The CAD Insider

Surprise but No Surprise: Lynn Allen Pops Up at Dassault Systèmes

 

We should have known. Lynn Allen at SOLIDWORKS World 2019, less than a year after leaving Autodesk.

Lynn Allen, long-reigning Queen of CAD, in her role as Technical Evangelist for Autodesk where she tirelessly supported AutoCAD user groups, was fawned over at Autodesk University, the largest gathering of CAD geeks in the world. Her Tips and Tricks classes had standing room only. But she left Autodesk inexplicably in 2018. She has reemerged on the CAD scene in a similar role for Autodesk archrival Dassault Systèmes.

Full disclosure: Lynn Allen is a friend, once a neighbor in Novato, California, a few exits from Autodesk’s official HQ in San Rafael. I went to her Wine Country wedding.

Why should we be surprised at where Lynn popped up? Lynn was no stranger to the SOLIDWORKS crowd. Lynn was first spotted at SOLIDWORKS World in 2008, then as now, Autodesk’s main rival in the MCAD space acquired by Dassault Systèmes. She was back at SOLIDWORKS World a year ago, not long after leaving Autodesk. In her new role with Dassault Systèmes, owner of SOLIDWORKS, Lynn reminds me of the event’s new name, “3DEXPERIENCE World.” That’s going to take some getting used to.

She will enjoy working with Ken Clayton, SVP Worldwide Sales, she says, and the rest of the SOLIDWORKS gang. She’s still in her first couple weeks in her new position, Global Technical Evangelist, a position created especially for her, more or less what she was doing for Autodesk. While most of the SOLIDWORKS people work out of Waltham, Massachusetts offices, the North American HQ of Dassault Systèmes, Lynn will stay in her Portland, Oregon, home.

Lynn left Autodesk, along with many Autodesk veterans whose careers were cut short, after a change at the top. Out went CEO Carl Bass. Andrew Anagnost won a run-off against Amar Hanspal for the CEO position. Amar went on to start Bright Machines, attracting $179 million in funding and reuniting with Brian Matthews. In what may still be Autodesk's biggest and heartless layoff ever, 13%, or 1,150 people were cut in time for Christmas 2017. Many of Lynn’s friends and associates have turned up at competitive companies. Heidi Hewett to Bricsys, now part of Hexagon. Siemens Software has picked up a few Autodeskers: Noah Cole, Brenda Discher and most recently Grant Rochelle. Also leaving Autodesk and also the CAD industry were Jay Tedeshci, Joseph Wurcher, Justin Hoey and CTO Jeff Kowalski (last spotted at a Bright Machines party) and PR director Clay Helm.

Scenes from the Last World

Dassault Systèmes SOLIDWORKS CEO Gian Paolo Bassi rolls up with an Icon motorized sport wheelchair at SOLIDWORKS World 2019 in Dallas. He said he always wanted to be cowboy. Note the boots.

After a brief intro, Dassault Systèmes CEO Bernard Charles took over the stage at SOLIDWORKS World 2019—the biggest gathering of mechanical designers and engineers in the world all using the world’s No. 1 professional MCAD software—and again explained the 3DEXPERIENCE. He had to. They weren’t getting it.

Charles has patiently been explaining it for years. He tried to inspire people with icebergs being towed across oceans as part of the multi-million dollar “If we…” campaign. Monica Menghini, from London’s renowned Saatchi &Saatchi ad agency, was brought on board to convince users it was all about the experience not the product. An oft-quoted example used was that people went to Starbucks for the experience. That’s nice, the users were thinking, but what does coffee have to do with CAD? The users tuned out. There were sessions to pick and, afterwards, buddies to meet. This was their one chance a year to do so.

For years, Dassault Systèmes tried valiantly to get SOLIDWORKS users to see the bigger picture, offering a chance to think big, collaborate across borders, organize their processes like big enterprise (with PLM), embrace the cloud, etc. It’s been a campaign to get users to abandon their small-business mind set and embrace a bigger vision. Why wouldn’t they want to grow and throw away their little products for the big ones, from making the nuts and bolts and brackets to the whole car or the whole airplane? It must have been maddening how users just would not see the light and chose to stay in the dark, pounding away at designs with primitive tools, when they were being offered sophisticated ones.

Dassault Systèmes has been nice about it. It used a soft-sell approach but gradually took more and more time on the main stage to tell its story. In 2019, it tried even harder. In the first general session at SWW19, the heads of ENOVIA, BIOVIA, SIMULIA, and platform and marketplace, took the stage. When it was over, one user said, “Did they talk about SOLIDWORKS? I don’t think so.”

A Tale of Unrequited Love

In 1997, the French company Dassault Systèmes—best known for CATIA, a mainframe-based, advanced and robust 3D modeling program in use at every big automotive and aerospace company—paid a handsome price ($350 million) for a four-year-old American MCAD company with few customers but a fiercely loyal dealer network. It may have been love at first sight for Charles, smitten with the scrappy, young,quintessentially American company. It took six months to convince founder Jon Hirschtick to sell SOLIDWORKS, Charles said.

For years after the acquisition, SOLIDWORKS managed to operate independently of Dassault Systèmes, as if holding an over-anxious paramour at arm’s length. “We call it two markets; two leaders,” said then SOLIDWORKS CEO John McEleney in 2007.

