SW NOT PROVEN AT ALL - LARGE ASSYS

[Em1]

I would have thought this information would be easy to find, but it has been quite the ordeal. It relates to the handling of large assys in SW. We have a large assembly line with roughly 100 000 parts, about 60 000 non-fasteners and roughly 30 000 unique components. We are seriously considering SW, but have seen no proof that SW can handle assemblies of this size. I understand proper assy practices need to be used and very powerful computers are required, but I have never heard of anything close to even 30 000 components.

SW has shown close to 10 000 part assemblies in demos and claim they can do more, but there is a lot of talk about headaches people are having with large assys in SW on forums such as these. So what I’m asking is this:

1) Can you refer me to any companies that are designing very large assys with SW?
2) Is the SW engine inherently limited in handling large assys by design (i.e. will the program grind to a halt at a certain point, regardless of hardware)?
3) Isn’t managing the simplified versions of parts and sub-assys difficult and doesn’t it introduce additional potential for errors?

We are considering Catia as well, but are worried it is overkill for the machine design we’re doing. I’m very interested in hearing your experiences.

Thanks,


Mark.

 

[hisrik]

afb66t9,

I have gone through the article. Thanks to your statement "Not to sure if you can believe their promotional advertising".

I am afraid ...whatever they claim about Solidworks is just not right! And whatever they claim Pro-E can do is probably right but they had to claim a few false untrue things and "lower" Solidworks in order to prove Pro-E is on the top!! Just one example---

When the article talks about BOM from SW, they say writing down with your hand is faster. In SW it doesnt take more than 3 seconds for SW to come up with a BOM. Well if you have the right templates, less than 3 seconds! How faster else would anybody want the software to work?

When you go in detail there are a lot of things where Pro-E fails and SW gains...but obviously we would not want to get into negative campaigning..

Mechanical Engineer

 

[Em1]

Thanks everyone for the input. Lots of helpful information. So what I gather is that SW cannot handle the large assemblies in excess of roughly 20K parts. I was hoping to hear something different because SW is very easy to use and our design team is only 4 seats and Catia seems to be overkill in its complexity.

UG looks really good and might actually be an option. It looks as easy to use as SW and has some good large assy capabilities.

Thanks again everyone, I guess SW isn't cut out for the big stuff, despite what the resellers say.

 

[ctopher]

It can do it, depending on your hardware. Either way you go, good luck to you.

Chris
Sr. Mechanical Designer, CAD
SolidWorks 05 SP1.1 / PDMWorks 05
ctopher's home site

 

[wes616]

My company is testdriving solidworks right now, and we work on VERY large assemblies... and yes, I can tell you, that on the very good hardware, solidworks still lags when you are working on asbys. with many complex componets (and surfaces), if you can hang in there, I have heard that 2006, is supposed to fix some of the problems we are having, however, if what you are doing has simple geometry, get yourself a very good workstation, and get solidworks.

However, with CATIA, you'll run into it's own unique problems (as will you with any package). The benefit of getting SW, is that you can spend all that extra $$ getting better hardware.

That is, from what I can tell, the biggest help with lg. asmblys. with any program.

Thanks,
WC

 

[Em1]

wes616,

Our assys are VERY large and do have mostly simple prismatic components. Curiously, how big are the ones you are building?

Mark.