD continues to improve and I am eager to see what their new BOM configuration tool will do when it is launched in Q3 of this year.  GrabCAD is quickly demonstrating that it is the up-and-comer tool for most CAD users."

TenLinks Judge

Elise Moss has been teaching Autodesk and SolidWorks software for the past decade. She is an Autodesk Certified Instructor and teaches at an Autodesk Authorized Training Center in San Francisco. She speaks regularly at SolidWorks World and leads the Oakland SolidWorks user group. Elise has a mechanical engineering degree. More...

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*Crunchbase, funding from venerable Boston-area VCs and investors, some of whom have SOLIDWORKS ties.

Create Parts Using Spreadsheet with Solid Edge Design Configurator

ATLANTA, GA (Solid Edge University 2014) - Hiroshi Takaki, president of EDA, a Solid Edge developer, was on hand to show the Edge Design Configurator, which uses an Excel spreadsheet as a front end to create and manage configurations in Solid Edge.

EDC is a rules-based application but unlike the other better known DriveWorks and Rulestream, the use of a spreadsheet front end -- and playing well with Solid Edge -- set it apart. Most configurators have you jump right into equations and programming, which means having to learn syntax and language. With EDC, the equations are in the spreadsheets. The customer can create the spreadsheets, but EDA, based in Bellingham, Washington, will do that as a service so a company can get up and running quickly. Mr Takaki shows me one project from a large manufacturing company he has created for $15K for one of their product lines. Clearly, the customer was banking on an ROI that, with a parts configurator, can be rapid. Imagine changing a few cells in a spreadsheet and out comes a part. "No need to learn Solid Edge," says Mr Takaki, who says he was able to do the project in one month what would might have taken the company 18 months with no guarantee of success.

Says TenLinks judge, Elise Moss: "Design Configurator for Solid Edge is a great tool. I have had several clients who wanted something like this- a web-based tool, so customers could create a design of their choosing, build the parts list, get the quote, and then order. It looked like a nice clean interface and worth the investment."

EDA will generate a spreadsheet with parameters (example: height, thickness, etc.) plus embedded rules, thereby capturing the "design knowledge" of a part. A custom menu includes actions such as a creating a script that Solid Edge will read to actually create the part.

EDA also works with Solid Edge and AutoCAD.

If you have never used a configurator, try EDA's live configurator at http://www.edainc.net/ . It will design a simple enclosure and email you a parts file so you open in your Solid Edge, SOLIDWORKS or AutoCAD.

Solid Edge University Judges

Roopinder Tara, TenLinks' founder and CEO, has spent over 28 years in the CAD, CAM and CAE business, including roles as CAD manager, senior engineer, manager of a CAD division, editor in chief of CAD magazine, conference chair, professor of engineering and CAD. He has a masters in engineering and is a registered professional engineer. More...

Elise Moss has been teaching Autodesk and SolidWorks software for the past decade. She is an Autodesk Certified Instructor and teaches at an Autodesk Authorized Training Center in San Francisco. She speaks regularly at SolidWorks World and leads the Oakland SolidWorks user group. Elise has a mechanical engineering degree. More...

Related articles

EnvisionTEC Nominated for Best of Show at Solid Edge University

Solid Edge Looking Like a Big CAD Company in Atlanta

EnvisionTEC Nominated for Best of Show at Solid Edge University

ATLANTA, GA (Solid Edge University 2014) - EnvisionTEC - a German 3D printer company is focused on precision. Indeed their first models were for very small parts, like replacement teeth. It is $10,000. They are now gradually introducing ever larger 3D printers, while maintaining the high resolution during printing.

(picture from EnvisionTEC blog)

For more information: see http://envisiontec.com/

TenLinks Judge

Ralph Grabowski, TenLinks' senior editor, is one of the leading CAD journalists and authors, with over a 100 books and many hundreds of articles. His upFront.eZine may be the industry's longest running newsletter. Ralph holds a civil engineering degree. More...

Solid Edge Looking Like a Big CAD Company in Atlanta

ATLANTA, GA (Solid Edge University 2014) -Solid Edge is clearly trying to look like a big CAD company at its 3rd straight Solid Edge University, its annual user meeting and conference which this takes place over 3 full days in Atlanta.

Solid Edge University packs the room. Solid Edge looking every bit a big CAD company.

The event borrows its name from Autodesk University, the mother of all CAD events, where 10,000 users and 200 exhibitors are the norm. Solid Edge University had a few less of each: a little over 400 attendees and may be a dozen exhibitors. A hundred of the attendees were Siemens employees (Siemens owns Solid Edge) and another 50 or so may have been from 3rd party vendors.

It's not as if Solid Edge didn't try. Many Solid Edge employees were tasked with cajoling users from their workstations and into Atlanta, but in the end, the city proved to be not near enough to so many users, says one employee. Last year's venue in Cincinnati, though a smaller city, attracted a few more, quite possibly due to its proximity to manufacturing.

Still, Solid Edge University was a million dollar event that can scale up to a bigger audience (wherever the next one might be), with a big stage, inspirational speakers, interesting classes, a special event (you can't go wrong with a brewery tour) -- and plenty of staff to attend to every need of the media.

Did we miss something? Karsten Newbury, Sr VP and GM at Siemens, reveals 500,000 seats of Solid Edge have been sold.

According to Siemens, the user base exists for larger Solid Edge Universities. We heard there are 500,000 Solid Edge licenses sold, a number that seemed to immediately send the analysts into a huddle. Did we miss something here? The last we heard, numbers of seats of Solid Edge were low enough that we could ignore them. But half a million suddenly puts them in the same ball park as market leader SOLIDWORKS.

This year there were also more press, analysts and blogger. There was even a blogger event (though both Ralph Grabowski and I arrived too late to attend).

Go Karsten

Though relatively small compared to more established CAD user events, the fact that Solid Edge University even exists is testament to the will of GM and Senior VP, Karsten Newbury. Now in his 6th year in charge of Solid Edge, Karsten has been able to create a separate community for his users, balancing the tight control exerted by parent company Siemens with a need to establish a separate identity for a more populist CAD product. For example, changing a font on a product page on the website can be like "moving heaven and earth," says one Solid Edge employee.

Yet, Karsten has been successful in many ways. For example, Solid Edge presenters on stage wore jeans -- in sharp contrast to black suits commonly found at Siemens events.