Evaluating 3D CAD software - Which one???

[pda76]

The company I presently work for has used proe since about 2002 and dropped support in 07 when the recession hit so we are locked to 6 seats on WF4.

I've been given the task of looking into the current 3D market to determine if we should resume our support and thus upgrading to WF5 (or creo)or to migrate to a new product.

I have narrowed it down to 4
proe
Solidworks
Solid Edge
Inventor

Is anyone out there in the same boat as me? Or have you been there and done it already and can offer some useful advice/opinion?

Thanks for your time.

 

[looslib]

What is the complexity level of the parts and assemblies at your company?
Do you manufacture your product from your CAD models?


Have you considered the training and productivity impact on a conversion.
Have you considered the amount of rework to recreate your existing models/assemblies/drawings into your new CAD system?

You will have to pay back maintenance to reinstate your PTC maintenance, so you haven't 'saved' for these past 4 years. You may be able to negotiate a reduced reinstatement charge. It may be cheaper to buy new licenses and throw the old ones away. Of course, PTC will now count your company as having 12 licenses.

Give us more information on your company and products.


"Wildfires are dangerous, hard to control, and economically catastrophic."

Ben Loosli

 

[pda76]

Looslib,

I would say our max assembly size would be around 500 parts. were not talking automotive here, we produce products like patio doors and sunroofs in marine sector. which involve extruded and pressed profiles and machined parts.

Some of our work is also derived from imported iges surfaces which is then flattened to produce a developed profile (we cant use sheetmetal for this as surfaces to complex)

I would guess 50% made through CAM data - the rest to drawing.

Whatever decision is made, training will have to be provided as not all proe seats are presently in use and this has to change.

There is a little 'resistance' to proe in our dept as most feel its to difficult to use, and most show a preference to solidworks.

my plan is to run pilot projects on each on shortlist to determine ease of use etc.

if you need anymore info, let me know.

Regards

P

 

[JohnRBaker]

Since you mention that you're already looking at Solid Edge it's possible that you've seen the information on this site, but just in case:

http://www.plm.automation.siemens.com/en_us/index.shtml

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Design Solutions
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[looslib]

From your information, drop Inventor. Parasolids will be a better kernel for the type of surface work you are doing. Solid Edge might be stronger for sheet metal types of operations. SolidWorks and Solid Edge both use Parasolids, as does Siemens' main CAD product, NX. If you need tight integration between CAD and CAM, Pro/E and NX will provide that which Solid Edge Inventor and SolidWorks won't. Solid Edge may if you use NX CAM Express.


"Wildfires are dangerous, hard to control, and economically catastrophic."

Ben Loosli

 

[HDS]

If you use lots of configurations and families of parts check those in the new packages. They will be different than Pro/E.
Locale support can be important depending on where you are.

There maybe a 3rd party app for Solidworks to do the developed profiles. Get the sales people to show you what they can do with on of your hard examples. Some folks do that in Rhino and import it back into CAD.

http://www.deelip.com/

looked at SW v SE.

The main thing to remember is the you need the right tool for YOUR job.

Be prepared to dedicate some real time to this. It isn't a quick and easy decision.

 

[Buckshott00]

I would guess that a lot of what you need will depend on how complicated a design/assembly you have. The software has to match your needs. They should fit to you more than you should have to adjust to them.

In my personal experience, I have always had a lot of grief with Siemens products. It's not that they aren't good products it's that SolidEdge never seemed to work correctly, and NX nickeled and dime'd you ever step of the way.

Solidworks is very user friendly and easy to get into; however, it lacks the built in CAM that you may need. You would have to buy another seat of a stand alone CAM, or buy a license from Dassault for one of their partners, ie CAMworks, Solidcam.

Pro/e has a lot of surfacing features that you may or not need, You may be better off focusing on a solid modeling program, or your assemblies might really need the more powerful surface modeling found in Pro/e. If you needs surfaces that is a good place to start.

I pretty typically stay way from AutoDesk just a matter of preference; however, it has come a long way in recent years, and you should examine their capabilities.

 

[KENAT]

Look at this thread and see if it helps. thread724-223361

My personal opinion, moving from one more or less adequate 3D CAD system that all your staff are up to speed on, you have fully implemented, you have common practices for... to another more or less adequate 3D CAD package just because of someones preference is a pain. There better be a really compelling reason to switch, and I mean a decent ROI that captures all the major issues. However, you imply Pro E isn't fully implemented so it may be a different situation for you.

