Changing From I-deas to Catia V5 is worthy????!!!! 1

[AG62]

Hello All?
My company is looking to change from I-deas to Catia V5 (or UG,Pro-e,SW). What are the improvements that Catia v5 (or the other programs ) are going to bring to us as far as design and CNC programing.
I see ,in this forum, a considerable number of complaints about Catia Drafting , is that horrable??!! or is because of people training.
What about the ease of use , installation and the ability to handle large assembly???!!!

 

[Berserk]

EDS selling UGS PLM to private investors is a good thing.
It (UG) helps them break away from EDS which is having some financial problems. UG is a very profitable and I don't think it would disappear anytime soon. Besides, I think Ford is still gonna be using I-deas for a couple more years while it makes it's transition.

 

[AG62]

Yes, I hope this is true, but Ford is comiting to Catia too.
So even for them switching from I-deas to UG is not a good idea.

 

[philipmtc]

There was a comment that I-DEAS could be opened in UG NX2. Is this a direct conversion without loss of part history? Can the NX2 file be returned to I-DEAS, again without loss of history?

 

[Dave K]

"Ford has publicly said that one of the reasons they are commiting to CATIA is they did not feal comfortable with using UG because EDS owns UG, and EDS was owned by GM."

Off the record, I've heard that Ford liked the UG NX product better than Catia, but the political issues with the ties to GM out weighed the technical issues.

 

[MadMatt2]

One thing to remember, Ford is looking at Catia for just their Body group. They have said their Powertrain group will continue to use I-DEAS/UGNX for the forseeable future. Also don't forget Nissan - they have already converted all their TDMs to TeamCenter Engineering (first step in plan to follow the I-DEAS to NX migration path UGS-PLM has laid out).

Also, they have committed to supporting I-DEAS as long as customers are still using it - it's not dying off anytime soon. After I-DEAS12 there won't be enhancements, but they will continue to do bug fixes. Also, they will maintain I-DEAS as OS's are upgraded.

I just got back from PLMWorld. Tons of discussions/seminars on I-DEAS migration to NX. Also live demonstration of IDEAS parts/Assys/Dwgs being migrated to NX. With NX3 they expect I-DEAS customers to start switching NX3, but expect it to be a 1-3 yr process. With NX3 migration, you will get Parts with modifiable History, Assemblies (with configurations), and Drawing associated to the underlying Part/Assembly. Also if ME&S is current, there is little cost to the customer - purchase Oracle, and any difference in ME&S.

Some of their comments:
This was their largest programming effort to date - 100's of man-years.
Migrating data has never before been done in this industry (usually the new product just tells customers of the old product they have to switch) but they are committed to it.

Bottom line - UGS-PLM is making it the logical decision to upgrade to NX. Many more data exchange headaches to do anything else - CatiaV5, ProE, etc.

 

[swhcadguy]

AG62,

From the financial side of things you may want to consider staying with UGS. If your I-DEAS licenses are under current maintenance you can upgrade them to UG NX for significant savings over going out and purchasing CATIA V5, or even outright purchasing UG NX. Contact your I-DEAS/UG NX reseller!

I'm in the middle of securing this path for the company I'm currently working with. Prior to being hired, the company standardized on CATIA V5. They did not do a very good job researching their requirements properly, as most of our current automotive jobs are GM or Ford related. The company has two older I-DEAS 9 licenses, that are not under maintenance, so I've proposed the following, with the help of my UGS reseller. Bring both I-DEAS licenses back under maintenance and convert one of them to UG NX. This can be done cheaper than buying a new license of UG NX and a lot cheaper than buying a license of CATIA V5. This will allow us to cover the major OEMs with all three major CAD packages.

From an administrative standpoint, CATIA V5 is a constant struggle. The designers are always having issues, though it is slowly getting better. I never had any of these types of issues with I-DEAS, which I worked with for five years.

Good luck with your decision!

 

[Delenore]

Hello all

I have been a designer/trainer/mentor/superuser and some admin on UG for almost 8 years and the same on V5 for 2.5 years almost three years. With all the Revisions on V5 that come out every 3 months changes to the system structures and functionality it can be a real mess. The V5 tool is amazingly powerful but with the release of the NX version of the software, V5 is losing its luster. For tooling UG is the best. Components and chassis UG is the best. For surfacing V5 was better but now UG is either even or better, depending on what it is you are doing. Editing parts that are translated that have no parameters is much easier on UG. Do not get me wrong about V5, as stated before if you are starting on a clean slate and using only V5 it is amazing. But that is rarly the case.