SOLIDWORKS users who have had their own lane on the Dassault Systèmes highway may now be forced to merge. From numerous conversations with SOLIDWORKS staff and the increasing presence and influence exerted at SOLIDWORKS World over recent years, it is pretty clear they really were on a merge lane—and it’s ending.

A creeping corporate presence, as well as a succession of SOLIDWORKS executives, belies a private impatience while the public and press is served a soft sell consisting of smooth talk and smiles. The users are plied with gifts, like a 3DEXPERIENCE bag, or dinners and parties carefully catered to the audience, like beer and bull riding at Gilley’s. It has done little to win the hearts and minds of users who, curiously enough, have much to criticize SOLIDWORKS about.

It’s a love-hate relationship, said a VAR, when asked why SOLIDWORKS users continue with what alternative vendors—both from Dassault Systèmes and competitors—describe as aging software that crashes often (think of feature trees so heavy they fall down), chains users to their desktops and is based on an ancient file-based structure. To Charles and others, SOLIDWORKS users seem to be stuck in dysfunctional relationship that is frustrating yet understandable from the users’ point of view. Think of long married couples bickering. Despite seeming incompatible, they would rather come home every night rather than risk the unknown or start something new.

Enough Is Enough

At the show, where the world’s elite users gather, it is often their big event of the year where they get to hang out, learn and drink with each other—and totally ignore the people from Dassault Systèmes. Why, it was almost rude, so it was time to make a statement. The big show, which for 21 years had SOLIDWORKS in its name, was to be renamed 3DEXPERIENCE World. “Please pick up your knapsack. They are embroidered with the new name.”

The users, many of whom had their head down trying to decide which of the multiple simultaneous sessions they would attend next, looked up at each other. Had they heard it right? “3DX…What?” Many of them have SOLIDWORKS World bags from previous years. They can recall the first and every one they have been to. The number of bags they own is a source of pride, like Super Bowl rings. Not every player gets to be in the Super Bowl. Wearing the bags to work marks them as made people, the chosen, the elite.

Breaking Up Is Hard to Do

If Hollywood has taught you anything, it’s how to break up. You do it in person. Texting or calling is cowardly. You do it in public so no one makes a scene.The couple’s favorite restaurant is a favorite break up venue. You wait until dinner is over and then said, “Honey, I have something very important to tell you.” You deliver the bad news, say a few consoling words, leave some bills on the table and walk out of the scene. You don’t wait for change. You most certainly don’t blurt out the bad news at the beginning of dinner. Who wants to see someone crying while they eat? That would be super awkward.

Dassault Systèmes, however, follows no Hollywood script. It decided to tell the assembled SOLIDWORKS users that their favorite show had been renamed on day one. The script called for news of the next year’s conference to be delivered on the last day. It was eagerly awaited news marked by a final flurry of Tweets as users shared the news.

The SOLIDWORKS users who have long tolerated Dassault Systèmes taking over their conference and thought they could just ignore them now realize they cannot. Rather than excitedly tweet out, “Look where I’ll be next year,” their concern is now, How am I going to explain this? I had just gotten my boss to get used to signing off on SOLIDWORKS World. The next show doesn’t even have SOLIDWORKS in the name. I don’t even know if it will be about SOLIDWORKS.

Indeed, managers always under budget pressure and likely to look at travel as a discretionary expense and perk are likely to use the name change as an excuse to cut the trip.

“We never thought of that,” said one Dassault Systèmes SOLIDWORKS employee who declined to be named.

Onward and Upward 

Dassault Systèmes hopes the opposite is true and that 3DEXPERIENCE 2020 will attract even more attendees than SOLIDWORKS World.

“We will include more of the Dassault Systèmes portfolio. We hope to get 30,000 attendees,” said a Dassault Systèmes vice president.

SOLIDWORKS 2019 was the biggest to date, claiming 6,000 attendees. Having 30,000 attendees would make 3DEXPERIENCE the No. 1 CAD show, shooting well over Autodesk University, which pulls in 10,000.

Is Dassault Systèmes planning on rolling up the other user shows into the 3DEXPERIENCE? No, the VP said. Other shows, like the 3DEXPERIENCE FORUMS and other annual user shows, will go on as previously planned. 

Eat Your Vegetables

That’s how you play to your audience. John McEleney pulls up on the main stage astride an Orange Country Chopper  SOLIDWORKS World 2005. The custom bike is on display at the lobby of SOLIDWORKS headquarters. (Larger picture courtesy of SOLIDWORKS.)

CAD insiders wax nostalgic for what they consider the good old days when “Jon and John” [that’s Jon Hirschtick and John McEleney] were in the saddle. Literally. “Remember when Johnny Mac rode the Orange County chopper onstage?” They recall in their huddles. That was 2005, a different World altogether. It was all about SOLIDWORKS. It was a place to learn and bond, and, afterwards to play.

“Now, I just get the feeling we are being sold to,” one attendee said.

From the Dassault view of the World, play time is over. It’s time to grow up. Sorry, you don’t get to choose your family. Like family, they don’t expect you to appreciate them now but believe eventually you will thank them.