To some extent it's a crap shoot. 12 or so years ago my place picked Solid Edge, after a comparison between it and Works. The deciding factor was that Works kept crashing or something. Little did they know that Works would go on to grab a much larger market share and all it entails. They now want to go to Works because of it's bigger market share & commonality with vendors etc., but we have everything in Edge...

However, there are changes coming in Works related to kernel change etc. that may be problematic, and Edge has just introduced some technology that helps it work with other CAD systems etc. so maybe now isn't the time to pick Works but who knows for sure.

I learnt Pro E & Solid Edge at the same time back in 99, in a company that thought it should more to Pro E from Edge because it was 'more common in the industry' common with customers.... Turned out to be a disaster, one project went several times over budget and last I heard they were sticking to Edge.

Posting guidelines faq731-376

http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?

(probably not aimed specifically at you)
What is Engineering anyway: faq1088-1484​

 

[GregLocock]

Some factors that may get lost in the religious war you are about to join

1) Do you have any suppliers or customers with whom you often exchange model files who have a strong preference ?

2) Can you easily get CAD contractors for a particular package, or will you be training experienced CAD contractors in a new package?

3) In my experience a CAD guy spends 25% of the time doing database stuff these days. How are you going to evaluate that?

Cheers

Greg Locock


New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376

http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?

 

[KENAT]

I'm just surprised a certain Mike hasn't posted to extol the virtues of 'TurboCad'.;-)

Greg makes a real good point. For some reason most folks find it really hard to be impartial about CAD systems - to the point of religious war as he mentions. So doing/getting an objective assessment can be tricky, good luck.

Posting guidelines faq731-376

http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?

(probably not aimed specifically at you)
What is Engineering anyway: faq1088-1484​

 

[HDS]

The religious warfare over CAD comes from people who tie up too much of their personal worth in the idea that they can earn more because they use know a certain piece of software. If that piece of software becomes less valuable then so do they.

 

[cowski]

The religious warfare over CAD comes from people who tie up too much of their personal worth in the idea that they can earn more because they use know a certain piece of software. If that piece of software becomes less valuable then so do they.

A great point, but I don't think it is even that logical. People get invested in all sorts of crazy things (a band, a movie, a game, an OS, a CAD program etc etc) some of which have value associated with them, most do not. Just look at the PC vs Mac 'war' to see an even sillier example. People with no vested interest in MS or Apple become very defensive about the system they know and like.

 

[mcgyvr]

One of the best ways to evaluate a software purchase like this is to get demos of each. Select a few common operations/processes/parts that you currently use and try that in the new software. However before you throw out one program you must also take the time to evaluate if your limited training in a certain program is causing it to take longer or be more work or if it is actually the program that is limited.

 

[shoelace]

When comparing refined products designed to serve the same general purpose - you find that in each product certain features are more optimised at the expense of other features being less optimised. This is how you can compare products to one another. Your preference in product will come down to how much value you place in each feature. Hence, different products may be best for different people.

In the case of solids modelling software, improved learn-ability and userfriendlyness for an individual user will come at the expense of software interoperability and associativity across a larger design group. Fewer mouse clicks to perform a given operations comes at the expense of less direct control of that operation. So again, different packages will be best for different companies. And packages that are best suited to a single user may not be as well suited to a larger company.

 

[MikeHalloran]

Wait; it gets worse.

Because most companies need some interoperability with suppliers and/or customers,

and because CAD vendors don't go out of their way to provide serious interoperability or easy/transparent data exchange,
despite decades of lip service toward that end,

you will probably end up with some number of seats of your chosen package,

>and< one seat of one or more other packages,
>and< people who can drive all/both adequately,

in order to facilitate said interoperability.


Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[JohnRBaker]

Well Mike, I wouldn't go quite that far...

Please check out:

http://www.plm.automation.siemens.com/en_in/products/open/parasolid/xt_pipeline/index.shtml

And for an unbiased 3rd party point of view:

http://www.prospectornc.com/MachiningFromSolidsFeature.htm

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Design Solutions
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[moldcore]

I’m surprised (or should I not be) that no one ever mentions KeyCreator (the new Cadkey) when considering 3D CAD. It’s always been 3D and around since the 80’s. It’s evolved into a great program today, even available in a 64 bit version. It’s a direct modeler with no constraints (history) and does assemblies. We’ve been using it since the late 80’s with a short detour with Solid Edge about 7 years ago. Solid edge was a good program but the new KeyCreator was light years faster in mold design so we went back. It also has some of the best translators available so it can handle our customers files that come to us in many flavors. It’s also considerable lower in price then those mentioned above.

Check it out:

http://www.kubotekusa.com/index.html