Onshape Ready to Bring Back the Golden Age of CAD Media Relations

John McEleney, co-founder of Onshape, shown here on a recent visit to Shanghai

John McEleney, co-founder of Onshape, ex-CEO of SolidWorks, is having a busy day. He’s been to the Develop3D conference for most of the day, where Onshape is a Bronze sponsor. He went home to read a story to his daughter. He meets me late in the evening for dinner at a Wellesley restaurant.

He is just getting started. John is planning to do more media outreach, the kind SolidWorks was known for in what may have been the Golden Age of media relations in the CAD industry. It was a time you would get a friendly call from a CEO, walk up and shake hands with John (McEleney) or Jon (Hirschtick) and talk like familiar acquaintances. They'd not only remember you be name, they’d be engaged, listening and actually seemed concerned about your work, your world, what you needed. We felt this way as media but we heard the same from resellers and users.

The media reach is back! "There are how many of you guys that matter? Ten? I'll take 5. Jon will take 5," says McEleney, over a chicken Parmesan. 

John reviews for me the vital info, Onshape’s incredible 3 week release cycle, it’s advantage being database vs. files and drops hints of a big customer they are to announce. He fills me in his background, adventures at Raytheon, where he worked as a mechanical engineer, his time at Computervision, from where originators of SolidWorks (Scott Harris, Dave Corcoran) and PTC (Mike Payne) emerged. I hear of “1503” program (1 to 5 users, 0 to 3 months to close) which he created when he was in charge of the SolidWorks sales team.

CAD insiders remember John drawing of the "mainstream CAD" for us in in the 90s, singlehandedly making “mainstream CAD” a common term. True to form, he returns to pen and paper, to update the concept, but now with a few tidbits not yet public information. I am sworn to not reveal it.

We share the changes is software use, how youth has embraced it, the inertia of a legacy user base, the competition. McEleney, always the gentleman, talks respectfully and without disdain of competition, though he makes Onshape's advantages apparent.

SOLIDWORKS Propping up Dassault Systemes

The $310 million Bernard Charles paid to acquire the American startup SOLIDWORKS in 1999 continues to pay big dividends for the French CAD giant, Dassault Systemes. In the last quarter, the company disclosed that SOLIDWORKS revenue grew 16 percent, making it the top performing brand in DS portfolio (measured in constant currencies). Licenses for SOLIDWORKS grew by double digits in Q3, with over 15,000 new customers so far in 2017. Many new customers are “3D to 3D win,” said Charles, referring to users migrating to SOLIDWORKS from other MCAD products.

Overall revenue for Dassault Systemes declined 7 percent to EUR​€​751 million for the quarter.(Chart from TenLinks.)

SOLIDWORKS has proved to be the best investment for Dassault Systemes, and with SOLIDWORKS 2018, the division continues its strong growth.

Meanwhile, CATIA, Dassault’s flagship enterprise CAD system, suffered a small decline with revenue down 1 percent. The company blames disappointing sales in China. South Korea and India sales were up, for a 6 percent increase in Asia-Pacific for the quarter.

GEOVIA, the division with mining software, was the next cited for highest growth with 12 percent, coming off a “deep and difficult” period in the mining industry. Dassault Systemes bought Gemcon in 2012 for $360 million.

 

Big Aero and Auto

A deal at Boeing was Dassault Systemes’ biggest ever, according to Charles. The company seems to be losing ground in the automotive sector with a couple of big auto account defections—Daimler Mercedes in 2014 and Yamaha earlier this year—but counted among its wins Scania, a maker of heavy trucks and buses, and a subsidiary of Volkswagen Scania had cast a roving eye at PTC’s PLM but ended up staying with ENOVIA. There also have been stumbles at Jaguar Land Rover.

Both Boeing and Scania were previous customers, so Dassault Systemes appears to be locking down big customers with long-term commitments as well as expanding the scope of its product use at these companies.

The company hopes to complete the $400 million Exa acquisition. The fluid simulation company Exa lists a $73 million revenue for 2016.

Too Many Enhancements, Too Little Time: The SOLIDWORKS 2017 Launch

So much to tell. CEO Gian Paulo Bassi introduced SOLIDWORKS 2017 with its over 500 enhancements. Bassi also emphasized how SOLIDWORKS has become an innovation platform.

 

When the most popular mechanical computer-aided design (MCAD) software serves up a new version, it’s a big deal. SOLIDWORKS likes to save up a year’s worth of changes and reveal them all at once. The company invited 150 media and VIP guests to Foxborough, Mass., for a first look at SOLIDWORKS 2017. Two thousand more people would tune into the Internet simulcast. This will start a chain reaction as resellers worldwide hold their own launches for their local customers. They’re just warming up. The big show, SOLIDWORKS World, set for February 2017 in Los Angeles, will continue the pitch while at the same time introducing the 2018 version.

CEO Gian Paolo Bassi was a man in motion. He paced before the launch event, eager to reveal what his team had been up to. He wouldn’t have enough time—it was only a one-day event. This new version has added over 500 “projects,” what the company calls its new features and enhancements.

 

Favorite Child

That’s a lot of improvements. More than one other CAD company executive that has told me that CAD has reached a plateau, that CAD is about as good as it’s going to get, that the party is winding down.

SOLIDWORKS has been busy. I feel bad for the presenters who are going to have to pick their favorite enhancements, or valiantly try to pack a year’s worth of work into a top 10list.

Asked to pick his favorite new feature in the new release during a Q&A, Kishore Boyalakuntla, senior director in charge of product strategy—and chief cheerleader—had to throw up his hands.

“That’s like asking who is your favorite child,” said Boyalakuntla.

I already know that Boyalakuntla’s favorite child is named “Interconnect,” after the 2017 software version’s ability to be able to work alongside various other MCAD applications since it can read their format. You can read about it here.

 

Users Pass Judgment

The product man, Kurt Anliker, was given the unenviable job of talking about his favorite enhancement out of over 500.

 

In the audience were power users. And they were quick to Tweet about what they couldn’t wait to use or are already using (some have been already been beta testing).

Model-based definition(MBD) is now in in eDrawings, which excited Edson Gebo. (Image courtesy of @Edsonius Twitter feed.)

 

Rob Rodriguez, @RobRodriguez, liked 3D Interconnect, though he was disappointed that you have to purchase SOLIDWORKS Premium for CATIA V5 support. (He’s not the first user to wonder why CATIA and SOLIDWORKS aren't always on speaking terms.) Also a hit with Rodriguez: rendering simulation results in PhotoView 360. About magnetic mates, he said, “The more I see them, the more I love them.”The mirror drawing view for automatic opposite hand part drawings also looks attractive. “Oh, I will use it every day,” said Rodriguez.

Daniel Hertzberg, @MegaHertz604, power user and SOLIDWORKS World presenter, led all users in a discussion of modeling enhancements in the new release. Here are just a few highlights:

The three bend corner treatment in sheet metal will be really useful for me, said power user Daniel Hertzberg. (Image courtesy of@MegaHertz604 Twitter feed.)

 

On wrapping sketches onto splined surfaces? “Useful,” said Hertzberg. “Previously, only flat or ‘analytical’ surfaces were supported.”

“Comments now actually work,” added Hertzberg.

“You can open many more file types now in eDrawings, with full support for measuring, moving… and more.”

Render FEA results on the model. (Image courtesy of @MegaHertz604 Twitter feed.)

 

Simulation results can now be viewed in the SOLIDWORKS model. You can even render the results with PhotoView. “I’ll be doing lots of unnecessary simulation studies because of this,” said Hertzberg.

Jeff Mirisola, @JeffMirisola, declared the advanced hole design to be “awesome.”

 

Xometry

A special shout-out went to Xometry, the “manufacturing on-demand platform,” which announced a few months ago that SOLIDWORKS users will be able to get a quote for a manufactured part from within the SOLIDWORKS interface.

A friction less path to manufacturing would certainly be welcomed by CAD users, most of whom consider their carefully designed parts fully defined once they hit the Save button. Having to deal with machines —and machinists—is, well, a bother.

Xometry does both normal machining and 3D printing and on top of that, professes to have a slick interface that passes your part from SOLIDWORKS into Xometry—maybe without ever requiring you to speak to a human.

 

Not Just a Geometry Tool

“We want to be the Uber of geometry,” said Bassi.

Uber, the car service that has revolutionized travel and which attracted hundreds of millions of investment dollars, provides a model of frictionless interaction between buyers and sellers. It relies on cars being available everywhere—similar to the current state of SOLIDWORKS—and connecting them, with the least possible amount of grief and interaction, to the people who need to get somewhere, or, in the case of CAD users, the people who can get their stuff made. It doesn’t hurt that the game-like interface on your smartphone is fun to use.

While SOLIDWORKS continues to improve its product, thereby securing its allegiance with hundreds of thousands of its users, the near universality of the product lays the groundwork for a design-and-make environment.

Make this simple and easy enough, Bassi seems to be saying, and we’ll have what we need for an innovation platform.

An Array of Choices and Products to Enhance Performance and Productivity, Nominated for SOLIDWORKS World 2015 Best of Show

By TenLinks Judge, Deepak Gupta

PHOENIX, AZ (SOLIDWORKS World 2015) —

Hardware
HP: Every year at SOLIDWORKS World, I visit them and they have incredible products to offer for SOLIDWORKS users. Their Z Workstations take performance and productivity to the next level.
Dell: Precision workstations from Dell let you compute faster. Their systems are built with multi-core processors, high-end graphics and many more features to help SOLIDWORKS users with their complex work.
Intel: With Intel processor power, the desktop workstation/mobile workstation attains the capacity SOLIDWORKS users need.
NVIDIA: NVIDIA Quadro professional graphics help boost performance and make for a smoother workflow.
AMD FirePro: With a number of GPU-accelerated features, AMD FirePro professional graphics cards are the right choice for great performance.
DriveWorks: A simple rule-based tool for your design automation needs. With a free DriveWorksXpress included in every seat of SOLIDWORKS, it is easy to start with a small automation project and then grow it into a wider level with their Solo (a 30-day trial is available) and Pro versions.
ATR Soft’s CustomTools: As their tag line says, “Kill your routines before they kill you!” CustomTools helps you save valuable time by automating your day-to-day routine. It makes sure that SOLIDWORKS users are spending time in innovation, not printing files, making reports and other similar activity.
The Steel Detailer: My bad for not exploring this product in earlier at SOLIDWORKS World events. TSD from Quadro Design is a nice tool that automates creation of detailed structural models and fabrication drawings, reducing the time from concept to completion. The tool knows what the shop people require, and drawings are done faster than traditional ways.
PCBWorks: Looking to bridge gaps between your ECAD and MACD data? PCBWorks is the right choice. If you have both ECAD and MACAD teams, then PCBWorks would be a good way for them to collaborate. The UI is simple to use and instant communication/updates can be done while working on the same project.
SolidCam: iMachining technology from SolidCam helps you machine your components 70-80 percent faster. This also extends tool life and lowers cost. I have a friend and SolidCam user who, after seeing a live demonstration of iMachining on a project, opted to go with SolidCAM without a second thought.
Rapid Sheet Metal: A one-stop shop for all your metal prototype requirements that provides quality and timely delivery. Their free SOLIDWORKS add-in, SolidQuote, will give you instant quotes for the sheet metal parts.
LogoPress: A nice tool for die industry. They also offer a free 123GO copy to every registered SOLIDWORKS user having inbuilt smart library. 123GO helps insert fasteners and related holes in SOLIDWORKS assemblies automatically.
Proto Labs: Proto Labs can help you with your plastic part developments. Get the quote with manufacturability analysis after you have uploaded your models to their site. Their online tools also show you where you have issues with your models and will suggest the best way to fix them.
The Foundry/Modo: A cool tool for the professional who wants more realistic models while modeling in SOLIDWORKS. With an interface similar to Photview360, it’s really easy to learn.
Keyshot: Keyshot helps you make amazing renderings and animations with your SOLIDWORKS model.
Stratasys: With their desktop-to-large 3D printers, Stratasys is really helping the world accelerate with 3D printing. And with a variety of colors and materials, the challenges in the product development cycle have been reduced to a great extent.
MCor: A 3D printing technology that uses standard sheets of copy paper as the raw material plus binder and color inks. Their 3D printed hammer was able to knock a nail into wood! Yes, a 3D printed paper hammer
SolidProfessor: SolidProfessor, an online video tutorial-based learning tool, helps users advance their learning on SOLIDWORKS. And with added-in assessments tests, one can check on the learning progress and improve accordingly.
i GET IT: i GET IT is a comprehensive online training tool for designers and engineers. They have more than 230 unique course topics.
ExactFlat: ExactFlat is an essential tool for people working on the textile industry. It cuts down the time-to-market by playing an important role from design to finished product. ExactFlat recently released their cloud-based software, ExactFlat Online, which is available as a free public beta. Register and take advantage of flattening your designs for free on the cloud.
Coworkshop's Curtain e-locker: Curtain e-locker helps secure your SOLIDWORKS files and hence takes care of your intellectual property. Based on the permission set for the user, one may be able to just view the files but can’t print, save or copy to any external sources. I had been looking for a similar tool for one of my customers and was glad to find Curtain e-locker at SOLIDWORKS World 2015.
3DConnexion: 3DConnexion helps to accelerate productivity by offering CadMouse specially designed for the CAD professional. I had a chance to play with the mouse at SOLIDWORKS World 2015 and was amazed with it capabilities.
EpiGrid: EpiGrid can help with your data management, which can then be accessed from anywhere. With the affordable solution, small-to-large companies can leverage their services and avoid delays and implementation cost.
nPower Software: With nPower Software you can make complex surfacing in SOLIDWORKS as if you were playing with clay. It lets you make models you would not be able to make otherwise.

An Engineer Dreams of a SOLIDWORKS-Proto Labs Merger

As an engineer, I can totally specify a part. Concept, shape, material . . . done! I can render in glorious 3D . . . . It almost looks like the real thing. I can tell if it will survive in the field with stress tests, or drop it in an assembly and find interferences or animate it. I have singlehandedly created this part from thin air for someone who didn’t know what they wanted until I made it. I am a god! I am living the dream.

Now, I want the part in my hands. The dream is interrupted. To get the part made, I have to hand my design over, convey the part to mere mortals, in language they understand. Their machines that only they can talk to. I have to wait. And hope they get it right, not butcher it, not change it.

If only I could push a button and get the part!

Push button manufacturing could be the unsung lament of the mechanical design community. But as engineers, we dare not say it, voice it. We are not supposed to believe in magic — that a part can appear from our designs. We defer to our manufacturing counterparts for that. They need to specify the process, pick the right material and place the bits in the machine . . . right?

3D printing promised the dream of push-button manufacturing. We flocked to it, only to discover it usually couldn’t do the job. Materials are limited, plastic is weak, the chemicals are messy, it’s slower than grass growing. And the good 3D printers cost more than cars.

We are desperate. MarkOne stole the show with its composites part printer (see Best of Show). We’d been making composite parts for so long. But here was a chance to push a button to get a composite part — from the computer into my hands. No layups. No messy chemicals. No annoying humans. But Mark One is a one-trick pony. It only makes small carbon fiber parts.

Enter Proto Labs

There is one company with the imagination and purpose to make this push button manufacturing a reality.

Proto Labs, a Minnesota-based firm with multiple locations and thousands of machines (not just 3D printers), says it wants you to push a button and send it 3D part files. You get to select the material, the process, the quantity. The part lands on your desk a few days later. You’ll know upfront what it will cost. You don’t have to deal with anyone. Unless you want to. Proto Labs has manufacturing engineers who can step in to assist. They are like good waiters — invisible, but who pop up when needed.

Proto Labs tries to automate as much of the manufacturing process as it can. Its software will check for typical manufacturing mistakes (thin walls, overdrafts, etc.) and flag your design. You may never have to call on a live manufacturing engineer. As such, it comes closest to putting and manufacturing an engineer’s brain in your computer for a hands-off, rapid part creation — the closest thing to this-is-what-I-want-now-just-make-it push button manufacturing. For all of us Spock-types (RIP, Leonard Nimoy) for whom humans are puzzles, it can be a straight shot, a machine birth without human complications. At least some of the time.

For the design engineer who considers their part totally defined and ready, nothing at this moment would be simpler than sending their 3D part file to Proto Labs. No other company is as far down the road to push button manufacturing.

What about Autodesk and Delcam?

The biggest deal so far in the CAD/CAM world so far has been Autodesk and Delcam. With it came the promise that the worlds of 3D mechanical design would merge with part manufacturing. However, Autodesk remains scattered as to its approach to manufacturing. Delcam continues to exist as a separate manufacturing portfolio, its products operated by those on the manufacturing side, just as before. Though it adds to Autodesk’s top line, Autodesk is making little attempt to automate the manufacturing process from inside Inventor using any its acquired manufacturing software, either Delcam or HSMWorks — to create anything that resembles push button manufacturing. The closest Autodesk comes to push-button manufacturing is its 3D printer, one more in the growing sea of 3D printers available. And as with them all, it is a point solution in the spectrum of manufacturing possibilities.

All major CAD programs are tied up with CAM, somehow. Many are in 3rd party partner programs. Some CAM products are under the roof of CAD companies, yet they continue to be operated as separate camps. Autodesk maintains a third party CAM vendor list, though it has withered after its CAM acquisitions. SOLIDWORKS has its CAM partners, notably MasterCAM, GibbsCAM, CAMWorks, SolidCAM and others. PTC and Siemens also have long-standing, trusted CAM partners.

Despite CAD tie-ins, CAM exists as a specialized discipline. Few design engineers can hope to match knowledge with a manufacturing engineer, or even a machinist. It’s a whole different world, with machine code, speeds and feeds. It’s messy, the cutting fluids, chips are flying . . . . Engineers can scratch the surface of this world, many dabble in it, some even make a hobby of it, but in the end, our day job is at a desk with a workstation with design software.

Let’s Get Together

It’s been a while since we looked at Proto Labs (Get Real - Proto Labs One Off Parts Made with Actual Engineering Materials, Feb 10, 2011).

I am reminded of them at SOLIDWORKS World 2015, where it occurs to me that . . . Proto Labs could be the answer to my dreams! Push button manufacturing comes true!

But for push button manufacturing to happen, there has to be a merger of the companies. Proto Labs was the first SOLIDWORKS manufacturing networks partner (Proto Labs Joins MySolidWorks Manufacturing Network ). (Could this be a dance before that wedding?)

Proto Labs’ functions need to exist in a SOLIDWORKS menu, as SOLIDWORKS commands. SOLIDWORKS is already a common, comfortable interface to more than a million users. It is a trusted design tool. To take a part out of SOLIDWORKS and send it to Proto Labs still seems like throwing it over the wall, with the uncertainty of dealing with a new company, a new process. Getting a new vendor is work. To work inside of SOLIDWORKS, better than one of its Gold Partners, talk in the language of design engineers, not machinists, reduce the number of pop-up warnings one can get in Proto Labs, increase the automations with less back-and-forth . . . . This can only happen if the developers of both companies meet under one roof, with one goal: push button manufacturing from a CAD program.

Buy Proto Labs Already

	Proto Labs	Dassault Systemes
Annual Sales (2014)	$185M	$2.7B
Market Cap	$1.74B	$14.8B
Employees	749	10,764

source: Forbes 

An acquisition by Dassault Systemes (SOLIDWORKS’ parent company) seems doable. Let’s say Proto Labs could be had for 3x revenue,* a very general rule of thumb for acquisition, its price would be $555M. DS is used to deals this size, having just paid $750M earlier this year for Accelrys, maker of molecular modeling software. It bought RTT, maker of visualization software at the end of 2013, which had about the same number of employees as does Proto Labs. It paid $350M for SOLIDWORKS in 1997, which judging from more recent acquisitions and SOLIDWORKS ongoing success, seems to have quite a bargain and its best deal ever.

Happy Ending?

The dream now has a happy ending. Both sides of the equation are solved. I imagine tens of millions of part orders raining down on Proto Labs from all of the SOLIDWORKS users, who now can go all the way to a physical part, rather than be interrupted by having to deal with a manufacturing process, which only slows them down. It gets better, if you can imagine. Their creativity unleashed, the engineers only too happy to be masters of their own destiny, create more, better designs, more often. Proto Labs can’t keep up and has to increase their capacity, buying more manufacturing machines, more 3D printers to meet demand as it is now handling the production from the vast majority of engineers out there. As Proto Labs has to ship physical parts to customers, it must locate its facilities to avoid borders, taxes and tariffs and reduce shipping costs. Engineers find that their designs are actually being manufactured in their own countries. Manufacturing returns to its own shores, rather than it being sent to cheap labor markets in Asia. It is the manufacturing of today, fast turnaround, one-offs and custom products, small production runs — but all done on a ridiculously large scale, as everyone becomes a manufacturer as manufacturing is suddenly accessible to all who have access to design software.

Will The Marriage Take Place?

Acquisitions are difficult to predict with any certainty. Applying a logic and reason or exposing a crying need is insufficient to close a deal. Companies do secret dances and engage in back room discussions which are never revealed. Often, a deal in the works can be derailed due to “cultural incompatibility,” greed (acquired company execs want to get too rich in the transaction), or some business issue. Even the most obvious matches-made-in-heaven just never happen and we never know why.

Software vendors, even big ones, are in the habit of saying “they are not in the hardware business” and Proto Labs is essentially a hardware company. As if saying that you would not want them to try to make a product they had no experience making, all the time planning acquisitions that lands them smack in an industry they know nothing about. (PTC buys Arbortext, Dassault buys Accelrys, Autodesk buys Socialcam, to name just a few). CAD companies refer to their products as “solutions.” But a real solution solves a problem or fills a need. The picture on the screen, no matter how pretty, is only a means to an end. An engineer needs a part he can hold and use. Design and manufacturing are interlinked to the point that neither can function without the other, yet both exist as pieces of the solution. A true CAD visionary with means needs to lead the way for Proto Labs acquisition — and practically everyone who uses CAD, now or in the future, will thank him.

----

*Should the CAD CEOs panic at the thought of being left behind, a bidding war for Proto Labs could increase the price well over 3x.

Flatter Files, CETOL, Smap3D, HandyScan3D Nominated for SOLIDWORKS 2015 Best of Show

by TenLinks Judge, Alin Vargatu

Flatter Files

PHOENIX, AZ (SOLIDWORKS World 2015) — Great cloud-based application offering controlled access of your company files for suppliers, customers and even other departments in your company (CNC, purchasing, planning) that need to see or use your models and drawings. Flatter Files is amazingly simple and can work in conjunction with or without a PDM product. 

The files can be released to Flatter Files automatically or manually as part of a PDM workflow. Once they are in the cloud, you can provide various levels of access to other parties: viewing only or even downloading files in SOLIDWORKS, DWG, DXF, PDF, STEP, IGES, STL, Parasolid and other formats, including custom properties from the SOLIDWORKS files. Moreover, Flatter Files remembers that is connected to the SOLIDWORKS data, so if a revision is performed on the original SOLIDWORKS file, the corresponding entity on Flatter Files is updated to the same revision level, while still storing the previous revisions in the database. Even more impressive, it is capable of analyzing and highlighting the differences between one revision and the next when viewing drawings in PDF format!

The data can be accessed on any platform: Windows, Mac, iOS, Android. Basically you just need a browser to access the client. The search is Google-like fast, regardless of the size of the database. The pricing is based on the number of SOLIDWORKS licenses a company owns.

This solution is perfect for all teams, big or small, with or without a PDM system, that need to collaborate with suppliers, customers and other stakeholders while maintaining full control of the type of data that would be made available to third parties.

 

CETOL 6σ Tolerance Analysis Software by Sigmetrix

Makes SOLIDWORKS' own TolAnalyst look like an Xpress add-in. Compared to TolAnalyst, CETOL is really a 3Dimensional tolerance analysis software that can be used on complex assemblies.

Things that impressed me:

• The software pulls the necessary geometry features directly from the CAD system model, so moving to the analysis phase is quick and painless.
• There is an Analyser tool that allows you to interrogate the results in order to quickly identify the top contributors to quality and, as a result, make tolerance adjustments to understand the impact on assembly quality.
• Embedded sensitivity animation, both statistical and worst-case, shows you how a single variable is impacted throughout the tolerance range on both assembly position and measurements.
• You can instantly see and adjust measurements and tolerances by using key contributor analysis.

 

Smap3D: Intelligent 2D/3D Plant and Piping Design

This is like SOLIDWORKS Electrical 2D and 3D for piping: Smap3D P&ID, Smap3D Piping and Smap3D Isometric. If you like SOLIDWORKS Electrical, imagine having the same power for quickly designing 2D piping schematics and parametrically generating 3D models. Really impressive tool.

 

 

 

HandyScan3D from Adaptive Corporation

They had an optical scanner and a laser one, both handheld. The most impressive feature of these scanners was the self-positioning and the speed with which it acquired the data.

 

For more information

TenLinks Best of Show

About Alin Vargatu

Alin is an Elite AE and an avid contributor to the SolidWorks Community. He has presented at SolidWorks Worlds, Technical Summits, and SWUG meetings, while being very active on the SolidWorks Forum. More...

ATRSoft, Wacom Tablets, I GET IT, Sigmetrix, Mcor Nominated for SOLIDWORKS Best of Show

by TenLinks Judge, Jim Lucas

PHOENIX, AZ (SOLIDWORKS World 2015) — SOLIDWORKS veteran and TenLinks judge, Jim Lucas,  has nominated the following products for the SOLIDWORKS World 2015 Best of Show.  The following is a list along with his justification.

ATR Soft: Why have I missed these guys in past shows? Their custom tools for generating Excel reports and batch printing could save me 7+ hours per week. Very reasonably priced. It will pay for itself in my sanity.
Wacom Tablets. Perfect timing . . . a super large 27” screen coupled with an alternate magnetic hot-key keyboard remote makes SOLIDWORKS' new Industrial Design package even more attractive.
I GET IT. Web-based educational courses meant for working professionals and students. Most cost-effective and time-efficient application in the market.
Sigmetrix. Incredible tolerance analysis add-in to SOLIDWORKS. Very intuitive and simple to use. Gives very helpful information to help know where to tighten or loosen tolerances.
Mcor Technologies. Faster machine with stronger colors, as well as the ability to make flexible parts, adding substantial excitement to an already innovative machine.

For more information

TenLinks Best of Show coverage

About Jim Lucas

Jim has been in product development for more than 20 years. He is a Senior Design Engineer for WET, a company that makes cool high-end fountains around the world. He also teaches, consults and dabbles in a variety of industries including medical, toys and sporting goods. More...

New SOLIDWORKS CEO Introduces New Industrial Design Software

PHOENIX, AZ (SOLIDWORKS World 2015) — SOLIDWORKS' annual user meeting in January was Gian Paolo Bassi's first public appearance as CEO. The former CTO replaces Bertrand Sicot as the head of SOLIDWORKS and now gives the most popular MCAD program an Italian accent. The largely American users (5,500 of them assemble in Phoenix in the wake of the Super Bowl) have had a few years to get used to accents — first French and now Italian — since their beloved American leaders left the stage. They might still be missing founder Jon Hirschtick and chief dynamo John McEleney (both engineers, both American), but they don’t say it. I doubt if it's any big deal. The users are here to learn how to use SOLIDWORKS products better — and drink beer.

CEO	Length in office
Jon McEleney	11 yrs 7 months
Jeff Ray	3 yrs 6 months
Bertrand Sicot	4 yrs 1 month

What does the latest CEO bring to an office where the doors now revolve about every presidential election? After operation-centric Jeff Ray, and charming and ever-positive salesman Bertrand Sicot, Dassault's force-to-be-reckoned-with and chief visionary, Bernard Charlès, now sees fit to install a developer. And each successor seems to more embrace Dassault Systèmes.

The hugely likable, ever-approachable Gian Paolo impresses once again with his secure grasp of SOLIDWORKS, its products and its strategy. Deference to Dassault’s leader, Bernard Charlès, is provided. Gian Paolo does not even step on the stage until the avuncular Bernard has stamped his presence and allowed his almost-too-creative marketer, Monica Menghini, to again attempt to prove the importance of "experience" over product to an audience that, for the most part, continues to love the product.

Gian Paolo  is just the guy to bring the SOLIDWORKS user to the new kernel, into the cloud, onto mobile devices — or whatever else the chief visionary desires. Gone is any real opposition to defend the userbase, to keep the status quo.

Enter SOLIDWORKS Industrial Design

The latest announcement, Industrial Design not only doesn't save in SOLIDWORKS format, it doesn't save on your computer. The program and the data are held by Dassault.

Can the users in the audience relate to Industrial Design? Gian Paolo tells us that Industrial Design must be considered as part of a mechanical designer's purview. Shape sells. The old software (SOLIDWORKS desktop) didn't do sexy shapes. Good luck making anything curvy, unless you were a top-notch surface guy, unless you poured in blood and sweat.

Sure enough, top-notch surface guys are presented to us who swear by the new product. At the booth where Industrial Design is being shown, a beleaguered product manager, two months on the job, is trying to explain how Industrial Design will help them make the shapes they always wanted to make, that they should be making. A fair number come by, attracted by the leadup from the main stage. One is a from IntegrityWare, maker of Power Surfacing (Best of Show 2014), which has made a business adding subD modeling to SOLIDWORKS, which Industrial Design now offers. Will Industrial Design eat her lunch? I ask. She says not. Industrial Design does not even save to a SOLIDWORKS file. The models are not entirely compatible with SOLIDWORKS, she says. They have to undergo a translation or conversion.

Another user wonders about the cost, which the product manager does not know. It had only just been announced in a press Q&A. When they found out it costs $190/month, they all pause to reflect. Someone figured out that the total is $2,280 a year, every year. Their SOLIDWORKS software costs $4,000, but that is for ever.

It seems like Industrial Design will be a tough sell to the existing users, if this crowd at SOLIDWORKS is any indication. But then, what would you expect? Users, especially power users, tend to favor their current tools in which they have gained expertise. What remains to be seen is how well Industrial Design will be embraced by new users, or users of rival software, or if it will encourage those who still haven’t left the 2D world to use what, at first glance, appears to be much easier to use than SOLIDWORKS for surfaces.

It's probably too early to expect Industrial Designer to as capable as SOLIDWORKS with a surfacing add-on but it may easily justify its higher annual cost if it is able to make the creation of complex surfaces not so complex for the typical design engineer, rather than have to rely on a surfacing expert or hand off a design to an industrial engineer.